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SABR

Johnny Dickshot Jan 24 2006 10:19 AM

Hey, the NYC SABR meeting is this Saturday, 1/28 on the 6th floor of the MidManhattan library (41st & 5th, across the from the huge library). Admission is $5, it starts at 10 am, and don't be late or you'll miss JD's presentation on the '67 Mets (that's right, I was tired of complaining about stinky presentations that others made at these events so I decided to do a stinky one myself). Warner Wolf will speak, there's an authors panel, player panel, other speakers, etc.

Edgy DC Jan 24 2006 10:23 AM

Holy two brains. I just plugged you myself. Not in a gay way.

KC Jan 24 2006 10:38 AM

JD's ears must have been ringing. I'm coming. No, really ... I am.

seawolf17 Jan 24 2006 10:40 AM

I always suspected JD and Edgy were the same person. I will go to one of these events someday. But not this weekend. I know that as soon as I get there, my wife will go into labor. And I would hate to miss the birth for a baseball conference.

Edgy DC Jan 24 2006 10:41 AM

Welcome to the website of the Casey Stengel Chapter of SABR! 2006 Casey Stengel Chapter Annual Meeting Saturday, January 28, 2005 =orange]with Keynote Speaker Warner Wolf of WABC Radio's "Curtis & Kuby" Show Registration may be made at door SCHEDULE New York Public Library Mid-Manhattan branch 455 Fifth Avenue 6th floor 10:00 am - 5:00 pm $5 admission fee 10:00 – Registration, Book Donations 10:30 – Johnny Dickshot on Bing Devine with the Mets 10:50 – Steve Krevisky on Ryne Duren 11:10 – Keynote Speaker – Warner Wolf 11:35 – Announcements: Al Blumkin 11:50 – LUNCH BREAK 12:50 – Authors Panel Bob McGee (Greatest Ballpark Ever: Ebbets Field and the Story of the Brooklyn Dodgers) Rob Fitts (Remembering Japanese Baseball: An Oral History Of The Game) Carolyn Trombe (Dottie Wiltse Collins: Strikeout Queen of the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League) Steven Goldman (Mind Game: How the Boston Red Sox Got Smart by Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts) Stanley H. Teitelbaum (Sports Heroes, Fallen Idols) 1:55 – OBITS by Al Blumkin 2:00 – Panel: Steve Broege (lefty for St. Louis minors) and Frank Prudenti (1961 NY Yankee Batboy) MIDAFTERNOON BREAK [book raffles] 2:35 – Mike Huber on MLB at West Point 2:55 – Mark Lamster on Spalding's Around-the-World Tour of 1888/9 3:15 – Elliott Hines on Bucky Walters 3:35 – Doug Lyons’ Trivia Contest

Johnny Dickshot Jan 24 2006 10:59 AM

Musta missed the plug. I wasn't gonna say nothing till I was reasonably sure I could get through: I have 20 minutes including Q&A, the talking part in practice usually goes ~18 minutes, so I still gotta cut down.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 24 2006 11:00 AM

Very cool JD - that's excellent!

Edgy DC Jan 24 2006 11:05 AM

My plug must've gone up seconds after your own. I deleted and stuck it here instead. Congratulations. Will there be PowerPoint?

Johnny Dickshot Jan 24 2006 11:17 AM

There will. KC might recognize some grafix, in fact.

Edgy DC Jan 24 2006 11:36 AM

The finals of the CPF Song Parody Invitational should be done as a sing-off at the conference.

sharpie Jan 24 2006 12:25 PM

I'd rather forget the finals.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 24 2006 03:41 PM

I will be there, Johnny.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 24 2006 04:20 PM

See if you can recognize where I rip you off.

Willets Point Jan 24 2006 04:24 PM

Reading Edgy's post quickly I thought Bret Sabermetric's real name was listed there as one of the presenters. I won't out Bret's real name, but the one I mistook it for his is particularly humorous with the book he wrote.

seawolf17 Jan 24 2006 04:35 PM

I just realized who's on the 2:00 "panel." Is that the best SABR could do? What, Mike Fitzgerald's gardener wasn't available? Did Billy Wynne's barber have another commitment that he couldn't break?

