A Little Dirt Never Hurt White Sox’s Tom Seaver

Tom Seaver gave playing dirty a good name.

His textbook pitching motion, required reading for any student of the art, forces his right knee to the mound as he strains to get every bit of energy out of his legs. The harder he throws, the dirtier he gets.

Seaver just may have the best-known soiled pant knee this side of a detergent commercial.

The earth has been good to Seaver

Chicago’s 8-1 victory over the Angels was his 302nd career pitching win.

Seaver (14-11) pitched seven innings, giving up seven hits and one run. He struck out eight.

Not bad for a guy 40 years old. But to hear Seaver tell it, not good either.

“This was not a textbook pitching exhibition on how to pitch,” he said. “I had too many three-ball counts and I got behind in the count on too many hitters.”

But there was always an out for Seaver on Tuesday. Three times he struck out batters for the third out of an inning, twice with men in scoring position.

It all appeared so effortless. Allow a hit here, a hit there, but when it counted, the knee goes down, the dirt kicks up and the batter walks away with nothing.

It appeared so easy, that after the game a reporter asked Seaver how easy it was.

“This may have looked easy to you pal, but it wasn’t for me,” he said. “I’m really surprised I didn’t walk anybody. But sometimes you have to look beyond your performance and look at the bottom line.”

On Aug. 4, Seaver’s bottom line read 300 after he beat the New York Yankees. Since that night, he had won only one game in seven starts, a 7-6 decision over Texas on Sept. 9.

His ERA for August was 4.33, well above his career mark of 2.82.

Do living baseball legends have letdowns?

Of course any normal human being would probably be thrown off-stride accomplishing something like 300 wins. But then no ordinary human could accomplish 300 wins.

“I don’t think I let down after,” he said. “I’ve been pitching pretty well since. Pitching a lot of times goes beyond wins and losses.”

Was there ever any doubt about a letdown. Of course not. This is Tom Terrific. The fans treat him accordingly.

When the White Sox were being announced to the Anaheim Stadium crowd each Chicago player was given the obligatory boo. Doesn’t matter if the guy works with Mother Theresa on his days off, he’s on the other team.

But when Seaver’s name was announced the only sound from the crowd was a steady and strong applause.

The kind of applause Republicans would give to Hubert Humphrey in the twilight of his career.

Which brings us to the subject of one of baseball’s elder statesman, and when his twilight will start.

It should have been a few years ago. But with the way he looked Tuesday night, he could be around for a while.

“At the age of 40 I don’t think you can take it any other way besides one year at a time,” Seaver said.

Experience does count for a lot, but the reason Tom Seaver has been able to stay around so long is that he has never been afraid to get a little dirty.