THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM by Steven Travers Page B
Authors: Steven Travers
Tags: Baseball
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The music of the era was Pat Boone, not Nirvana. It was the
age of innocence, the last vestiges of a by-gone era before drugs,
the anti-war protests of the 1960s, pornography, and the
bone-chilling fear of child molestation.
Tom made fast friends with a neighbor boy
named Russ Scheidt. They played baseball together. In 1953, with
the Korean War coming to an end, eight-year old Tom Seaver showed
up for little league try-outs. The coach, a high school teacher
named Hal Bicknell, noticed that he was the smallest boy and told
him he needed to be at least nine. He ran home bawling into the
arms of his mother, but resolved to come back the next year. When
the time finally came, he made the North Rotary team of the Fresno
Spartan League.
Tom was immediately installed as a pitcher,
the most important position on the field. One day an adult rooting
for the opposing team shouted a stream of insults at young Tom, who
cried but kept on pitching.
“He had this tremendous desire to succeed,
to win,” recalled Bicknell. He “didn’t complain, didn’t quit, just
poured it right in there.”
Charles Sr. went to the games but was never
a “little league parent,” pushing his kids to be something they did
not want to be. He encouraged his son as he did all his children,
but always stressed education above everything else. Charles was a
perfectionist and instilled that in young Tom, but the desire
extended beyond baseball to all things he endeavored in.
Tom achieved the pinnacle of his little
league world, batting .543 and throwing a perfect game. Getting
back to that level of perfection would drive his pitching career
well into the big leagues. Tom’s mother read him a children’s book
called The Little Engine That Could .
“The lesson got through to me,” he said. “I
grew to share my mother’s optimism, her feeling that everything
would work out, that any goal could be achieved.”
For some reason he could not master golf as
he did baseball. Angry and frustrated, his mother told him she
would not play with him as long as he threw his clubs after bad
shots, but he did follow Charles Sr. on the course, learning the
art of quiet concentration.
“I’ve got the ability of self-control and
discipline on the mound, and I certainly got that from my dad,” he
said.
Fresno in the 1950s and 1960s may well have
been the sports capital of America. It was a competitive
environment, producing young kids who went on to great success on
the diamond. Jim Maloney came out of Fresno to become one of the
hardest-throwing strikeout pitchers in baseball, the ace of the
Cincinnati Reds. Dick Ellsworth was another hard-throwing chucker
who went to the Mets. The 1959 Fresno State Bulldogs made it to the
College World Series.
The town did not merely produce baseball
stars. Tom Flores was a quarterback hero who would star for the
Oakland Raiders, later leading them to two Super Bowl titles as
their coach. Daryle Lamonica followed Flores. After Notre Dame he
became a two-time American Football League Most Valuable Player,
quarterbacking the Raiders into the 1968 Super Bowl.
Little league ends at age 12. When the boys
turn 13, they move on to Babe Ruth League play, which means making
the enormous leap from small-field dimensions to a regular diamond;
pitcher’s mound 60 feet, six inches from home plate, the bases 90
feet apart. It is the end of many a “career.” It almost was the end
for Tom Seaver.
He had a friend named Dick Selma. He and
Selma were rivals throughout little league, competing for star
status, their teams for supremacy. It was an even rivalry until
junior high school. Selma continued to grow. As he entered Fresno
High School he was reaching six feet in height with a muscular
build. Tom was still 5-6 and 140 pounds as a high school sophomore.
On top of all else, Tom was by virtue of being born in November
younger than most of his classmates, some of whom were born in
January and therefore were almost a year older at a time
age of innocence, the last vestiges of a by-gone era before drugs,
the anti-war protests of the 1960s, pornography, and the
bone-chilling fear of child molestation.
Tom made fast friends with a neighbor boy
named Russ Scheidt. They played baseball together. In 1953, with
the Korean War coming to an end, eight-year old Tom Seaver showed
up for little league try-outs. The coach, a high school teacher
named Hal Bicknell, noticed that he was the smallest boy and told
him he needed to be at least nine. He ran home bawling into the
arms of his mother, but resolved to come back the next year. When
the time finally came, he made the North Rotary team of the Fresno
Spartan League.
Tom was immediately installed as a pitcher,
the most important position on the field. One day an adult rooting
for the opposing team shouted a stream of insults at young Tom, who
cried but kept on pitching.
“He had this tremendous desire to succeed,
to win,” recalled Bicknell. He “didn’t complain, didn’t quit, just
poured it right in there.”
Charles Sr. went to the games but was never
a “little league parent,” pushing his kids to be something they did
not want to be. He encouraged his son as he did all his children,
but always stressed education above everything else. Charles was a
perfectionist and instilled that in young Tom, but the desire
extended beyond baseball to all things he endeavored in.
Tom achieved the pinnacle of his little
league world, batting .543 and throwing a perfect game. Getting
back to that level of perfection would drive his pitching career
well into the big leagues. Tom’s mother read him a children’s book
called The Little Engine That Could .
“The lesson got through to me,” he said. “I
grew to share my mother’s optimism, her feeling that everything
would work out, that any goal could be achieved.”
For some reason he could not master golf as
he did baseball. Angry and frustrated, his mother told him she
would not play with him as long as he threw his clubs after bad
shots, but he did follow Charles Sr. on the course, learning the
art of quiet concentration.
“I’ve got the ability of self-control and
discipline on the mound, and I certainly got that from my dad,” he
said.
Fresno in the 1950s and 1960s may well have
been the sports capital of America. It was a competitive
environment, producing young kids who went on to great success on
the diamond. Jim Maloney came out of Fresno to become one of the
hardest-throwing strikeout pitchers in baseball, the ace of the
Cincinnati Reds. Dick Ellsworth was another hard-throwing chucker
who went to the Mets. The 1959 Fresno State Bulldogs made it to the
College World Series.
The town did not merely produce baseball
stars. Tom Flores was a quarterback hero who would star for the
Oakland Raiders, later leading them to two Super Bowl titles as
their coach. Daryle Lamonica followed Flores. After Notre Dame he
became a two-time American Football League Most Valuable Player,
quarterbacking the Raiders into the 1968 Super Bowl.
Little league ends at age 12. When the boys
turn 13, they move on to Babe Ruth League play, which means making
the enormous leap from small-field dimensions to a regular diamond;
pitcher’s mound 60 feet, six inches from home plate, the bases 90
feet apart. It is the end of many a “career.” It almost was the end
for Tom Seaver.
He had a friend named Dick Selma. He and
Selma were rivals throughout little league, competing for star
status, their teams for supremacy. It was an even rivalry until
junior high school. Selma continued to grow. As he entered Fresno
High School he was reaching six feet in height with a muscular
build. Tom was still 5-6 and 140 pounds as a high school sophomore.
On top of all else, Tom was by virtue of being born in November
younger than most of his classmates, some of whom were born in
January and therefore were almost a year older at a time
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