Apr 11 2008 09:20 AM
One of the reasons 1983 was my favorite Mets team was the whispers of this juggernaut in the minors. I had lived through enough false hope to recognize it, but all the signs were there in 1983.
One of my favorite used bookstore finds was a history of the Carolina League, which I bought just for the chapter on this 1983 Lynchburg team. But this article is actually better, and team historians should print it out. One thing it doesn't mention is how Perlozzo lied consistently and often when the team called for reports on Gooden, always claiming there was one small thing he needed to work on --- saying he wasn't ready for higher leagues because he was tipping his pitches or getting rattled when he (rarely) had men on base. Perlozzo just didn't want his team broken up.
Simply Amazin’: The rise of the Lynchburg Mets
By Andy Bitter
Published: April 11, 2008
The record belied the talent. It was April of 1983 and the Lynchburg Mets, the first — and arguably greatest — minor league team the Mets machine of the early-’80s rolled off the assembly line and into this city, inauspiciously stumbled out of the blocks. April is too soon in a baseball season for anybody to panic, and no one did, but some deemed it unacceptable for a team this talented to struggle at all.
Somebody had to say something, and the burden fell to first baseman Bruce Morrison, a third-year minor leaguer who had spent part of the previous year in Lynchburg. He gathered the team on the field before one game and set the tone for what would turn out to be one of the most memorable minor league seasons ever.
“We’re one of the best teams in this league by far,” he told them. “We’ve got the best center fielder. We’ve got the best left fielder. We’ve got the best pitching. We’ve got the best catchers. We’ve got the best everything. Look around. We should all be all-stars.”
Randy Milligan, a first baseman who was the Mets’ No. 1 pick in 1981, remembers a few players laughing, but it didn’t discourage Morrison, who continued: “When we come out here, we’re coming out here to beat up on everybody that we face.”
“From that moment on, we were unbeatable,” Milligan said. “Unbeatable.”
Led by 18-year-old pitching phenom Dwight Gooden and brash fireplug Lenny Dykstra, the Mets took no prisoners, post-ing a 96-43 regular season record before sweeping Winston-Salem in three games to capture the Carolina League champion-ship.
“It’s almost like if you beat us, it was an accident, because we’ll beat you the next three,” said Joe Graves, one of the team’s relief pitchers.
How good was this team? Seventeen players who were on the roster at some point during the season would make the big leagues, along with manager Sam Perlozzo and pitching coach John Cumberland.
Long before drug addiction derailed his promising career, Gooden burst on the scene with a season for the ages, striking out 300 batters in 191 innings while going 19-4. Dykstra hit .358, a number topped once in the Carolina League since (Hill-cats first baseman Chris Shelton hit .359 in 2002).
But the ’83 team was more than those two. Years of high picks and solid drafts produced a wave of minor league talent that reinvented a Mets organization that was one of the worst around in the late ’70s.
Lynchburg’s roster that year included outfielder Mark Carreon, who would play 10 seasons in the majors. Milligan, closer Wes Gardner, starting pitcher Jay Tibbs and Calvin Schiraldi, the Mets’ first-round draft pick out of Texas that year, all enjoyed lengthy major league careers. Catcher Greg Olson started every game for the Braves in the 1991 postseason.
The ’83 Mets were untouchable. They led the Carolina League in hitting (.278 average) and pitching (3.13 ERA), took home player (Dykstra), pitcher (Gooden) and manager (Perlozzo) of the year honors and went 53-17 (.757) on the road, setting a minor league record.
Said Madison Heights native Jimmy Wright, one of the team’s bat boys: “You went out there every day knowing that they were going to kick butt and win.”
The Dominating ‘Dr. D’
Believe it or not, the Mets brass feared they had placed Gooden a league too high. They were protective of their fire-balling right-hander, the fifth overall pick in the 1982 draft out of Tampa (a pick panned by Baseball America at the time as being too risky).
Baseball protocol was to put high school draft picks in rookie ball, let them build their confidence and move them up the ranks. The Mets bucked tradition, placing the 18-year-old Gooden in High A. For a month, it looked like a bad decision. Gooden started out the year 3-3 and, based on spring training conversations with New York management, feared he would be sent down to a lower classification if he didn’t turn it around.
“We were telling him, ‘Doc, there’s no way you’re going anywhere,’” Graves said. “‘Your worst day is better than I can dream of being.’”
Things turned around in a hurry. The defining moment came at Shea Stadium on May 19. The franchise had flown Lynchburg and Salem to New York to play as a lead-in for that night’s major league game between the Mets and Padres. Gooden started and struck out 13 in the first eight innings, only to lose the game when the Redbirds scored four in the ninth.
