Tom Seaver's First MLB Game!

Longer, Higher Quality Version

Brought to you by the baseball gods: MLB Hall of Famer Tom Seaver's Very First MLB Game!

From the same PannerVision video production which brought you Tom Seaver's start in the 1965 Midnight Sun Game.

This footage was unearthed in 2008 as part of an extensive search to find material for the NEW FEATURE FILM "TOUCHING THE GAME: ALASKA" touchingthegame.com

Free to all participants in the game.. sorry about the text overlay..

See how many people you can spot: Who's on first? Tom Seaver and Yogi Berra! See also Willie Stargell and Roberto Clemente!

Fairbanks loves Tom Seaver. Red Boucher believed in Tom from the first time he set foot in Growden Park in 1964. We miss you Red!

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• alaska
• baseball
• new
• york
• mets
• pittsburgh
• pirates
• stargell
• berra
• clemente
• seaver

[PannerVision]

"thanks for posting this tape. I was at that game with my grandfather and I still have the scorecard I kept (somewhere). I was also at the game Seaver won in the 69 World Series, game 4, and I was at the very last game he ever pitched as a Met, at the end of the 83 season.

We were very excited that day, convinced we'd seen the first performance of a guy who would be our Ace for years to come. Of course, we'd thought the same thing about Rob Gardner a few years earlier." Bugsby

[mattgary1]

staggering

[mattgary1]

no

[senatorsnats]

5005 attended this historical game. Hard to believe that so few went to baseball games back then. I remember my Washington Senators drawing only several thousand per game. The game was so much better years ago compared to today's version, but it's far more popular now than it was over 40 years ago. Lot's of "smoke and mirrors" nowadays that attract marginal fans. You had to be a true fan to attend games in the '60's.

[RRaquello]

Surprised to see such a small crowd. Even though the Mets weren't very good in 67, in the early days at Shea they usually drew pretty big attendance. First game I ever went to was at Shea, either in 67 or 68 and it was vs. the Pirates, but it wasn't this game. It was a Sunday & helmet day. I was only 5 years old and didn't know they were giving anything away After that I expected to get a prize at every game, but soon found out I was wrong. Shea was kind of dumpy & no frills even when brand new

[bondsly]

Typo error i meant Don Clendenon.

[bondsly]

The amazing Mets who up set Baltimore who won 109 games in the 1969 World series behind Tom Seaver and Jerry Koosman with Ron Swoboda batting .400 and Al Weiss batting and incredible .455 and Son Clendenon batting .357 in that series.Then the 1973 World series after the Mets won only 82 games behind manager Yogi Berra that year upset the big Red machine in the playoffs and in the world series Seaver struckout 18 oakland A's and Rusty Staub hit .423 in the A's 4 game to 3 win forcing 7 games.

[pcsbeat]

Terrific! Thanks so much for sharing.

[a8avexp]

I never knew the outfield fence was repainted like that. They must have painted it green at some point later that year. If you've ever seen the original Odd Couple movie, the outfield fence is dark green - that scene was filmed before a Mets-Pirates game on June 27, 1967.

[peterdaniel66]

This is wonderful and gawd Shea Stadium was ugly and awful..

[wheelinthesky300]

Tom would soon drop that initial up and down both-arm movement

(which many pitchers had used in the previous decades).

Virtually no pitchers did that by the early 1970s.