but nothing special, then transferred to USC, where he
blossomed. In 1966 the Braves gave him a $51,500 con-
tract, but commissioner William Eckert nullified the deal
on a technicality: College players weren’t eligible to sign
once their seasons had started. (The Trojans had played
two exhibition games.) Eckert announced a lottery for
Seaver. Any team willing to meet the $51,500 bonus
price could enter. Only three other teams did: the Phil-
lies, Indians and Mets.
On April 3, 1966, Eckert pulled the Mets’ name out of a
hat. Losers of no fewer t han 109 games in each of t heir four
years of existence, the Mets finally won something. They
literally hit the lottery.
A year later Seaver was in the big leagues. He won 16
games and the Rookie of the Year award, then another 16
in 1968, when ninth-place New York had a very modest
73–89 record—the best in club history.
That offseason Seaver went back to USC to complete his
deg ree in public relat ions. Mets GM Johnny Mur phy sig ned
him for $40,000, making him the highest-paid player on
the team, and told other clubs that Seaver and lefthander
Koosman were “the untouchables.”
On March 18, 1969, Seaver told reporters, “I might be a
supreme optimist, but I think we have a good chance to be
in the World Series.”
By mid-June the Mets actually had a winning record(29–25) but trailed manager Leo Durocher’s Cubs by 8^1 / 2
games. “We’ve got the best pitching in the majors,” Seaver
said the day before a start at Dodger Stadium. “I think our
pitching will hold up better than Durocher’s. And it gets
hot in Chicago in the daytime in July and August.”
Seaver beat Don Sutton the next night 3–1. The Mets
would go 71–37 from that game on. They won in such
improbable ways, they embarrassed magicians. They
took both ends of a dou-
bleheader 1–0, with each
run driven in by a pitch-
er. They struck out 19
times and made four er-
rors and won. They won
when Hodges put the
hit-and-run on with the
bases loaded; the run-
ner at third, Cleon Jones,
sprinted so hard that
the batter, Jerry Grote,
had to check his swing
for fear of maiming his
teammate. He hit a bloop
over the head of a first
baseman for a three-run
double. Of course.
Three years earlier
Time asked in a famous cover headline, Is God Dead? By
October, Seaver had an answer.
“God is a Met,” he said. “I heard that somewhere. Now
I believe it. Don’t you believe it? God is alive and living in
New York, and I know who’s paying his rent.”Don’t let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief
shining moment, that was known as Camelot.
—Lyrics by ALAN JAY LERNERO
NE WEEK after the assassination of John F. Kennedy,
his widow, Jackie, told Life that at bedtime she often
would play the Broadway recording of Camelot on an old
Victrola. The song he loved best, she said, was the last one
on the record. Those lyrics and the couple came to define
that small window in history when hope abounded.
Six years later Jackie, dressed in a “white sweater and
brown miniskirt” (news reports in those days customar-
ily described a woman’s clothing); her second husband,
Aristotle Onassis; and her children, John and Caroline,
watched the Mets host their first World Series game. Other
celebrities in attendance at Shea Stadium included Pearl
Bailey, Jerry Lewis, Ed Sullivan, Mayor John Lindsay and,
yes, Nancy Seaver.
Tom and Nancy created a baseball Camelot. They were
the couple atop the wedding cake: handsome, fashionable,STAR ATTRACTIONS
With a third-straight
All-Star appearance
in 1969, Tom (near left,
with Koosman and
Ted Williams) was on his
way to superstardom;
he and Nancy created a
baseball Camelot.HERB SCHARFMANatop the wedding cake: handsome, fashionable,
ericans torn by the turbulence a safe harbor.