Jim McIlvaine, the Mets’ scouting director who had drafted Gooden, went to congratulate him afterward, only to find the right-hander disconsolate, mumbling to himself.
“I said, ‘You did a great job out there,’” McIlvaine said. “He said, ‘No I didn’t. I lost the game.’ He says, ‘That’s going to be the last game I lose this year.’ And damned if it wasn’t.”
Gooden dominated the rest of the way, winning 15 straight games while shattering the Carolina League strikeout record. He was the total package, a composed hurler able to spot his pitches wherever and whenever he wanted, armed with a fastball that touched 95 on the radar gun.
“You didn’t even have to watch him pitch. You just had to listen,” said Henry County’s deputy county administrator Tim Hall, who covered the team for this newspaper when it was called The News & Daily Advance. “When his fastball hit a catcher’s mitt, it sounded differently than anybody else.”
A lion on the field, Gooden was a lamb off of it, reticent and soft-spoken. The only hint of flamboyance was the cursive “Dr. D” scripted on the side door of his silver Trans Am, a nickname he earned in high school that pre-dated his “Dr. K” status in the big leagues.
“If we all hung around and did things, Doc would be the guy in the background that you really didn’t notice,” Milligan said.
It’s the reason the Mets kept him in Lynchburg, despite his dominance. He needed to develop socially. He was, after all, just 18, two years removed from high school.
On the field, the league was no match for him. On Aug. 12, he nearly threw a no-hitter. Only a bloop single by Peninsula’s Al LeBeouf with two outs in the ninth spoiled his night. Gooden struck out 16 in the game for his 13th straight victory.
“That game, literally, I could have played without a glove,” Milligan said. “I was almost out there with my hand on my hip just waiting to go back in and hit. He was so dominant.”
‘The best player you’re going to see today’
Few people forget their first encounter with Lenny Dykstra. McIlvaine certainly doesn’t. It was prior to the 1981 draft at a tryout in Southern California. A 5-foot-9, 160-pound kid walked in and someone in McIlvaine’s party innocently asked if he was the bat boy.
“No,” Dykstra fired back. “I’m the best player you’re going to see today.”
The outgoing, California can-do attitude served Dykstra well. Built in a Pete Rose mold — hard-nosed and gritty with a load of baseball talent — Dykstra, then 20, boldly predicted that he’d make the big leagues in two years. He did, turning himself into one of the game’s premier leadoff hitters in the mid-’80s and early-’90s.
“He was cocky, but he could back it up,” Graves said.
“Lenny Dykstra was a guy that if he walked on the field, you saw him,” Hall said. “He was crass, he was profane and a very interesting guy to talk to. (But) if you’re talking to Lenny and there’s a pretty girl behind you, he’s not listening to you anymore.”
Naturally, opposing crowds — and even some radio announcers — openly hated him, derisively calling him “Hollywood.” Dykstra’s idiosyncrasies brought most of the ire. He squinted all the time, with a smirk on his face. He’d bounce his shoul-ders up and down in the batter’s box and trot down to first base after walking.
Before each game he’d meticulously wrap a wad of chewing tobacco with bubble gum in the dugout. Once the game started, his uniform was always stained with two things — dirt and a stream of tobacco juice.
“He looked like Pig-Pen,” Hall said. “And he was a guy who would drive the other team crazy, because he looked like he didn’t know what was going on and he beat you to death.”
“If you played against him, you hated him,” Milligan said. “If you played with him, you loved him.”
There was a lot to love. Dykstra busted out in Lynchburg after two decent seasons in Low-A Shelby (so sure in his ability was Dykstra that he refused to sign out of high school unless the Mets started him in A-ball instead of the usual rookie league).
The team’s leadoff hitter, Dykstra meticulously monitored his stats, keeping tabs on a day-to-day basis while competing head-to-head with Carreon, the No. 2 hitter.
His numbers were ridiculous. Near the season’s halfway point, Dykstra’s average was .385. On Aug. 12 he stole his 101st base, breaking the Carolina League record. He’d finish atop the league in seven offensive categories — average (.357), hits (188), stolen bases (106), runs (132), triples (14), walks (107) and on-base percentage (.472) — earning player of the year honors and surprising many in the Mets organization along the way.
Dykstra has a habit of doing that. To the astonishment of everybody, he’s an entrepreneur today, owning several thriving businesses that range from car washes to real estate. He recently ventured into publishing, starting “The Players Club” magazine with the intent of offering financial advice to former athletes.