KC Jan 24 2006 04:40 PM

>>>Bret S: I will be there, Johnny.<<< Note to self, find out if pistol permit is still good in Manhattan.

TheOldMole Jan 24 2006 04:40 PM

Would love to be there.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 24 2006 04:48 PM

seawolf17 wrote: I just realized who's on the 2:00 "panel." Is that the best SABR could do? What, Mike Fitzgerald's gardener wasn't available? Did Billy Wynne's barber have another commitment that he couldn't break? Are you kidding? It's an opportunity to get the guy to spill his guts about how drunk and abusive that team was. You know there are some good stories waiting to be told.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 24 2006 06:25 PM

KC wrote: >>>Bret S: I will be there, Johnny.<<< Note to self, find out if pistol permit is still good in Manhattan. What, you want to do a couple rounds at the firing range? Lemme know, I'll pack my service revolver.

KC Jan 24 2006 06:30 PM

Note to self, borrow bullet proof vest.

Edgy DC Jan 24 2006 08:12 PM

Send Faith and Fear a preview and maybe Greg or Jace will find some room to give you some pub.

A Boy Named Seo Jan 25 2006 11:37 PM

Hey, cool, JD. Good luck. You going to present it here when you're done presenting it there?

Johnny Dickshot Jan 25 2006 11:50 PM

Sure. Nothing very groundbreaking.

KC Jan 28 2006 04:09 PM

JD did a great job this morning kicking off the meeting before over a hundred red-stitched baseball heads at the New York Public Library. His stuff was thorough, well thought out, and his Powerpoint "slide" presentation was a pleasant sidebar to his spoken word. He fielded questions with prompt and knowledgable answers and, frankly, I was impressed.

A Boy Named Seo Jan 28 2006 04:16 PM

Ray Liotta who? Ray Liotta you! Nice work, JD.

ScarletKnight41 Jan 28 2006 04:17 PM

Wow - he looks really professional there. WTG JD!

Iubitul Jan 28 2006 04:19 PM

KC wrote: "Ty Cobb? We didn't like the son of a bitch when he was alive, so we told him to stick it!"

