Well, I was wrong. That summer, Seaver won me over. (The Yankees sure didn't; they were awful.) But it was Seaver's love for bantering with Phil Rizzuto - he coaxed stories from the Scooter unrelated to the game - that one night prompted Mustang and I to set Rizzuto's words into verse. We sent four "found poems" to Frank Deford, editor of The National, a short-lived daily sports rag. Deford said they were "too New Yorky" for his paper and suggested we try the Village Voice. There, an editor named Jeff Z. Klein made O Holy Cow; the Selected Verse of P.F. Rizzuto a weekly feature. That led to a book of poetry by The ECCO Press, and a second career beyond writing Syracuse police blotters and chasing cats in trees. It changed my life.
It was Seaver who lured Rizzuto to the fountain of poetry. A Met.
Funny how things go.
Today brings sad news. Tom Seaver has dementia and will retire from public life. Another generational icon falls by the wayside, another sign that - yes, someday the wolf will appear at each of our doors. No one cheats the hangman. Funny how things go.
What a life Seaver lived! He led the Miracle Mets to their first championship, an event that brought Gotham to a standstill. He was chased from NYC by the late Dick Young, the crude, vengeful and hypocritical sportswriter. If not for an injury, he might have pitched Boston to the 1986 World Series, taking it out on his former team and killing the Curse of the Bambino before it began. And then he coaxed that beautiful innocence from Rizzuto, which is part of the Scooter's legacy.
I personally consider dementia to be worse than death. The idea of not recognizing my wife or children, or of living years my final years without dignity or hope - so much that it taints their memories of me - that is the most terrifying part of old age.
Today, the sad news is about Tom Seaver, a great Met.
Listen: He was a great Yankee, too!
Thanks for this, Duque.
ReplyDeleteDementia is especially cruel in that it is the loved ones who suffer the most.
ReplyDeleteDuque and Mustang, did the Scooter ever acknowledge your labor of love?
He also played a part in a wonderfully-obscure bit of music trivia; the origins of the Kingston Trio song, Scotch & Soda.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch_and_Soda_(song)
Wonderful to get to know Tom Weaver through these kind words
ReplyDeleteNice piece of nostalgia, Duque.
ReplyDeleteI remember that Bill White had a similar relationship with "Rizzuta" in the broadcast booth.
White's original broadcasting style with Messer and the Scooter was that of a "facts only" personality, very professional. After a short while that changed and he egged on Rizzuto constantly. Phil changed him from stoic to comic. My memories of "White" at the end was that of a announcer that couldn't keep a straight face with tears literally rolling down his face in laughter.
I miss White. I miss Messer. I miss Rizzuto.
ReplyDeleteTom Terrific will always be the kid who pitched the Mets past the hated Orioles. That, even for a Yankees fan, was priceless.
We met Rizzuto at a Yankee game. He thanked us for the book. We were supposed to do a half-inning with him, but the game was rained out at the last minute. Story of my life.
ReplyDeleteWOW....DOING THAT HALF-INNING WITH THE SCOOTER WOULD HAVE BEEN INCREDIBLE, MR. DUQUE.
ReplyDeleteSTILL HAD TO BE GRATIFYING TO HAVE HIM THANK YOU FOR THE BOOK.
GREAT STORY.
I ECHO JOHN M....
I MISS BILL WHITE, FRANK MESSER, AND THE SCOOTER SO MUCH.
I STILL THINK I HEARD, ON THE RADIO, WHAT I BELIEVE TO BE THE REASON FRANK MESSER WAS FIRED.
IT WAS TOM SEAVER'S 300TH VICTORY GAME (AGAINST US OF COURSE)...
EVEN I WAS SURPRISED AND AGGRAVATED WHEN STARING AT A YANKEE LOSS, MESSER SAID, "I JUST WANT TO SAY, THAT I WILL NOT BE UNHAPPY WHEN TOM SEAVER GETS THIS WIN TODAY"
THE NEXT SEASON HE WAS FIRED.
AM I WRONG ABOUT THIS?.....MAYBE.....
....BUT IF I DIDN'T LIKE THE QUOTE, CAN YOU IMAGINE IF GEORGE HEARD IT?
Breaking News - NYY just bought back all of YES for over $3B. Now it makes even less sense to pass on Harper. If you knew that you were about to reacquire Aimee possession of YES, wouldn’t you want a shiny new toy to attract new viewership? I’m so fukkkn confused by this team’s decisions and direction
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteA Seaver memory: Once, decades ago, I was stuck in Philadelphia overnight on a business trip. It so happened that the pitchers for that day's baseball game were Seaver (Cincinnati) and, for the home game, Steve Carlton.
