David Rubin - On This Day, 43 Years Later, My Heart Still Breaks

“I learned to let my talent dictate what I was as a pitcher on any given day. I adjusted to its limits. I couldn’t do more than I was physically or mentally capable of. If I threw harder than I could, the ball went slower than normally. I couldn’t force things, mentally or physically. If I couldn’t fabricate conclusions in my mind about how to pitch to a batter, I didn’t.”

– Tom Seaver, as told to Pat Jordan in Tom Seaver And Me

June 15^th, 1977 was the day my childhood changed forever. I was almost 13, living in Long Island but born in Queens, where my heart stood from the very first game I had watched on TV in 1967 with my grandpa. Not the entire borough, but a small patch of land in the midst of Flushing where wearing the orange and blue colors was the only “gang” I ever joined called home. The infamous Shea Stadium, home of the New York Mets since 1964, the year I was born, and while some called it a cesspool, to me it was the greatest patch of concrete in the entire world. 

What held it together? It wasn’t that poured concrete, or the metal beams, or the rivets, or rebar; it was the shared love of the man we called the “Franchise” – one George Thomas Seaver, or as we knew and loved him, “Tom.” 

In order to discuss that day, an infamous day in Mets lore for all the wrong reasons, we will first discuss a few things; my many connections to this beloved sports icon; some examples of my voluminous Seaver collection; and last, and not least, a brief review of the best book about GTS that has ever been released, Pat Jordan’s recent “Tom Seaver and Me” – out now and available wherever books are sold.

You never know when one of the best days of your life will happen; if you’re lucky, you remember it well; if you’re REALLY lucky, you get to share it with those you love the most. On my favorite day, in the summer of 1972 a few weeks after my 8th birthday, a confluence of things assembled to create the first, best day of my life – a Mets – and Seaver - victory at Shea, great Chinese Food at Lum’s, an armful of post-birthday Mets souvenirs (many of which I still have), AND meeting 3 of my favorite Mets and their wives at our favorite restaurant with my parents and baby brother. If 8-year-old me could choreograph a better day, I am not sure how it could have played out.

My dad told me, about 2 weeks before that game that he had figured out when the next time GTS would be starting at Shea, something that you could actually do in those days, for the most part. He had purchased 4 great seats a few rows behind the Mets dugout, and for the first time to that date, my little brother – all of 4-years-of-age – was going to have his own seat so that we didn’t have to share one! I was counting the days until this game, It was on August 17th, versus the Atlanta Braves and Henry Aaron, Tom Seaver vs Ron Reed. 

I bundled up all of my Mets and Braves baseball cards, and would show my family each player’s card when it was their turn at-bat (I didn’t realize at the time that I would not have every player on either team’s roster, but it was something that an 8-year-old fanatic would do!) I was counting the days and was more excited about this game then I was about going back to school, THAT’S for sure.

The day of the game, all I wanted to do was play baseball in our yard, but it was the middle of the summer, after all, and my mom asked me to give my dad a break that morning – as if going to a game that day wasn’t enough! In a nutshell, a pitching duel was enjoyed as our beloved Mets won, 2-1. Aaron only pinch-hit that day, and walked, but it was so much fun seeing him in person for just the second time. 

Even back then, I always preferred a pitching duel to an offensive barrage, and we were not disappointed as Seaver went 8 great innings, giving way to the one-and-only Tug McGraw to close out the ninth. Reed was equally great, giving up all of 2 runs in a complete game loss, something super rare in these days of 5-man rotations and 7+ relievers per team.

The game, and the souvenirs, was only part one; part two was going out to eat in our favorite restaurant, Lum’s Chinese restaurant on Northern Blvd, also in Flushing. Even then, my favorite food was Chinese cuisine, and that, like my Met fandom, has not changed on bit! We were enjoying our meal, always, and my mom let me bring my Scorecard into the restaurant with me (because wearing my Met batting helmet was not enough for me!) 

About three-quarters through our meal, after reliving every at-bat through the wonders of scoring, who walks into the restaurant?? Mr Bud Harrelson and his wife, Mr Jerry Koosman and his wife, and, best of all, Tom & Nancy Seaver!!!! You could have knocked me over with a feather! Bud saw my helmet and waved while there party was being seated and I was convinced my dad had set this whole thing up! Of course, it was mere coincidence, and in the future we ran into many other Mets players and their wives over the years of eating there, but nothing could match THIS day. 