Johnny Dickshot Jan 28 2006 06:22 PM

Hey cool. Here more or less is what intended to say, I don't actually remember if I said it all. To get the true feel, read the following extremely quickly -- can you do it in 17 minutes? -- and insert and "ah" and "um" every 4 words or so. (click was my reminder to inform the guy to change slides, and didn't do me any good, since I more or less memorized this): ]Good moring. Tomorrow marks the 40th anniversary of the start of the most important string of events in the history of the Mets. That’s the day the Atlanta Braves selected USC pitcher Tom Seaver in the annual January draft. As everyone here knows, that selection and subsequent signing would erupt in controversy and ultimately lead in a few months to Tom Seaver being signed by the Mets. My presentation today highlights the Mets executive most responsible for that turn of events, Bing Devine. (click) I’ll give a brief biography of Devine, discuss his role in the Tom Seaver drawing, highlight his one and only season as General Manager in 1967, and share a thought about his departure and legacy. Then some Q&A. (click) Vaughan Palmore Devine was born in St. Louis in 1916 and in fact will celebrate his 90th birthday in March. He attended Washington University where he played baseball and basketball and wrote a sports column for the school paper. After graduating college in 1939 he was hired as an office boy by the Cardinals. He served as a Naval officer during World War II and afterward served as the Cardinals public relations director, and as a general manager for a succession of farm teams, most notably the Rochester Red Wings. (click) In 1955 he returned to St. Louis to serve as an assistant under Frank Lane. Lane was known as “Trader Lane” and had a reputation as a freewheeling and almost reckless dealer, but Devine later would say he learned a lot from him. “I’d learned from Frank Lane that if you don’t do anything, you’ll never do anything wrong. But you’ll never do anything right, either.” Devine took over as Cardinals GM in November of 1957, and through a series of excellent trades built the Cardinals into a pennant contender by 1963 and a World Series champion in 1964. He made trades in that period for Lew Burdette, Dick Groat, Bill White, Julian Javier, Curt Flood and of course, Lou Brock. Personally Devine was known as a shrewd and honest man who took care of his players: In the early 1960s he’d led an effort by the Cardinals to buy a hotel in Florida for players to stay in during spring training rather than abide by segregation. Devine would be named Executive of the Year by the Sporting News in 1963, and again in 1964, which was funny because by the time he’d been notified he’d won he’d been fired for two months and was already working for the Mets. (click) His firing by the Cardinals, in August of 1964, was a real shock to Devine and all of baseball, and seemed to come as a result of the impatience of Gussie Busch and the influence from Branch Rickey, who was brought on as a senior advisor and didn’t see eye to eye with Devine. Devine was hired by the Mets just over a month later, and in that way, was a lot like the man he would assist, and eventually, replace – George Weiss. Weiss was also brokenhearted after being unceremoniously whacked by a pennant-winning team, the 1960 Yankees. It would be one of the few things they had in common. Devine would serve as an assistant to Weiss through the end of Weiss’ contract in 1966, though after a year, it seemed Devine was doing the majority of the dealing and going to Weiss for approval. That’s certainly how it went with Tom Seaver. (click) The January draft had a regular round for amatuers a special round for guys who were previously drafted but did not sign – Seaver was in that group, having been selected by the Dodgers in the 10th round of the 1965 June draft, and turning down a reported $2000 bounus offer. What’s interesting is that unlike the regular phase of the draft, where picking order was determined by reverse order of standings, the special draft was by lottery and Atlanta drew a short straw: They picked last. So it’s a real credit to the Braves scouts to have chosen Seaver while so many others passed him by, including the Mets, who wasted their first-round pick on an outfielder from Southern Methodist University named James Taylor who was never heard from again. Seaver signed a contract with the Braves on Feb. 24. But USC by then had already played two games, and when the USC athletic director informed commissioner Eckert that violated the agreement between colleges and baseball governing the draft, Eckert voided the deal. Seaver returned to USC only to be informed that by having signed a contract, even a voided one, made him inelegible to resume playing there. This brought pressure back on Eckert, whose solution was a lottery for any team willing to match the Braves’ bonus offer, which was 45,000 plus incentives and a tuition bonus bringing it to 53,500. A pretty strong bonus in those days but not a great one. Devine saw this as an opportunity for the Mets but first had to convince Weiss to write a check. Not an easy thing to do. Weiss was a rather conservative dealer who hated to part with money or resources unless he was certain he was getting back more than he gave. If he traded one guy, he wanted back two. If he bought a player, he’d negotiate to pay full retail only if certain conditions were met. About Seaver, he told Devine “We don’t know if he’s worth that kind of money.” He had a point. While it was reported that the Mets’ scout in Los Angeles “didn’t like” Seaver, I don’t think that’s true: They liked him, but in scouting lingo, they liked him $8,000, not $45,000. Devine on the other hand seemed to understand that for the Mets to really dig out of the poverty, they might have to take some chances, and importantly, consider whether their reports were accurate. Devine, with help from Joe McDonald in the Met front office, worked Weiss hard – also during this period, they got a good report from a scout who saw Seaver work out with the Indians and that went into the argument too. Weiss gave his blessing to entering the drawing just days before it took place on April 3. Devine later theorized the only reason he did was that his sales pitch was so strong, Weiss figured there would be 10 or 12 teams participating, and that the Mets chances of being selected would be poor anyway. He hadn’t realized it would ultimately be a 1 in 3 chance, which is why when Devine learned the Mets won the rights to Seaver