THE 1969 MIRACLE METS: THE IMPROBABLE STORY OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST UNDERDOG TEAM (39 page)

But an interesting dynamic was already in play by
1969. It really had started two years earlier and would continue to
be a dominant, eventually divisive aspect of the Mets. Resentment
would rear its ugly had, and not just from players but from
writers, too.

Tom Seaver did not cheat on his wife.

This really does not sound like much, but left as an
open statement the unsaid words, which every married Met and his
wife thought of if not verbalized, was that it meant the other guys
did. Now, nobody really, other than Tom Seaver, truly, actually
knows that Tom Seaver did not cheat on his wife, Nancy. But to the
extent that such a thing is known, that was, to quote Donald
Rumsfeld, “a known known.” It was his reputation, then and now.
Every team he played on, every teammate; the word was that Seaver
did not cheat.

Did all his teammates cheat? Of course not. But the
fact that pro athletes cheat on their wives is such a given and
always has been that it is simply accepted common knowledge that
those who do not are exceptions to the rule. It is the price paid
by the wife of a pro athlete; in accepting the money, the fame, the
travel and the excitement of the life, you accepted the fooling
around. Most just held to the rule that it be confined to the road
during the season. No girlfriends of wives. Not in their hometown.
Keep it away from the kids. Boys will be boys.

The ballplayers often tended to marry high school
sweethearts. The conservative, family-support nature of teenage
sports meant that the guys more often came from a tight-knit
background and married “a girl just like the one who married dear
old dad.” But there were exceptions.

Namath did a motorcycle movie and a PR photo showed
him playing “tonsil hockey” with sexpot Ann-Margret. Namath was
shirtless, Ann in a bikini. The photo made it look like they were
both naked as jaybirds, her ample breasts squeezed against Joe’s
hairy chest, and God knows what was going on down below.

The single guys, some divorced men, plenty of
married fellows, went after the “groupies,” the “Baseball Annies”
who could be found in every nightclub and hotel bar, outside the
stadium, down by the dugout. They “dressed for
sex
cess,” in
tight mini-skirts, big hair, low cut tops, bare midriffs, high
heels, “red lips and painted
finger
tips.” It was “Girls,
Girls, Girls” world and these guys were welcome to it. That was the
style. Sexy hippie chicks. Horny airline stews, whose attire in
those days pretty much said “coffee, tea or me.”

But the sexy girls were no less likely to be
faithful to some ball player they were having a fling with than
vice versa. Some of these groupies became wives. Stories and rumors
about how Jim met Jane were rampant. A girl would be passed around,
sometimes by several guys in the same night in the same room. This
was and always has been the scene. Two weeks later she is
exclusive?

One of baseball’s all-time greatest superstars
married a hot bartender at a Montreal strip club. He called up
various superstars around the National League, telling them he was
planning to marry this girl, and, uh, well, if you don’t mind, say
as a favor to me, dude,
please stop sleeping with her.

This was followed by a predictable flurry of cell
phone calls from one National League city to another, with
exclamations that sounded pretty much like, “He said
what!?”
Just as predictably, every fan in every park knew what was going on
and razzed the player unmercifully until the marriage ended in a
brutal, tabloid-headline divorce.

According to Maury Allen, one Yankee wife was a
certified nymphomaniac who slept with Giants and Dodgers players
when her husband was on the road. A trade to a one-team town did
not solve the dilemma. Local guys, the postman, teammates; the girl
had to have it and the marriage broke up.

There is no evidence that Tom Seaver was ever a
monk. Dick Selma said he dated the best-looking girls at Fresno
High. Use your imagination beyond that. After he met Nancy he dated
beautiful sorority girls at USC. But Seaver knew this world, the
world of infidelity. Not up close, but he was savvy enough to know
the things that matter - family, children, trust, faith – get eaten
alive by cheating hearts.

In 1969 they began to start calling him
“perfect.”

“I’m not perfect, because I drink beer and I swear,”
he said. “There’s only one perfect man and he lived 2,000 years
ago.” He was not a guy who went around asking guys if he could talk
to them about Jesus Christ, but he wore a St. Christopher’s medal
and seemed to walk the walk.