I begged my dad to let me go over to their table, but of course he told me that they worked very hard that day and we needed to respect their privacy while they were eating. Undeterred, I could not take my eyes off of these legends, these stars, these players whom I idolized before I knew what the word actually meant.

And then it happened- Buddy and I locked eyes, and I held up my program for him to see, excitedly and ecstatic. He motioned me to come over to their table, and I begged my dad, who of course said yes, but cautioned me not to run nor be disrespectful. I hurriedly walked over, and asked, politely, if Mr Harrelson would sign my program? He tousled my hair and of course said yes, and when he was done, Koos motioned me over, and did the same. 

Seaver was engaged in conversation while this was happening, with Nancy and Mrs Harrelson, and Buddy had to excuse himself and ask my idol to sign and acknowledge my being there. He grabbed my scorecard, signed it and asked me if I was at tonight’s game? I told him we had been, and he asked me what the best part of the game was? I told him the fact that he struck out 6 batters that night, and he said something to the point of “and without my best stuff.” 

I later asked my dad what that had meant, hence the quote from Jordan’s book to start this post off. Seaver couldn’t have been nicer, and he too tousled my hair and asked me what position I played. I told him second base, and he asked me why I wasn’t a pitcher? I told him that I was too small, and he said that he was once too small, too, and that as I got bigger, I should watch his pitching motion and learn to repeat it. Again, not something I really understood at that time, but something which I learned later on that was one of the secrets of his amazing success – that great, repeatable motion that resulted in dirty knees and a very low trajectory to the catcher’s mitt.

Sadly, I never became a pitcher, nor did I have the kind of growth-spurt that GTS had between high school and college, but I did become a catcher and was proud as my defense got better, dreaming of a day when my idol would take the mound and I would pair with him, at last. Again, something that never even came close to happening, but a kid could certainly dream!

Fast forward through the years, and I not only did I meet Tom a number more times, at Shea, and at autograph shows, but I also learned about my “Six Degrees of Separation” from my idol as well; a childhood friend’s dad was Steve Jacobson, writer for Newsday, and author of my then-favorite book “Baseball is My Life” about the Franchise! 

I not only bought two copies of that book, both of which I still have, one signed by each author, but I also still have the poster that was advertised in the “Weekly Reader” alongside the book. After all, there’s a reason why the term “fan” is short for “fanatic!”

Moving forward, amongst many other connections (family friends who worked for the team and knew GTS, etc) I ended up working in the mid-2000’s with a great guy, Steve, also from Queens. Turns out, not only was he a Mets fan, but his family and his Uncle’s family lived minutes from Shea – and who was his Uncle’s first tenant in their attached apartment? Mr and Mrs Seaver!!!! Tom drove Steve and his cousin to school numerous times, and they had lunch together a few times and often threw a baseball together. In fact, up until a few years ago, while Steve’s aunt was still alive, Nancy sent their family a card every Christmas without fail. As my dad would say, a family of “Mensch’s”. That they were, and that they have remained.

Over the years, I went to over 25 games that Seaver started, none more sad than, when, on August 21^st, 1977, my family again went to good ole Shea, to see our favorite player, but this time, he was wearing a Reds uniform, something unthinkable a mere 67 days prior. After being awakened by my dad to hear the horrible news on this day, some 43 years prior, there was NO way that we weren’t going to be at this game, and there was NO way that we’d root against our beloved boys from Flushing. This would be one of the few times over the years that I ever rooted against my team, and all of these instances came when Seaver took the mound against us. After all, that trade, as we all know now, was the end of an impossible situation that was put into motion by the heinous sportswriter who won’t be named, but whose first name certainly was a true statement about what he was! He drove this legend out of town, over a contract squabble where once again the players’ were in the right, only to see a few years later this same hypocrite leave his long-time home at the Daily News for a higher paying role at the rival New York Post. It was such a shock but it was the second time that one of my favorite players was traded, following Julius “Dr J” Erving’s sale to the 76ers by my beloved Nets. After Erving’s sale, I believed it was merely an attempt by the Nets to be able to afford entrance into the NBA, something that I never saw repeating itself in NY, let alone to my other favorite player of all time! And while Seaver wasn’t sold, we certainly did not get relative value in return (even though Doug Flynn was one of my all-time favorite Mets). I couldn’t understand it then, and 43 years later I’ve never quite accepted the fact that Seaver didn’t only wear the orange and blue in his career.