his first reaction was “great,” and then “uh-oh, I’m in trouble.” The 1966 Mets finally finished out of last place, Weiss retired as expected, and Devine was named Mets general manager on Nov. 12, 1966. He’d go on to build what I’d consider to be the ultimate transition team, the 1967 Mets. (click) Some stats on that team: 54 players ran through the roster (55 if you count Nolan Ryan, who was called up in September but did not appear in a game). The group included 27 position players and 27 pitchers; nine different players would log time at second base 11 men would play third base. Twenty different pitchers would make at least one start. There would also be two different managers. It was the largest National League team ever, breaking the record of 53 by the 1944 Dodgers and the second most players ever since the 1915 Philadelphia Athletics employed 56 men. It would be the largest roster in all of baseball for 29 years and is still the biggest in Mets history. Other stats I should mention: The 1967 Mets were bad: They went backwards in the standings, losing 101 games, mostly as a result of scoring 89 fewer runs than the year before. It would be their losingest season for the next 26 years, and difficult to imagine how bad they might have been were it not for a rookie of the year season from Tom Seaver. (click) By my count, Devine made 25 trades in the 13 months he was in charge of the Mets, not including drafts or deals that did not involve Major League players. The deals can more or less be broken into 4 buckets: There was the actual assembly of the 67 team, which went from November until June. When the team was buried in the standings by July, Devine began disassembling it, selling off guys to contenders. In August and September, he rebuilt, adding 17 new players as a result of waiver claims and minor-league callups. Finally, Devine harvested some of his moves after the year. I’ll have time only to highlight a few examples from each category: (click) His first big trade, Nov. 29 sent Ron Hunt and Jim Hickman to Los Angeles for Tommy Davis and Derrell Griffith. This deal seemed to announce there’d be no sacred cows: Hunt at the time of this deal, was the most popular Met player, and probably the greatest Met of all time, and Hickman was the last remaining Major Leaguer from the 1961 expansion draft. Davis was a former batting champion coming off a knee injury, and in ’67 really revived his career: He was by far the Mets’ best hitter that year, leading the team in virtually every statistical category. A week later, Devine traded Dennis Ribant and Gary Kolb to the Pirates for Don Cardwell and minor league outfielder Don Bosch. Bosch was the player the Mets wanted: He was supposed to be the center fielder and leadoff hitter the Mets always needed, but he turned out a lot like all the others – a complete bust, and one of the reasons the Mets struggled so badly in 1967. But Cardwell would be the best of all 4 players in that deal, and one of the steadiest pitchers on the Mets for the next 3 years. In February, Devine purchased Ron Taylor, a former Cardinal who’d been injured, demoted and virtually left for dead by the Astros: He’d go on to anchor the Met bullpen for the next 4 years. On May 10, Devine would trade excess outfielder Larry Elliot and $50,000 for Ed Charles, the veteran Kansas City third baseman. Charles was a slight upgrade at third base and importantly, made Ken Boyer expendable. Boyer would be traded to the White Sox in July in the next phase of Devine’s plan, eventually bringing back J.C. Martin. (click) In August and September, Devine hit the waiver wires and made 14 September call-ups, conducting what essentially was an in-season tryout camp: This activity would bring the Mets some of the most obscure players in history like Joe Moock, Joe Grzenda and Al Schmelz, but also produced some keepers like Cal Koonce, bought on waivers from the Cubs, and broke in rookies like Jerry Koosman, Amos Otis, and Ken Boswell. After the season, Devine was quick to realize value on what investments he’d made that had appreciated: Bob Johnson, a journeyman utility player purchased in May from the Orioles and who inexplicably hit .348, was flipped to Cincinnati for Art Shamsky. In December, Devine parlayed Tommy Davis’ excellent season in a trade for Tommie Agee and Al Weis. (click) Devine also had some decisions to make concerning the Mets’ leadership in 1967. Before the season he promoted a young third base coach Whitey Herzog to a front office position for the first time. Herzog oversaw amatuer scouting and led drafts during ‘67 that would produce Ken Singleton, Dave Schneck, Jon Matlack, Rod Gaspar and Gary Gentry. There was also a manager to replace after Wes Westrum resigned late in the year when it was clear a contract offer from Devine was not forthcoming. However, arranging the unusual trade with Washington for Gil Hodges was not Devine’s idea, but rather the will of the board of directors: Some reporters speculated Devine left the Mets in December because he was unhappy at not having the chance to name a manager: I don’t think that’s true, but we do that left to his own devices, Devine probably wouldn’t have named Hodges, mainly because he was under contract to Washington. He probably would have considered Harry Walker, and may have named Whitey Herzog. Why did he leave? Simply, he was offered his old job back as Cardinals GM and missed his family in St. Louis – he would often commute there on weekends. There was one unfinished piece of business before he left, which was the Agee-Davis trade: The Mets and White Sox had agreed in principal but Mets chairman Donald Grant, objected to Devine’s inclusion of Don Shaw on the Mets part. Shortly after Devine left, his successor, Johnny Murphy, completed the deal by replacing Shaw with Billy Wynne. It’s interesting to note that this is one of the first instances of Grant’s meddling with the creation of the Mets, but it certainly wouldn’t be the last time. (click) Perhaps the ultimate testament to Devine’s strenuous work with the 1967 Mets was how easy he’d make it for his successor. Of the 32 players on the team that would win the 1969 World Series, 22 of them were acquired by Weiss either directly or as an assisstant to Weiss, and just two players of significance – Wayne Garrett and Donn Clendennon – would need to be added after his departure. I’ll close by saying that in brief reign marked by courage and chaos, Bing Devine left the Mets in better shape than when he found them. Now I’d be happy to take any questions.

