Word: seavers
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Being the Mets, they naturally acquired the first of their new child wonders almost by accident. Seaver compiled an impressive 10-2 record his sophomore year at the University of Southern California, and signed a $50,000 contract with the Atlanta Braves. Major league officials ruled the contract void, and after that, the Mets, along with the Philadelphia Phillies and Cleveland Indians, made offers to Seaver. The league decreed that the contest should be settled by lot, and the scrap of paper drawn out of a hat read "Mets...
...Until Seaver started mowing down collegiate batsmen at U.S.C., he had appeared to be anything but a prize major league prospect?even in his own eyes. "I frankly thought I was too small," says Seaver, who now stands 6 ft. 1 in. and weighs a respectable 200 Ibs. "I had decided to become a dentist." He was still fairly small when he graduated from high school, he recalled recently, "but there was one advantage in it. I couldn't throw hard enough to rely on my fastball, so I concentrated on sliders and curves...
...months of lifting crates for the Bonner Packing Co. of Fresno, Calif., of which his father is vice president, and another six months of active duty in the Marine Reserves put 4 in. and 35 Ibs. on Seaver's frame. "People didn't even recognize me," he says. Nor did they recognize his pitching style. The extra heft had added a searing fastball to his precocious collection of "junk" pitches...
After a year of seasoning with the Jacksonville Mets, Seaver was summoned to New York in 1967. He became an overnight sensation. He pitched 18 complete games, and won 16 while chalking up 170 strikeouts. Of his 13-losses, seven were by one run. He was named the National League's Rookie of the Year...
...that, Seaver was very nearly overshadowed last year by Jerry Koosman, a gangling (6 ft. 3 in., 205 Ibs.), grinning pitcher who learned to throw the ball in the family barn, has a brother named Orville and says things like "I haven't had this much fun since my third-grade picnic." If Seaver's acquisition was fortuitous, Koosman's was truly preposterous. Who but the Mets would act on a tip from one of their stadium ushers? The usher's son, who caught for an Army nine at Fort Bliss, Texas, wondered whether the Mets might be interested...