Against all odds, The Dude — his Southern California greeting for everybody — is widely considered to be an investment expert.
“I figured if he were going to be a financial guru, I would start having babies,” Hall said. “They were the same likelihood. He’s always surprised people, and that’s just another indication.”
Perfect chemistry
It would be hard to find a better manager for the team than Perlozzo, a 32-year-old who was in his third year in the Mets organization and his second as manager, having guided the rookie-league Little Falls team the previous season.
A 5-foot-9, 170-pound second baseman in his playing days, Perlozzo, the former Orioles skipper who is currently the Mariners’ third base coach, made the most of his talent, getting a 12-game taste of the big leagues during his seven years in pro ball. If there was someone who could relate to the life of a minor leaguer, it was Perlozzo, who demanded professional-ism and usually received it.
“Sam never got ruffled. He never raised his voice, at least with the media,” Hall said. “He was a wonderful, calming influ-ence. It’s kind of like the guy who walks into the (kennel) and the puppies are jumping all around. Sam was the guy who could calm them down. He got them to perform. He was the perfect match.”
The clubhouse was equally calm. Milligan, the team’s 6-foot-1, 195-pound enforcer whose nickname was “Moose,” made sure it stayed that way.
“If anybody got out of line, you had to go through Randy,” Olson said. “He was a big, stud first baseman. He was a gentle giant but knew when to put down the law.”
One such instance came early in the year. Fermin Ubri, the team’s all-star second baseman and a close friend of Milligan’s, drilled a ball right at the center fielder for the third out of an inning. He threw his bat and helmet and went out to the field. Milligan rolled him a grounder from first to warm up for the next inning and Ubri, out of frustration, threw it way over Milligan’s head.
Milligan just stood on first, refusing to get the ball. The shortstop told him to get it. He refused. Ubri told him to get it. He refused. Finally, Ubri cursed at him in Spanish, setting off a scuffle between the two teammates.
“Right there on the field,” Milligan recalled, laughing at its absurdity. “Punches were thrown and everything. We wrestled to the ground. And we were winning the game!”
Perlozzo came out to separate the two and later had to kick his still-steaming first baseman out of the dugout. But Milligan had made one thing clear: “I think from that moment on I gained the respect of my teammates,” he said, having hammered home his point about doing things the right way.
There would be few scrapes the rest of the season. Winning cures a lot of problems, and the L-Mets did it in bunches. They set the Carolina League record with 12 straight victories in April and May. Heading into their day at Shea, they had won 20 of 21. They won the first-half division title by 6½ games over a strong Hagerstown club.
Said Wright: “If they lost, you really felt like, ‘Wow, they got beat.’”
A fitting finish
The first of September was a bittersweet day. The Mets had a doubleheader with Hagerstown, needing only a single vic-tory to clinch the second-half title and avoid a divisional playoff. Gooden was slated for the start, his last in Lynchburg. Everybody knew it, too.
He entered the game with 286 strikeouts with his eye on a nice, round number. Gooden delivered a masterpiece, giving up four hits in a 1-0 win. He entered the seventh (and final) inning needing two strikeouts to reach 300. After the leadoff man grounded out, Gooden notched strikeout No. 13. That’s when the Suns brought in pinch hitter Paul Croft.
“It was like, ‘This is over,’” Graves said. “You can’t come off the bench and hit him. You’re coming up cold. And he struck the last guy out.”
The Mets front office called immediately after the game. Gooden was headed for Triple-A Tidewater, where he’d eventu-ally pitch the Tides to the International League title and the first-ever Triple-A World Series. Tides manager Davey Johnson, who would manage the Mets’ big league team the next year, was so impressed with the youngster that he lobbied hard for Gooden to be on his staff in ’84. Management reluctantly obliged and Gooden won National League rookie of the year.
In ’83, though, the playoffs still loomed for Lynchburg, even without its Superman.
“You just never miss a beat,” Graves said. “It was like, ‘We don’t have Gooden, but we have everyone else you would want.’”
Southern Division champion Winston-Salem, led by outfielder Mike Greenwell, was no match. The Mets took the first two games in the best-of-five championship series on the road, 9-8 and 14-6.
They returned to Lynchburg for the third game and trailed 3-2 into the eighth. Making idle chat with the first base umpire in the top of the inning, Milligan claims to have said he was going to hit a home run to win it in the bottom of the inning.
Sure enough, a runner got on and Milligan came up. After the pitcher made several throws to first, Milligan drilled a first-pitch fastball over the right field fence to send Lynchburg on its way to a 4-3 victory and its first league title since 1978.