Edgy DC Jan 28 2006 06:58 PM

Upload the slide show, man.

Edgy DC Jan 28 2006 07:38 PM

Great job. There's some errata in there like missing words and calling Devine "Weiss" once near the end. I hope you caught them as you were reading. Here's my question: Was there the notion in place as he was assembling this team (that would get Johnny Murphy into the Mets Hall of Fame) that they were building a star-studded pitching rotation with Seaver, Ryan, Gentry, Koosman, and Cardwell all in the system, or did that not come until after Koosman's rookie season made it clear?

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 07:33 AM

The material was excellent, and it was a shame they slotted him in so small a span of time. I stuck around to hear one other talk, as well as Warner Wolf's routine (otherwise known as a keynote speech). The other speaker, a Yankee fan, gave a comparitively disjointed, disorganized talk about Ryne Duran, handing out photocopies. If this was typical (and I remember it this way ,too) then Johnny's powerpoint presentation kind of taught them a thing or two about building a thesis. I'd to hear them make cases (we call them "agendas" around here) and support them instead of so much ragtag rambling. But Johnny-boy made his case. Wolf was a tiny ball of energy, and impressed me with his command of stats and trivia. Wolf mostly talked about growing up in DC and memories, quite detailed, of Griffith Stadium. He gave his rap without notes, and obviously without preparing anything. He alluded to one bit of Johnny D.'s, for example, to go off on "Great GM stories" of the past, messing up a detail or two on Dimaggio's holdout in 1937-8 and at one point callling the Senators' catcher Earl Battey "Johnny Roseboro." But he was pretty good. If he had a thesis it was something like "You think you Brooklyn and NY Giants fans had heartache? I was a Senators' fan--case closed." I think I can answer Edgy's question, if I understand it, about the star-studded rotation: Only to children and raging Metsophiles was the future greatness of the staff crystal clear. When Devine left the Mets after the 1967 season, when I was still a child and a raging Metsophile, all they really had was Seaver who had had a good rookie year. But we'd seen too much promise from previous burnout rookies, including Bill Wakefield and Dennis Ribant (who'd been traded for Cardwell, as JD pointed out) to make too much of Seaver. As to Koosman, he was nothing special in the winter of 67-8. Ryan was a mere pheeeenom, less highly regarded in my nascent brain than Les Rohr or Jerry Hinsley or Grover Powell or any of the hundreds of young Met arms who had come to nothing) and Cardwell was just another so-so innings eater of the type that they had filled their staffs with from the start (Jack Fisher, Bob Shaw, Tracy Stallard) which, as JD pointed out, he pretty much continued to be after coming to the Mets. The only differrence there was that he was an innings-eater on the World's Championship Mets, but he wasn't anything more than a useful arm. No need for excitement at all.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 29 2006 09:35 AM

