Sponsored by Shea Stadium Remembered
A year after winning the Cy Young Award, 25-year-old Tom Seaver seems to just keep getting better. He ties the major league record of 19 strikeouts—set a year ago by Steve Carlton, against the Miracle Mets, no less. The second-year San Diego Padres are no World Series contender, but they do tie the game in the second inning on a home run by Al Fererra. The Mets take a 2-1 lead on Bud Harrelson’s RBI triple. Seaver shut the door like no one before him—or since.
Seaver finishes off the sixth inning by catching Ferrera looking. He starts the seventh by fanning the best bat in the weak Padres lineup: Nate Colbert. The next three batters go down looking. Pinch hitter Ivan Murrel’s K to end the eighth broke the club record of 15 set by Nolan Ryan—four days earlier.
In the ninth Seaver fans Van Kelly for the third time that day. Cito Gaston, who would later win two world championships managing the not-yet-created Toronto Blue Jays, manages to take strike three. Up steps Ferrera, whose homer accounts for San Diego’s only run in this one-run game—Dave Campbell had the club’s only other hit off Seaver. By now, catcher Jerry Grote has stopped even calling pitchers and just lets Seaver throw the heater. He fans Ferrera for his 10th straight strikeout and the 2-1 win. Nine straight strikeouts had not stood since Mickey Welch did it for the New York Giants in 1884. Eighty-six years later the record falls in front of in front of 14,000 fans on a Wednesday afternoon at Shea.