The city had never — and has not since — seen a run of baseball like the L-Mets of the mid-’80s. With a completely dif-ferent cast, they repeated as champions in 1984. From 1983-85, Lynchburg went 280-137, a record unmatched in minor league baseball. The Mets produced four straight Carolina League players of the year (Dykstra, Barry Lyons, Shawn Abner and Gregg Jeffries), a testament to the organization’s minor league depth.
“Randy Milligan said to me when they went to the Instructional League, that the best games he ever played were the in-trasquad games,” McIlvaine said. “(He said) all the talent that we had there in our camp, it was better than the other teams we were playing against.”
In the eyes of most, the ’83 team was still the best of the bunch, as balanced as any and with star power to boot.
Gooden and Dykstra would go on to fuel the Mets’ 1986 World Series run. The rest of the team scattered throughout baseball. Some made the big leagues. Others, like Graves, who injured his arm after being traded to Montreal, did not.
Still, for that one season 25 years ago, he knew he was part of something special.
“When we showed up at the ballpark, we expected to win,” Graves said. “It wasn’t a cockiness as much as it was confi-dence, because from one end of our roster to the other, we were just talented.
“It was really just an awesome team.”
***
Timeline, 1983
January 17: Sam Perlozzo, then 31 years old, who managed at Little Falls in the New York-Penn league the previous year, is named manager of the Lynchburg Mets.
April 12: The Mets open the season with a 6-4 loss to the Alexandria Dukes before a record City Stadium crowd of 4,602.
May 9: The L-Mets beat the Durham Bulls 11-8, their 12th straight win, the longest streak in Carolina League history.
May 17: Reggie Jackson strikes out 12 batters in six innings of a 6-4 win against Durham. Four Lynchburg pitchers combine for 19 strikeouts, a league record.
May 18: Bill Latham tosses a complete game, four-hit shutout in a 2-0 win against Durham. It’s Lynchburg’s 20th win in 21 games.
May 19: A Day at Shea
The parent club flies the Lynchburg Mets and the Salem Redbirds to New York to play in Shea Stadium as a lead-in to that night’s Mets-Padres game. The Mets charter a 162-seat plane for the one-day trip, the largest plane to land at Lynchburg airport at the time. “We had like an extra foot of runway when we landed,” catcher Greg Olson said.
The team leaves at noon that day and arrives at New York for batting practice. “I’ve got a picture of me standing on the mound,” reliever Joe Graves said. “I wanted to make sure I had a picture in case I never got back.”
Coincidentally, Dwight Gooden is scheduled to pitch. The 18-year-old phenom is as good as advertised, striking out 13 through eight innings. Salem tags him for four runs in the ninth, however. Lenny Dykstra hits a solo homer in the bottom of the inning for Lynchburg’s only run in the 4-1 loss. It would be the last time Gooden loses until Aug. 27.
Afterward, the team stays to watch the big league team play. Darryl Strawberry hits a home run in a 3-2 loss that had a three-hour rain delay. The plane leaves late that night, not arriving back in Lynchburg until 3 a.m., but the trip is well worth it. “I remember walking out on that field,” first baseman Randy Milligan said. “I don’t think I even remember my feet touching the ground. It was the greatest day ever.”
June 15: Reliever Rich Pickett (1.42 ERA, league-leading 10 saves) is promoted to Triple-A Tidewater.
June 16: A 13-6 win against Winston-Salem locks up the Northern Division’s first-half title.
June 18: Starter Bill Latham (8-4, 2.12) earns a promotion to Double-A Jackson.
June 21: The first half ends. Lynchburg (49-20) finishes 6½ games up on Hagerstown (41-25).
June 28: In addition to Perlozzo and trainer Rick Rainer, seven Mets play in the all-star game in Hagerstown: Jeff Bettendorf, Mark Carreon (right), Dave Cochrane, Dykstra, Gooden, Jay Tibbs and Fermin Ubri.
July 1: Gooden puts a halt to Lynchburg’s first two-game losing streak of the season, shutting out Durham 6-0.
July 14: Dykstra steals his 66th bag of the season, breaking Bobby Thompson’s Lynchburg record of 65 set in 1975.
July 23: Gooden records strikeout No. 200, getting the best of Alexandria’s Craig Brown. He’s the first Carolina League pitcher to reach that mark since 1968.
July 28: Dykstra’s 20-game hitting streak comes to end, but the Mets still beat Alexandria 7-6. Gooden fans 10, getting him within two strikeouts of Al Fitzsimmons’ club record of 214.
