Here are links to the paper and the powerpoint presentation I gave as a part of the Mets 50th Anniversary conference last month at Hofstra University. My topic was examining each of the transactions involving Tom Seaver, beginning with Bing Devine’s role in “making your own luck” and convincing the Mets to enter the Seaver drawing in 1966, the tension with Don Grant leading to the Seaver trade in 1977, and the story behind his reacquisition in 1983 and loss as free agent compensation in 1984. In retrospect I could have pitched a paper on any one of these deals, rather than all four, as the original paper was something like 19 pages long and I was supposed to have limited it to 12. And even then…
I’ve said this before, but this conference was a great event, and I’m sorry I got to see so little of it. I welcome your feedback!
submitted by gored82 on Wed, 05/09/2012 – 12:32pm.
An excellent read, Jon! I was aware of most of the facts, except that the Dodgers had originally drafted Seaver, and the stuff about Doubleday, Reinsdorf (rather Grant-like himself), and Kuhn, but you did a great job putting it all together.
Submitted by Dominic Longo (not verified) on Tue, 05/15/2012 – 4:27pm.
I wonder how many more of the presenters are hanging around here. It was an excellent conference and excellent presentation. I would be happy to send you the PDF of my paper as well!
Submitted by reiger (not verified) on Thu, 05/17/2012 – 11:47am.
Thanks for a great presentation – and for making your paper available! Since, due to the concurrent panels at the conference, there were so many presentations I could not attend, three weeks ago I requested from the powers that be any available papers – but unfortunately I have not yet received a reply… so yours is the only paper I’ve gotten. Again, thanks for your fine contribution to the event.
Submitted by Dominic Longo (not verified) on Sat, 05/19/2012 – 12:03pm.
If you give me your e-mail, reiger, I can send you mine.
[…] 14 on the back. Tom Seaver had other reasons of course, but the point is, here was a guy, with a history of being bruised by the team and a reputation of something of a maverick, and who possessed a fastball frightening enough to have given the Mets the brushback pitch they […]