I'd sort of agree with that answer. If you go by press reports, the Mets were impressed with all of their prospects equally, be they guys like Les Rohr who never succeeded, or guys like Seaver who did. In Seaver and Gentry, they'd acquired two polished prospects who advanced to the Majors quickly but I'm not certain they learned anything from it. Koosman's success sort of took them by surprise: Devine tells the story of how he was nearly released in 65 or 66 but wasn't only because he owed the team $$. That Murphy is in the Mets Hall of Fame while Devine is not is tragic. While Murphy is the guy who arranged for Hodges, and made the Clendennon trade, if he was so great then why was he bypassed for the GMship when Weiss retired? Why for that matter was Bob Scheffing, who was also in the org at that point? In retrospect, it seemed that the Mets worked very hard to acquire this group of guys between 1963-1967, and as soon as they finally all came together, they just kind of stayed there for the next decade. It was as if the Mets basically said, "Great job, us!" and walked away. I don't know how to web-er-ize a powerpoint, but suffice it to say it was bullet points from the speech, accompanied by headlines I'd cut n' pasted and a few photos I found. I was fortunate to go on first, as the long speech by Wolf (who I agree was better than anyone expected) whacked the schedule after that, and things were kind of chaotic and uneven. The room was also uncomfortably warm. Just before Wolf went on I'd mentioned to KC and Bret that I'd seen him speak in 1979 at a banquet and the only thing I remember him saying was "I AM standing!" -- a reference to his shortness. Sure enough he opened with that line this time too. Once again, the balance of the meeting veered more to the side of old-timerism than research. There was a Duren presentation, then an announcement that a longtime member was seriously ill. While obviously appropriate at the event, and sad news, the announcement itself was uncomfortably long. The same speaker later gave an equally long obit on Vic Power, sans anything but extemporaneous speaking. A presntation scheduled for the afternoon session was postponed after things went too long. There was an authors panel where writers of 5 baseball books spoke for 10 minutes and took one question apeice: An author of a Japanese baseball oral history (which I purchased); an Ebbets Field book; a psychologist who wrote about athletes falling from grace; Goldman of Baseball Prospectus who discussed a jumble of projects (Stengel, the BP annual and Mind Game) and a bio of the real-life Dottie of 'League of their Own' fame. A guy from West Point did a nice presentation on the history of NY teams playing exhibitions at West Point: This included some cool photographs and stuff that's probably difficult to find otherwise. Another guy did a presentation on Spalding's 1888-89 trip around the world and mentioned the parellels to the upcoming WBC (jingoistic, overly hyped). This could have better had the speaker prepared something rather than reading aloud from his manuscript. The Yankee batboy from 1956-1961 was interesting: He told a story of pocketing the rosin bag after Larsen's perfect game was over, and Larsen telling him, "you can have it, I didn't use it anyway." He mostly said that everyone was great, it's was a lot of fun, etc.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 29 2006 11:34 AM

Sorry I couldn't have stuck around (my daughter's train was due at Penn Station at noon), but I would have mentioned that Bill Veeck's follow-up book to VEECK AS IN WRECK dealt thoroughly with analyzing the whole Devine/Keane/Berra/Durocher fiasco that came up in the Q and A session. Veeck's not the most accurate of analysts sometimes, but he's usually the liveliest.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 29 2006 11:44 AM

I forgot to mention there was a guy in a Mets hat who came up to me later and asked "Are you one of those Crane Pool guys?" and I said "yeah, so were the others who were here earlier. And you are?" and he said, oh, I just saw it. So, hi to annonymous lurkey guy.

KC Jan 29 2006 01:27 PM

I think when I registered last year I put down the forum as one of my baseball projects or interests or something.

Iubitul Jan 29 2006 05:10 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I don't know how to web-er-ize a powerpoint, but suffice it to say it was bullet points from the speech, accompanied by headlines I'd cut n' pasted and a few photos I found. JD - you can save it as a PowerPoint Show (.pps) and just add it to your server. People without Powerpoint will be able to view it.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 29 2006 05:43 PM

OK, link will take you directly into it and it's a big file [url]http://www.mbtn.net/Divine.pps[/url]

ScarletKnight41 Jan 29 2006 05:45 PM

Excellent timing - D-Dad installed PowerPoint on my laptop this past week :)

KC Jan 29 2006 05:50 PM

Works fine, I opened it on my linux desktop in open office. If it works in that it'll work in anything ... well, let's see if WP can open it on his Apple. (just playing, snicker snicker)

ScarletKnight41 Jan 29 2006 05:53 PM

I just looked over the presentation - very nice JD. Thanks for sharing!