July 30: Lynchburg loses its second starting pitcher, as the right-handed Bettendorf (13-4, 2.91 ERA) joins Latham in the rotation at Double-A Jackson.
August 2: Gooden strikes out 15 (227 for season) in a 4-2 win against Winston-Salem, breaking the club’s single-season strikeout record.
August 12: Gooden comes within one out of no-hitting Peninsula in a 5-0 win before a crowd of 3,158 at City Stadium. Al LeBeouf hits a bloop single to center with two outs in the ninth to spoil what would have been the first no-no of Gooden’s career. Dr. D strikes out 16 batters in the game for his 13th straight victory to improve to 16-3, but he can only think of the one hit he gave up. “I won’t sleep tonight,” he says afterward.
August 16: A crowd of 4,612 watches as the Mets lose to Durham 6-5. Lynchburg’s attendance for the season reaches 67,793, breaking the previous record of 66,207 set in 1973.
August 23: In a rain-shortened, five-inning 4-2 win against Durham, Gooden strikes out 10, giving him the Carolina League record for strikeouts in a season. The Bulls’ Mike Knox whiffed in the fifth inning for strikeout No. 276, breaking the previous record set by Burlington’s Ken Deal in 1947. Also in this game, Dykstra gets his 171st hit, breaking Frank Grundler’s club record set in 1971.
August 26: Dykstra passes Durham’s Albert Hall on the Carolina League’s single-season stolen base list by swiping his 101st bag of the year. Albert stole 100 just three years prior in 1980. Dykstra’s record would last until 2000, when Potomac’s Esix Snead steals 109 bases.
August 27: Gooden’s win streak finally ends with a 7-1 loss at City Stadium to Salem, the last team to beat him back in May. The Redbirds hit three home runs, including two from catcher John Westmoreland, to halt Gooden’s streak at 15 games, one shy of the Carolina League record. “The kid’s human I guess,” L-Mets pitching coach John Cumberland says afterward. The day’s not a total loss. Gooden is named the league’s pitcher of the year, Dykstra the player of the year and Perlozzo the manager of the year.
August 31: The L-Mets triumph over Peninsula
2-1 in seven innings. It improves their road record to 53-17, the best mark in Carolina League history.
September 1: Tino Garcia works a bases-loaded walk for the only run of the Mets’ 1-0 win against Hagerstown in the first game of a doubleheader, giving Lynchburg the second-half Northern Division crown. It’s the first matching set of pennants in franchise history and puts the Mets in a best-of-five championship series with Winston-Salem. Gooden pitched the clincher, giving up four hits and striking out 14 for his 19th win. That night, the Mets promote Gooden to Triple-A Tidewater in the International League. Gooden finished his time in Lynchburg with a 19-4 record, a 2.49 ERA, 10 complete games, six shutouts and exactly 300 strikeouts in 191 innings.
September 3: Lynchburg wraps up the regular season with a 96-43 record, the best winning percentage of any full season team in baseball. The L-Mets set a franchise attendance record by drawing a league-record 80,104 fans.
September 4: Lynchburg tops Winston-Salem 9-8 in the first game of the championship series. Carreon has four hits and four RBIs. Tibbs takes a 9-3 lead into the ninth, which the Mets nearly blow. Closer Wes Gardner comes in for the save, getting the final out with the potential tying run on base.
September 5: Milligan (sliding, above) has four hits, including a two-run home run, part of a 17-hit effort in the Mets’ 14-6 win in Game 2. Jackson battles back from a midseason slump to go seven innings and give up two runs. In the first two games of the championship series, the Mets score 23 runs on 30 hits. “Each day this team shows me a little more,” Perlozzo says afterward. “I can hardly believe it.”
September 6: Milligan belts a two-run homer in the eighth, lifting the Mets to a 4-3 series-clinching win. Gardner notches his second save of the series, getting Dana Williams to ground out with the potential tying run on base. It’s Lynchburg’s first title since 1978. “It’s the best Class A club in baseball.” says Steve Schryver, the Mets’ director of minor league operations.
September 11: Gooden throws a five-hitter in Tidewater’s 6-1 win against Richmond, clinching the International League title. The right-hander strikes out eight in his second Triple-A start. “When I first saw him, I said this guy is the best pitching prospect I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen some good ones,” Tides manager Davey Johnson says.
October 24: Perlozzo is named the Casey Stengel Award winner as top Mets minor league manager.
December 15: Gooden is named Minor League Player of the Year, an award almost always given to Class AAA players.
