After the telephone call that will come Tuesday morning to the converted barn that is his home in Greenwich, Conn.-after Tom Seaver discovers he has been elected to the Hall of Fame-he will answer each and every question about the thrill of it all. Try to stop him. Until then, until he hears the news, he has nothing to say, not a word.
”I`m not really up to talking about it,” he said last week, sitting in his ground-floor office. ”I`m not a superstitious person”-he took a short breath-”but I`m not going to do anything to jeopardize it. This is too significant.”
There were, he insisted, too many other things on his mind. A weekend trip to Houston. Monday, his oldest daughter, Sara, an art history major at Boston College, leaves to start a semester in Florence, Italy. He is taking his 5-month-old yellow Labrador puppy to the vet for a second hip operation in a few hours. I ask the puppy`s name, and because it might bring us back to the Tuesday telephone call, Seaver pauses. ”Cooper,” he said. ”My wife named him that. Don`t ask me why.”
This is why. Nancy Seaver`s husband spent 20 seasons in major-league uniforms-the Mets, the Reds, back with the Mets, the White Sox and Red Sox. A thinking man`s power pitcher with superb control and a chunky body that never let him down. A practical joker with a giggle that let you know he was up to something. (The Mets were in spring training when a plane crashed in France, killing hundreds, and a certain right-handed pitcher taped the story to Rusty Staub`s locker. Flying upset Staub. So did the clipping. He finally put the story and the giggle together. ”You did it, didn`t you?” Staub said to Seaver. ”I was trying to think who was sick enough.”).
He won 311 games, and if he had to pick a favorite, it is almost certainly No. 300, Aug. 4, 1985, with the White Sox. ”I did it on my first try,” he said. ”In New York, in front of 50,000 people, and my family.” He has another favorite, 18 years earlier, July 11, 1967, the All-Star Game at Anaheim Stadium, when George Thomas Seaver, a 22-year-old rookie, was surrounded by a future wing of the Hall of Fame.
Seaver got to the clubhouse early, too early. He changed slowly, was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when Lou Brock entered the room. Brock took a quick look at the apple-cheeked kid and said, ” `Go get me a Coke.` I swear to God,” Seaver said, ”he thought I was the clubhouse kid.”
The National League starter, Juan Marichal, was followed by Ferguson Jenkins and Bob Gibson. Seaver, sitting in the bullpen, didn`t expect to pitch. He was still sitting when the game moved into extra innings. ”I was so nervous,” he said. And thinking, ”Drysdale and Osteen are available, let them do it, not me.” Drysdale`s turn came in the 13th. Two innings later, Tony Perez put the National League ahead with a home run. To save the game, and because Osteen had pitched the previous Sunday, manager Walt Alston brought in the Mets` kid.
Seaver walked out of the bullpen and glanced into the outfield-Henry Aaron, Willie Mays, Roberto Clemente. Aaron, along with Sandy Koufax, were his favorite players. He was a teenager, growing up in Fresno, Calif., when he sometimes got to use his uncle`s seats near the Dodgers` dugout. And here he was, pitching in an All-Star Game, Aaron dressing in the next locker. ”The first time I faced him in Atlanta,” Seaver said, ”I knew his every mannerism. How he walked behind the umpire, rested the bat in front of his leg, put his helmet on and stepped in.”
There was a man on base that day in Atlanta, and Seaver wanted a groundball. He threw Aaron sinkers and sliders, down and in, and got his groundball, and more, a double play. ”I was thinking, `This isn`t all that tough,` ” Seaver said.
Aaron`s next time up, same situation, the same sinker. ”He knew,”
Seaver said. ”He adjusted.” Aaron opened up his stance, and now the pitch was coming into the heart of his strike zone. And leaving in a hurry, a home run down the left-field line. ”A huge lesson,” Seaver said. He learned that pitcher-hitter was ”a continual cat-and-mouse game; they know what I`m doing out there.”
When he reached the infield at Anaheim, All-Star teammate Pete Rose called out, ”You want me to pitch and you play second base?” Seaver was feeling better by then. ”I could feel my level of confidence building up,”
he said. ”When I got to the mound, I felt this sense of comfort, of total confidence. I knew that I`d be able to compete. It`s one of the great memories of my career, when you understand and find your own level of comfort.”
He put away Tony Conigliaro and Bill Freehan, both right-handed hitters, on fly balls. The next hitter was Carl Yastrzemski. ”I walked him on four pitches,” Seaver said, ”and do you know why?”
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Because you were never dumb, I said.
”Thank you very much,” Seaver said.
He avoided Yaz, a lefty, because the new batter was the American League`s last pinch-hitter, Ken Berry, another righty. ”And now I flash back to the last (Mets) game before the All-Star break,” Seaver said. ”I was walking back up the tunnel with one of our pitchers-remember Jack Lamabe?-and he said, `If you face Ken Berry in the All-Star Game`-Jack had played with him in Chicago-`throw him your slider. Your slider will kill him.` ”
He ended that favorite game with a slider, and a strikeout.
Tom Seaver will be delighted to talk about Jack Lamabe anytime. Tuesday morning, that`s when you can ask him about the Hall of Fame. Right after he hangs up the phone.