While still in college, Seaver decided he wanted to
marry Nancy. He was apparently able to discontinue whatever it was
he might have done with those USC coeds, which as Matt Leinart
demonstrated years later could be a free-for-all. As a minor
leaguer at Jacksonville, a town with Southern belles, honky tonks
and strip clubs, he sat in his hotel room, lonely. Nancy came out
and they were married in a small ceremony. He could not wait out
the season.

So by 1969 the word was out. Seaver did not cheat.
There was never any indication that Seaver called guys out who did.
Years later in Cincinnati he was good friends with Johnny Bench, a
notorious chick hound. One of Bench’s favorite ways to relax his
ace pitcher with the bases loaded would be to saunter out to the
mound and asked Tom to “check out the blonde behind home
plate.”

“How do you think I got into this trouble in the
first place?” Seaver laughingly replied before invariably striking
out the batter to end the threat.

Seaver, whose politics were probably moderately
Republican, maybe libertarian, was a “live and let live” type. He
enjoyed a good joke, laughed like a hyena, and probably enjoyed
hearing ribald stories of teammate escapades.

But there was still a tension. A look, a remark,
shared knowledge.
He knows what I did. He can hold that over me
now.

When a man sins and another man knows of it, this
creates an interesting dynamic. The sinner can be shamed; “go forth
and sin no more.” But that is not human nature. When New York City
policeman Frank Serpico refused payoffs, he did not judge his
fellow cops or rat them out. They stabbed him in the back anyway.
They wanted him to be as corrupt as they were.

Over the years, Seaver had a reputation that was
truly unusual. There were others who were faithful, some were
gung-ho Christians, but Seaver was said to be so admired, so
influential, such a leader by example on and off the field, that
other guys would not cheat!
A goody-goody might be made fun
of. Seaver was no goody-goody. He was a leader, a Marine. He threw
heat, made Ron Santo eat dirt and traded aspirin tablets at the
noggin with Gibby.

So there were divisions forming. There were those
who admired the Seaver credo, following it even when it was hard.
Then there were those who
wanted the man to cheat on Nancy!
Go ahead, everyone does it, man. She’ll never know. Seaver never
said stuff like this, but he knew God would know.

The Mets had attractive wives and girlfriends. Just
being in New York, this upped the “attractiveness factor” a few
notches, like a team in L.A. or Texas. Gary Gentry’s wife was
similar to Nancy Seaver; pretty, blonde and poised. Her husband was
said to be “the next” Seaver. Nancy Seaver was a doll. A classic
California blonde, she dressed like a fashion model; tam ‘o’
shanters, shawls, pretty dresses. An Irish lass.

Seaver and Nancy were “Ken and Barbie dolls.” They
loved Seaver, they admired him, and man, he was “our savior,” but
there were a few mutterings here and there.

Jesus, are you kidding me?

Who do they think they are?

Cleon Jones was the anti-Seaver. The fact that Cleon
Jones and Tom Seaver could be teammates, colleagues . . .
friends? . . .
well, that was the story of America, too. A
few years later, Jones was arrested in a van parked outside Shea
Stadium for possession of drugs. The newspaper reported, “Jones was
found nude, in the company of a young lady; not his wife.” He and
Seaver eventually had a falling out, on account of Jonesie’s
indiscretions. Seaver only cared when he thought it started to hurt
the ballclub . . . and his win-loss record!

Jones needed to be motivated. Hodges knew that.
Cleon came from Mobile, and
everybody
moves at a different
pace down yonder. He was six feet tall, a muscular 195 pounds, and
as black as they come. He grew up in a racially hostile
environment. The year he made his big league debut, during that
long hot summer Birmingham police chief Bull Connor sicced dogs and
ordered rubber truncheons on blacks marching for their rights. He
tried college at one of the traditional black universities but
never made it through. Had he not been a baseball player he would
have been subject to the vagaries of black life in the “Redneck
Riviera,” which was what Alabama quarterback Ken Stabler called the
Gulf Coast of Alabama. Jones was a rarity who threw left but batted
right-handed. As a youth in Mobile, he played sandlot ball with a
right field fence so close that balls over it counted as outs, so
he switched from left- to right-handed. Cleon grew up “hard”
according to Ron Swoboda. He and Tommie Agee played baseball and
football on the same high school team.