I won’t get into Frank Cashen’s leaving Seaver unprotected after re-acquiring him, or the fact that the team never tried to bring him onboard as part of the front office or management staff. For some great inside info on these circumstances, you’ll need to read Jordan’s excellent book, something I’ll get to in a moment.


I've kept so many pieces of Seaver memorabilia over the years, and substantially added to the collection over the years. I've over 50 different signatures, multiple special edition items, game-used items (a few) and some very sentimental pieces, but perhaps the most interesting piece I own is a blown up photo of Andy Warhol's Seaver painting. Why is it so interesting you may ask? Well, first of all, there were never lithos made of this particular painting, at least that I know of. Second, when I presented it to Seaver to sign, somewhere around 1989, he recoiled at the site of it and asked me angrily "where did you get that?" I had no idea why he was so upset, until he explained to me that one of the originals (I believe Warhol had painted 4 of them) had been stolen and he was understandably excited to see whether this had come from that missing painting. I assured him that my dad took a great photo of the traveling display from 1988 and had it blown up for me to frame. Relieved, he signed it and before I could thank him for our meeting 17 years prior, the show agents hurried me along. Now it's framed in my man-cave, alongside some other treasures, a few of which are displayed here.

Next year, and every year while I am still alive, when June 15th comes, I will celebrate Seaver's career, remember him vividly, and continue to take that walk down memory lane, because it's the one road that never disappoints. If there was a 20 hour-long tribute video to GTS, you can bet that I'd watch it over and over again. And rather than continue to be angry on this day, every year, I'd rather use it as a reminder to celebrate the best pitcher I or anyone of my generation ever had the chance to watch in person or on television - and the site of ole 41 dropping and driving is something that I'll just never get tired of...

To that end, last night, when I was editing this post, I re-watched Edward Burn’s fantastic documentary on Seaver from 2019, entitled simply “Seaver” – and having watched it over 30 times, I find that I’m still enthralled by watching that drop-and-drive motion, the reason why my dad used to call Seaver “as finely tuned as the best Swiss-watch” – and the reason why, to this day, I still prefer a pitching duel to anything else. 

I was blessed to watch arguably (not to me) the greatest pitcher in history so often, and I can still close my eyes and imagine him besting one Steve Carlton on Opening Day, beating the Astros in the middle of summer, or beating his former team that hot day in August. It’s the motion, it’s the precision, it’s the effort, ESPECIALLY when he didn’t have his best stuff, but most of all it was Seaver’s love for the game, his love for taking that mound, that always reverberates the most in my memories. 

So thank you to my late father for bringing me to so many games started by GTS, thank you to GTS himself for giving up so many great memories, and thank you to his family, Nancy, Sarah, Anne & company, for taking such great care of this legend, who you shared with us for so long, and to whom were the only thing more important than that mound, more important than the best pitch, a fastball, more important than the best “count”, oh – and – one, more important than his beloved grapes. I’ll be grateful for the rest of my life – and until baseball comes back again, I’ll be re-watching some games from 1969 and 1973 to keep these wonderful memories alive and active in my mind. Because legends truly never die…

TOM SEAVER AND ME – by Pat Jordan – A Brief Review

Suffice it to say, I have just about every book that has ever been written about Tom Seaver, “by” Tom Seaver, or involving Seaver, including most magazines where he was the cover story. Sadly, most of the books written about our hero have been lacking too many things to list here, but you would think that someone, somehow, would have written the definitive biography of this wildly popular baseball legend. And yet, they’ve mostly been disappointing at best, abysmal at worse. While not a biography in any form of the word, Jordan’s book offers more true insight into this man simply by recalling details of their many encounters over the years, their unconventional friendship, and the insights gleaned by simply being a proverbial fly on the wall while Jordan recounts their many conversations and visits. In essence, simply sharing these interactions offered WAY more insight into the consciousness of this man than any attempt at a biography ever has before.

