Remembering Seaver's stay with White Sox
Moments after Hall of Famer Tom Seaver's death was announced Wednesday night, the tributes and stories started rolling in.
Most of them were Mets related, which made sense considering the standout starting pitcher played over half of his 20-year career with New York.
"This is a terrible ending to a horse(bleep) year," said Ed Kranepool, Seaver's teammate on the Mets for 11 seasons.
Near the end of his career, Seaver joined the White Sox before the 1984 season as a free-agent compensation pick.
Dan Evans was fresh out of college (DePaul) and working in the Sox's front office under then general manager Roland Hemond when Seaver was acquired on Jan. 20.
"I was driving Hemond home that night and we left Comiskey Park well after midnight," Evans wrote on Twitter. "It was a snowy night. We reached my car and found it had been vandalized, with three windows shattered and snow all over the interior.
"Roland and I cleaned it up, and snow kept flowing into the car as we crept home. Hemond said, 'You lost your windshield, but we got Tom Seaver. You'll never forget tonight!' As usual, he was right. I do. #RIP41."
Seaver passed away at the age of 75.
While he won 198 of his 311 games pitching for New York, the right-hander bagged No. 300 when he was with the White Sox.
The date was Aug. 4, 1985, and "Tom Terrific" took the mound at Yankee Stadium and beat New York 4-1.
Ozzie Guillen was a rookie shortstop for the Sox that season, and he had an RBI single in Seaver's milestone victory.
Only 21 that year, Guillen leaned on veteran teammates like Harold Baines and Carlton Fisk for guidance. He also turned to Seaver.
"I was lucky to grow up with the people I grew up with, and Seaver was one of the tops," Guillen told Chuck Garfien on the White Sox Talk podcast. "On my first flight with the White Sox he said, 'Hey, you're sitting here.' We talked baseball on the airplane, the right way to play the game. He always would tell me to have fun but respect the game.' "
Garfien, the Sox's TV anchor and sideline reporter on NBC Sports Chicago, was 14 during the 1985 season, and he was at Yankee Stadium when Seaver bagged his 300th win.
"Earlier that season, I want to say in April or May, my grandfather asked me if I wanted to go to New York City and we would be able to watch a White Sox game because the White Sox would be in New York," Garfien said. "I said, 'Sure.' So we got tickets for August 3 and 4, a weekend series in New York, and it just so happened that when that weekend arrived, we were going to be there as Tom Seaver was going to go after his 300th career victory. It was a complete coincidence."
Garfien still marvels how Seaver threw a 145-pitch complete game against the Yankees.
"Tom Seaver was 40 years old and he went the distance against a team that had Rickey Henderson, Don Mattingly, Dave Winfield, that team went on to win 97 games," Garfien said. "And the White Sox won the game 4-1, which was Seaver's jersey number. There was something in the air, for sure.
"That game will always be special to me because not only did Seaver win his 300th, they were the first road White Sox games I'd ever seen and I got to share them with my grandfather."