He led the International League in errors in 1965,
and on this Mets’ team defense was imperative. But he could wake up
at midnight on Christmas eve swatting a line drive. He had almost
hit .300 in 1968, a year in which almost
nobody
sniffed that
magic number. He got hot in 1969 and was embarking on stardom.

His teammate, Tommie Agee, was a more sensitive
soul. The American League Rookie of the Year in 1966, he was a
grizzled veteran by 1969 because he had experienced so many
ups-and-downs. The Mets got him for Brooklyn-born Tommie Davis,
thought to be over the hill with injuries (he still had a few hits
left in him with Baltimore down the road).

Agee was very athletic. He and Jones were subject to
the age old stereotype, which Swoboda freely admitted, that as
black athletes they possessed natural skills and, by implication,
did not need to put in the hours, the sweat and the effort of a
Seaver, a Buddy Harrelson.

“Our coach’s name was Curtis Horton,” Agee recalled.
“I was a year ahead of Cleon in school.”

Told that Cleon was five days older, Agee responded,
“He’s older, but I’m smarter”

Lou Brock said Jerry Grote was the toughest catcher
he ever ran up against. Brock squared off for years against Johnny
Bench. ‘Nuf sed. He was a Texas boy. In another time and place
Grote; Jones and Agee; Ed Charles; they would not have been able to
play together. He blamed others for his poor performances in the
beginning, especially an anemic bat, but learned to protect the
plate. He called a great game and the pitchers swore by him, even
if they did not really dig the guy.

Bench would embarrass Jack Billingham by catching
one of his “fast” balls
barehanded
. Grote would fire the
ball back to Jim McAndrew harder than McAndrew pitched it; right at
the belt buckle, literally “buckling” him. He tried it with
Koosman, who told him if he ever did it again he would “kill” him.
He never did it to Seaver. Ex-catcher Wes Westrum tried to take
Jerry under his wing.

“If Grote ever learns to control himself, he might
become the best catcher in the game,” he said.

Like Randy Hundley of the Cubs, Grote was something
of an ironman.

Buddy Harrelson had speed and agility. He was not as
great in the field as Luis Aparicio or Davey Concepcion. The Cal
Ripken’s, Nomar Garciaparra’s, Derek Jeter’s and Alex Rodriguezes’s
were not on the scene yet. He was what a shortstop looks like.
After hitting .108 in a 19-game 1965 call-up, Buddy became a
creditable switch-hitter. He stole home twice in 1966 and became a
Gold Glove winner. He was consistent and a fan favorite.

Born in Niles, California on
June 6, 1944
, a
day in which America was pre-occupied with events on the French
coastline, he grew up in Hayward. Today, Hayward is part of the
urban sprawl of Oakland and the gritty East Bay, but back then it
was the country. There were no A’s games to go to when he was
growing up. He was 5-10 1/2, maybe, and weighed all of 155 pounds
soaking wet. He and Seaver became pals. They liked to drink beer
and golf.

Whether Harrelson and Seaver were close because
Buddy did not cheat either is just speculation. Who really knows
such things? But he was quiet, studious and dedicated. Seaver loved
those qualities in a teammate. This was just a white Mike Garrett
absent the Heisman Trophy. Unlike Seaver, Harrelson slogged through
the minors. He may have been part of the “Youth of America,” called
to opportunity with the Metsies, but his road was a two-year slog
at Salinas, just down the road from his Hayward roots, then Buffalo
and Jacksonville. His build and appearance were made for jokes and
put-downs from grizzled vets, but he just played through it. He hit
.219 in 1968 but was learning how to swing from the left side.

Seaver met Harrelson at Jacksonville in 1966, and
thought he was “a skinny runt of a kid who never said a word.” They
broke into the big leagues with lasting results in 1967. In
Seaver’s third career start, he led 1-0 in the seventh inning at
Chicago. Harrelson’s error allowed the tying run to score, but
Seaver won 2-1 in 10 innings to improve his record to 2-0.

“I felt just great,” Seaver recalled. But Buddy was
sitting in front of his locker holding his head in his hands,
miserable because he cost Seaver a shutout. “Forget it, Buddy. We
won. There’ll be lots of shutouts.”

Harrelson was adept going after pop flies, an art in
and of itself.