September 16, 1972: Tom Seaver allows grand slam to opposing pitcher Burt Hooton as Cubs trounce Mets

New York Mets ace Tom Seaver was not having a terrific September in 1972. After averaging nearly eight innings per game through August, “Tom Terrific” had to leave his next three starts after five or six innings due to various minor injuries.1 He was also charged with losses in two of those three starts, putting his personal goal of 20 wins in jeopardy. Entering his September 16 start against the Chicago Cubs, Seaver had notched 17 wins, with only five more scheduled starts expected. Mets manager Yogi Berra supported Seaver’s quest for 20 wins,2 even if it meant manipulating the pitching schedule.3

Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Burt Hooton was in his first full major-league season in 1972.  Among the things the 22-year-old Texan had in common with Seaver were a long career and a low batting average.4 Seaver’s 20-season Hall of Fame career included three Cy Young Awards and a dozen All-Star nods. Hooton’s 15-year career included only one All-Star selection and second place in the 1978 Cy Young Award voting.5 Neither pitcher was particularly good at the plate—Hooton’s career batting average was .123, Seaver’s wasn’t much better at .154.

The Cubs (76-64) were 14½ games behind the division-leading Pittsburgh Pirates with only 15 games left to play. The visiting Mets (72-65) were also out of postseason contention. Even without any postseason implications, 20,192 fans showed up on a warm Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field, battered by a 19-mph south wind.6

Hooton worked a clean top of the first, including two of his five strikeouts.

Seaver’s first inning was anything but clean. Don Kessinger opened with a double and scored on Billy Williams’s one-out groundout. Walks to Jim Hickman and Rick Monday, sandwiched around a Ron Santo single, loaded the bases, but Seaver escaped the jam with just one run on the board when Glenn Beckert flied out.

The Mets got that run back in the top of the second. Hooton also walked two, and the tying run scored on Duffy Dyer’s one-out double. With runners on second and third, Bud Harrelson grounded to shortstop Kessinger, who got the out at home to prevent a second run. Hooton struck out Seaver to keep the game tied, 1-1.

Seaver struggled in the bottom of the second, but the game was not yet out of hand. Hooton singled with one out, advanced to third on Kessinger’s single and an error by right fielder Cleon Jones, and scored on José Cardenal’s sacrifice fly. Williams followed with a two-run homer, his 31st of the season and the 350th of his career. Seaver tallied his lone strikeout of the game against Hickman to end the inning with the score 4-1, Cubs.

Hooton worked another clean inning in the top of the third.

The wheels really came off for Seaver in the third. He walked Santo and Monday, and they moved up on a wild pitch. After Beckert popped out to the catcher, newly acquired7 catcher Elrod Hendricks (BA .150) was intentionally walked to load the bases for Hooton (BA .094). Seaver got ahead of Hooton 0-and-2, but he sent the next pitch into the left-field bleachers for a grand slam. It was Hooton’s first home run, in his 34th career game.

That home run sent Seaver to the showers. He was replaced by rookie lefty Brent Strom, who faced seven more batters in the inning, allowing a two-run homer to Cardenal and a run-scoring double to Monday. By the time Beckert flied out again to end the inning, the score stood at 11-1, Cubs. Twelve Chicago batters had come to the plate, and seven crossed it to score.

Hooton allowed only one baserunner in the Mets fourth.

The Cubs added two more runs to Strom’s ledger in the home half of the fourth. Strom walked Hendricks, got two outs, and gave up a second home run to Cardenal, his 17th of the season. Williams reached on an error by first baseman Willie Mays, but Strom got out of the inning with the score 13-1 in favor of the Cubs.

In the top of the fifth, Hooton gave up one-out singles to Bill Sudakis (who pinch-hit for Strom) and Tommie Agee. Sudakis took third on Agee’s single and scored on Ken Boswell’s sacrifice fly. Mays singled to put two on, but Hooton got Jones to ground out, keeping it a 13-2 game.

Hank Webb, making his fourth major-league appearance, took over the pitching for the Mets in the bottom of the fifth and kept the Cubs off the board.

