And now for my second Tom Seaver reference in an hour.
Mark Armour is a fabulous baseball researcher. He’s the man in charge of the Society for American Baseball Research’s indispensable Baseball Biography project. He also just finished what stands to become the definitive book on Joe Cronin, one of the major figures in baseball history. It’s coming out on April 1st, and you should probably order it.
But he has decided to add “pain in my butt” to his resume, as he sent me an email reminding me that yesterday was the 44th anniversary of the Braves ill-fated signing of Tom Seaver:
Seaver grabbed the attention of big league scouts after going 10-2 as a sophomore at the University of Southern California in 1965. He was drafted in the 10th round of the very first Major League Baseball June Amateur Draft that year by the Dodgers, but could not come to an agreement with the team.
Less than a year later, on Feb. 24, 1966, Seaver signed a $40,000 contract with the Braves. But just six days after Seaver signed, Commissioner William “Spike” Eckert ruled that the Braves’ contract was void because USC’s baseball season was still in progress. Suddenly, Seaver was a man without a team.
Ah, forget it. Ted Turner probably would have just traded him for a warm bucket of spit and some Montana ranch land in 1976. Better that the Mets did it in 1977.