So I went to the game with some enthusiasm. Two aces, two of the best pitchers in the game. This game was gonna be great!!!
Well.....by the 5th inning, BOTH of these aces were out of the game. I don't remember the result....
Goes to show you what I know (and I know less now than I did then).
Miss Jim Kaat, too. Don't forget him. Great commentary.
ReplyDeleteGuys, I’m still here. I will always be here—even long after I’m gone, my voice will race across the electromagnetic spectrum and back again. I loved my time with Seaver. And I loved my time with Bill White. I’m not much of a reader anymore, but if I were, I’d like to read one of my poems about how Gary Sanchez must have a hard time buying pants, or how I’d probably mispronounce Twitter, and talking about how I don’t understand why people take pictures of their meals for Facebook. Italians like to eat their food too much to take pictures of it. I’d also like to read one of my poems about how life was better when the commercials were about The Money Store, and now we’ve got all these ads about crapping in a box and pills for dry skin that cause diarrhea—and how bad it must be for the workers at the crapping-in-a-box company when they have to open boxes that were crapped in by people who take the dry skin pills. Playing shortstop for the Yankees isn’t easy, but the box opener, now that’s a real tough job for you, White. And I’d tell Cora how much I love her.
ReplyDeleteThe Money Store! Fond memories of those broadcasts long ago, in another galaxy far, far away...
ReplyDeleteI remember one time Scooter started to tell Bill White about a nightmare he had, but the inning ended and they had to cut to commercials. When they came back on the air White shouted “Nightmare, nightmare!” So Rizzuto told him that he dreamed that he took a giant golf ball and stuffed it in his mouth and couldn’t get it out, and White laughed so hard he nearly peed himself. I miss those guys.
ReplyDeleteI recall that Seaver did not hesitate to criticize Yankee management--at that time inept and erratic to the point of derangement--on the air, a refreshing honesty that accounted in part for his abbreviated tenure in the booth. I also recall that he was being considered for team GM at one point--until, of course, he made it clear that he would not surrender his autonomy and judgment to the bizarro-world whims of King George. Earlier in his career, at his peak as a pitching star for the Mets, he did not hesitate to speak out against the US war on Vietnam, a cardinal sin in an athletic environment awash in toxic, cheap chauvinism. Seaver embodied the best of the All-American spirit: independent, smart, optimistic, and brash. A great baseball player who was also a fine human being, one we can admire without qualification or regret.
ReplyDeleteKD, Scooter did acknowledge our book. We were invited to spend a half-inning in the booth with him, and we showed up and the game got rained out. Which saved me from saying anything stupid or embarrassing on the air, which I 100% would have. But Scooter was gracious, shook our hands, and signed books.
ReplyDeleteKD, what you said, re: the loved ones suffering the most when someone retires from the world with dementia, was perceptive and right on the money (one of my long-time jobs was working with the elderly, and the saddest part was having to watch so many friends slipping away from the world around them).
ReplyDeletebitty, you are so right about Kitty being one of the best color & analysis men the Yanks have ever had in their booth. That man knew pitching, inside & out (no pun intended) - - and, back in the day, he WAS the lefty giant-killer.
Sad to say, I never really got to know those other gents very well; we couldn't pull in the Yanks' radio network in my parts of the Midwest. Wish I could have known them better.
Shows what a class act you really are, duque - - poet, or no. LB (No J)
T'is sad news.
ReplyDeleteVery nice tribute, Duque and gang.
ReplyDeleteYeah, dementia is horrible to deal with—apparently the price we pay for longevity. I've been through it with both parents and a favorite uncle, and it's just awful. Social services in this country are really, really badly set up to do with it, too, although there were plenty of terrific individuals who helped us.
As for Seaver, yeah, he was terrific. The Mets idiotically let him get away the second time, when he still had plenty left. he could easily have won them another pennant and ring in 1985, pitching beside Gooden in his best year, and maybe even in 1984, when they started out with Mike Torrez in the rotation.
But you know: Mets.
Seaver was a smart cookie. After there was that mix-up with the signing with the Braves and his remaining college eligibility, the commissioner was, typically, going to punish the player for something that wasn't his fault, making Seaver sit out for a year.
Times had changed. He wasn't dealing with some farmhand. Seaver's father owned a business and was, I think, a lawyer, and they made it clear, pronto, that baseball's monopoly status was going to be challenged if he didn't get a chance to sign with someone else. The Mets won a coin flip or a straw pull and, voila.
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