Jordan shares insights on things challenging and commonplace, many never shared before, but most importantly offers a portrait more real, more interesting, more poignant than anyone’s delivered to date. It shouldn’t surprise anyone, as his story from a few years ago for the now defunct website, “Sports on Earth” was one of the best articles on GTS in years, if not ever. Expanding not only that visit, but a friendship of over 50 years, Jordan, author of a number of books about his own, less-than-legendary career in baseball, sheds new life on Seaver’s current existence (made private by his family’s correct decision to remove him from the public eye due to a worsening case of Dementia). He’s a wordsmith, in a way that would make Hemmingway proud, and watching this friendship evolve, devolve, evolve yet again, and everything in-between, make for a book that you’ll be hard-pressed to put down, even in the middle of the night when your body is begging you to lie down. It’s that good, and although short, at 177 pages of large print, it’s worth twice the price as a fitting coda to the life of a true legend.

Thank you, Pat Jordan, for being so great at what you do, even if you still think your fastball was faster than Seaver’s…

METS THOUGHTS & NOTES

~As this is a baseball site and not a space for politics I will not go into anything of that nature here, except to say that the draft itself, and the coverage at this site, was one of the few things that has been able to take my mind off of the many things that are crazy in all of our lives right now. Major props to Brodie and team for the great picks, and thank you once more to baseball for getting us through a few days, better than we were before...

~That being said, I want to get the owners and players in a room, no fancy catering, not walking out because of something someone says, just these folk, a clean restroom, burgers and fries and HASHING OUT AN ACCEPTABLE AGREEMENT SO BASEBALL WILL BE PLAYED, SAFELY, AND SOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We've all lived through way too many work stoppages in this sport, and the timing could NOT be worse!!! Grow up, make this work, and then shut the hell up and play the game!!!

~One great thought from Jordan's book, that my conversation with Harry Minor had alluded to -  when the Mets took Catcher Steve Chilcott instead of Reggie Jackson in the draft, Whitey Herzog did so because he looked like a franchise-making catcher at the time. No one knows how someone will turn out, especially after a major injury, and it's like fishing - there's a reason why they don't call it "catching" out on the ocean - and there's a reason why that position is one of the key foundational pieces on the field. So let's stop throwing that up,as if no other team made a misstep in the draft...and while we're at it, can we FINALLY put the Scott Kazmir trade talk away for good, once and for all????

~I have heard that there are a few additional names in the game to purchase the team - we know that the Wilpon's have to make the sale as quickly as possible so as not to borrow more money if they cannot make the credit payments that are due soon, and they stand to lose a ton of money that they count on in the form of game-day revenue. Let's hope that the wrong decision is not made, because it's been 40 years since they came onto the scene, and I'd hate to think that we would be saddled with the wrong ownership for ANY length of time, let alone that long. At my age, these are the things that keep you up at night, alongside the much weightier (and more important) issues of the day...

~I just ordered through some friends all of the 2020 Topps baseball cards of the Mets that have been released so far this year (about 5 different issues). Of course, once again, there are a number of Seaver cards, and I wonder if these cards will end up being an all-time anomaly IF the game is never played this season...

~Someone asked me last year why I was so excited to see Jacob deGrom sign what would hopefully be the contract that kept him in a Mets uniform for his entire career, when as a pitcher he'd most likely be worn down by the time the contract ran its course. My response comes in the form of 4 names; Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Jon Matlack and Dwight Gooden. All four are of the greatest handful to ever call Queens home; all four should have spent their entire careers only in the orange and blue; and all four were traded or declared free agency when the team should have rewarded them by making them Mets' for life. In my office, I have signed Nolan Ryan and Seaver jerseys already hanging, a game-worn World Series jersey of Jacob's and a signed uni from Doc, waiting to be hung. I was thinking, it would be REALLY nice for at least ONE of them to play his whole career for us - and Jacob has a chance to not only do that but perhaps to have the second best career AS A MET in team history (in the pitching category). No, he didn't have the stuff of Doc, but we all know how sadly his career turned out, and Jacob has a chance to surpass anyone since Seaver. Here's hoping that he'll get the chance to do that this season...

~Praying everyone remains safe and healthy, keep wearing masks and social distancing even as things open up, and don't forget to do something kind for some reason, for no other reason than it's a great thing to do...

NOW GET BASEBALL GAMES PLAYED, ALREADY!!!!!