Tom Talks to Bob

[G-Fafif]

Bob Costas makes excellent use of his Studio 42 show on MLB Network this Monday at 9 when he hosts Tom Seaver for an hour. Taped during HOF weekend, judging by the promos. But Tom is timeless anyway.

[metirish]

DVR is set.

[Guest themetfairy]

BUMP!

[metirish]

Brilliant TV.

[Guest themetfairy]

metirish wrote: Brilliant TV.

Agreed!

[G-Fafif]

If that doesn't restore your faith in Mets humanity, nothing will.

[metirish]

Olbermann posted tonight about the Matthewson / Seaver "drop and drive" similarity that Costas mentioned.

http://keitholbermann.mlblogs.com/2011/12/12/seaver-and-mathewson/

[metirish]

I mentioned this on Greg's FB but no answer.......

In talking about the trade Seaver got very emotional and talked about how Grant approached him and asked him if he was a communist , and in a disparaging way chided him for joining the Greenwich Country Club, or more likely that he was allowed to join.

Was this all common knowledge?

[Frayed Knot]

The specifics might not have been known even if the general sentiment was.

What you have to remember was that owners at the time - particularly the old guard like Grant - saw themselves in the same way that a patron of the arts did, using their position as part of society's upper crust to do the athlete a favor by paying him a decent living to be playing a kids' game while at the same time providing public service entertainment for the masses. They, of course, were in it for the money but few of them would publicly say so.
So when the 'hired help' got all uppity and began to question that arrangement to the point where they were actually demanding the right to get paid via the same rules of supply-and-demand as anyone else it was unthinkable to the ruling lords and, in their minds, not all that far removed from communism. After all, wasn't the fact that they were starting to invade the ruling class's inner sanctum by joining country clubs proof that they were already over-paid?

Problem was, many fans and media types had been so long conditioned to that type of attitude that many wouldn't have cared even if they had known because they were likely to agree with it.

[Edgy MD]

It was pretty standard fare to accuse anybody agitating through a trade union of communist leanings back in the day. But as FK intimates, a penchant for communist leanings were patronizingly accepted from the hardworking and dimly educated Johnny Lunchbucket who can hardly rub two nickles together and can't even get the grease out from under his fingernails for his wedding ceremony.

A guy joining a country club agitating for his rights through a union? Come on, Tommy-Boy, are you one of the proles or one of the masses?

It was a different time. And Grant (and his ilk), had he (or they) a defter touch with that media, might have been able to sell that angle to fans --- had it been anybody but Seaver.

[G-Fafif]

Tom shared "Communist" and "Greenwich Country Club" in a 30th-anniversary interview in 2007 (it's a little like they're greatest hits now). He's still bitter about the trade. I'm glad he's still bitter. We're still bitter. Don't know how last night's show was edited, but his ire at Grant is usually balanced with "but I got to play in different cities and see the other league so it all worked out." Last night that wasn't there -- which made me rather happy.