TheOldMole Jan 29 2006 06:14 PM

Great stuff, JD.

A Boy Named Seo Jan 29 2006 06:30 PM

Dynamite stuff, man. You presented the transitional team angle quite well. I never really knew the circumstances behind the Seaver lotto. Did the Braves even know it was a violation? I wonder if they tried to appeal the ruling or anything. They must've been rather pissed when a lottery was decided. It sounds like they did nothing shady in the least. Just dumb freaking luck. Again, nice work.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 29 2006 10:04 PM

Seo, we worked through some of that Seaver stuff right here, and so thanks again to youse guys for your help: [url]http://cybermessageboard.ehost.com/getalife/viewtopic.php?t=1962&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=tom+seaver&start=0[/url] Yes, it definitely seems that the Braves were screwed over. This was the first January draft ever and who knows how things would go. I'm sure whatever mistake they made was unintentional and Eckert's ruling was hard letter-of-the-law. Further, if the lottery hadn't made an issue of what the Braves were willing to pay Seaver, perhaps they keep the secret of their find. What I'm almost sure happened was, their guys got a good look at TS after the June draft (in summer league or whatever) when everyone else was still working on last June's reports. Since that thread I came across more info on the Cleveland workout and the 8,000 figure ... it all makes sense. Matlack was the Mets' No. 1 pick in 67: He signed for 40 grand. Edit: There's also irony in the whole thing, knowing that the $$ the Braves offered Seaver was more or less the Mets' money anyway. Weiss made about a million purchases (15 actually) from the Braves in the early years. It's not unreasonable that Weiss figured he could buy Braves guys at a discount after they purchased them new.

Bret Sabermetric Jan 30 2006 08:40 AM

Wolf also told a good story about sitting in the bleachers at Griffith and seeing Jimmy Piersall pull off the greatest defensive play ever. With his back to homeplate, shielded from the umps but in full view of the bleacherites, Piersall swatted a bouncing ball over the fence for a ground-rule double in the bottom of the 9th. Since the score was tied and there was a runner on first at the time the ball was hit, that runner easily would have scored on the hit, but of course had to stay on 3b when it ruled a ground rule double, thus preventing the Senators from winning. The Sox went to score in the top of the next inning, and the Senators did not score. According to Wolf, when Piersall took his position in the top of the final half-inning he acknowledged the bleacherites' cries of "Cheater!" with a big shit-eating grin.

Edgy DC Jan 30 2006 09:25 AM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jan 30 2006 09:55 AM

That '67 yearbook you used in the slideshow is the one I ended up buying, I think. Limiting Murphy's credit on 1969 to drafting Garrett and trading for Clendennon is interesting. It's even arguable that Garrett was all that pivotal a player in 1969. Was Murphy an active underling (or an uctive anderling) before his elevation?

Frayed Knot Jan 30 2006 09:40 AM

]Piersall swatted a bouncing ball over the fence for a ground-rule double in the bottom of the 9th I've never seen or heard of a fielder doing that before. I wonder if - either then or since - there's leeway in the rulebook for the umps to use their judgement (as in fan interference) to award the baserunner more than 2 bases if they feel the GRD was caused intentionally by the fielder.

Johnny Dickshot Jan 30 2006 10:00 AM

Murphy was with the Mets from the very start. He was a native NYer and ballplayer with the Yankees, an early version of the relief ace. He was scouting with the Red Sox before coming to the Mets. He recommended the Mets go get Ted Schreiber, a player he'd signed with them, in the Rule 5 draft in '62. He also handled the contracts on behalf of Weiss, unless things got hairy. I have to look into it more, but a story got out when Murphy took over that the Mets had spent so much $$ on Hodges (payment to Washington and his salary), in combination with an attendance decline in 67, that there was a budget freeze in '68, which might explain the lack of activity that year. I don't think anyone was delusional enough to believe back then that everything was in place for a triumphant run in 69 had they just kept the team together. Murphy made no trades at all in 1968, and they drafted a bunch of guys they didn't sign (Burt Hooton & Mickey Rivers among them). Weird year, especially as compared to '67.