By Dan Hirshberg

By now you’ve heard all the accolades about the Great Met Tom Seaver, who recently passed away.

No need to go into detail on his incredible statistics: 311 wins, 3,640 strikeouts, 3 Cy Young awards, Hall of Fame, etc. No need to talk about perhaps the greatest pitching streak of all-time, Seaver’s eight consecutive complete game victories late in the 1969 season to lead the Mets to the National League pennant and ultimately, the World Series championship. Eight consecutive complete game victories! 

For me, the Seaver memory that will last a lifetime occurred on Sunday Aug. 4, 1985 at Yankee Stadium.

At the last minute me and two buddies (Mike Chaplowitz, who died many years ago, and Ed Mills, a longtime sports reporter; I was the Sports Editor of the Star-Gazette at the time) decided to head to New York to see the Yankees play the Chicago White Sox. Well, moreso to hopefully witness baseball history as Tom Seaver, now pitching for the White Sox, was looking to notch his 300th victory. 

We got nose bleed seats between home plate and first base and were joined by some 54,000 others, the majority of which were Mets fans. Definitely a lot of Met blue in the stands. Throughout the game there were chants of, naturally, “Let’s Go Mets!”

It just so happened that same day was also Phil Rizzuto Day at the Stadium. Prior to the game there was a ceremony to honor the Yankee great. Within a few hours though the Scooter was an afterthought. (Ed. Note: this day, including what Seaver accomplished, was highlighted in the book, Phil Rizzuto: A Yankee Tradition – which I wrote and was published in 1993).

The Yankees held a slim 1-0 lead heading into the sixth inning when the Sox teed off on Yankee starter Joe Cowley.  When it was over, Chicago had a 4-1 lead. From there Seaver did the rest. There were no major threats to speak of and Seaver finished the game (complete game, of course!) without a blemish, a 4-1 victory. The crowd went crazy (Yankee fans, too)! 

It wasn’t his most outstanding performance (six hits, seven strikeouts), but it was pure guts and glory, a Seaver attribute when necessary.  Seaver finished the season with 16 wins. That would be pretty much it for Seaver, however, as he picked up only 11 more victories over the next couple of years, injuries taking its toll. 

I had a brief interaction with Seaver years later, when he was part of the Yankee broadcast team. When I say brief, I mean very brief. We didn’t talk about the 300th win; I asked him about Rizzuto for the book I was working on. His answer was short and quick. And then he was off to the broadcast booth. Considering by then he was well known for not speaking to the media, I felt it was a victory just to get a few words out of him for the book. 

If I had another half a minute, I might have asked him about Win No. 300. But it doesn’t really matter because I was there and I remember it well.