The Mets managed to score three runs in the top of the sixth. Wayne Garrett walked and Dyer singled, putting two on for Harrelson. He singled, and thanks to an error by center fielder Monday, two runs scored and Harrelson took second. Harrelson scored the fifth and last Mets run on Agee’s groundout.

Neither team scored in the next two half innings.

But the Cubs were not done at the plate. They feasted on rookie Bob Rauch’s offerings in the bottom of the seventh, raising his ERA from 4.43 to 6.14 in the process.8 Monday doubled and Hendricks was intentionally walked. The Mets wanted to pitch to relief pitcher Bill Bonham (.222 BA in 14 PA), who had taken over from Hooton in the bottom of the seventh. That worked out about as well as intentionally walking Hendricks to pitch to Hooton—Bonham singled to score Monday, giving Bonham his first career RBI.9

New shortstop Dave Rosello followed with a three-run homer for his second career hit.10 Rauch loaded the bases on two singles and a walk. When Monday came to bat for the second time in the inning, Rauch walked him to score the 18th (and final) Cubs run. Mets manager Berra brought in experienced reliever Danny Frisella to get the final out of the inning.

Those 18 runs were the most scored against the Mets in their 11-year history,11 and were the most scored by a National League club in 1972.12 It could have been worse: Beckert (.258 BA) was 0-for-6 and left a dozen runners on base.

Frisella and Bonham finished the game without allowing any additional scoring. Hendricks collected his fifth walk of the game, the only game in his career with five walks. Hooton was credited with the win, Seaver was charged with the loss.

Afterward, Berra lamented the effect of the wind: “They have the kind of hitters who can get the ball up high in that wind. We don’t. Our guys hit line drives.”13 Ten of the 18 Cubs runs were scored on home runs.

Seaver rebounded four days later with a vintage 15-strikeout complete-game win against the division-leading Pirates.14 He also won his next three starts, giving him 21 wins for the year. Overall, 1972 might be considered a “down” year for Seaver—he earned only one “black ink”15 item in 1972 and placed fifth in the NL Cy Young Award voting.16

As for Hooton, he hit three more home runs in his 15-year career, but never another grand slam. He had 12 more plate appearances facing Seaver, but he never got another hit.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Bruce Slutsky and copy-edited by Len Levin.

Photo credit: Burt Hooton, Trading Card Database.

Sources

In addition to the sources cited in the Notes, the author consulted Baseball-Reference.com and Retrosheet.org.

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CHN/CHN197209160.shtml

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1972/B09160CHN1972.htm

Notes

1 Red Foley, “Ailing Seaver Nets Victory No. 17, 3-2,” New York Daily News, September 11, 1972: 28C. Associated Press, “Homer as Painful to Seaver as Latest Pulled Muscle,” Binghamton (New York) Press and Sun-Bulletin, September 6, 1972: 9-C.

2 Seaver had at least 20 wins in two of his previous three seasons.

3 Joe Trimble, “20 Victories Up to Tom, Gets Yogi Green Light,” New York Daily News, September 6: C26.

4 They also both threw no-hitters and won one World Series ring. Hooton threw his no-hitter earlier in the 1972 season on April 16. Seaver’s was on June 16, 1978, as a member of the Cincinnati Reds. World Series rings were in 1981 for Hooton and 1969 for Seaver.

5 Gaylord Perry, with his 21 wins, placed first. Hooton was also the MVP of the 1981 NLCS, pitching 14⅔ scoreless innings for the Dodgers.

6 George Langford, “Cubs Rip Mets by Two ‘T.D.’s, 18-5,” Chicago Tribune, September 17, 1972: 3:2.

7 Hendricks had been acquired from the Baltimore Orioles for Tommy Davis in August. He wasn’t a Cub for long—they traded him back to the Orioles for Frank Estrada in October.

8 Rauch appeared in only two more major-league games, finishing his 19-game career with the Mets with a 5.00 ERA.

9 Bonham accumulated 24 RBIs in his 10-year career.

10 This was only Rosello’s second game—he had debuted the previous week. He was subbed in for Kessinger at the top of the fifth inning.

11 As of 2024, the Mets’ club record for runs allowed in a game was 26, in a 26-7 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies in June 1985. In 2018 the Mets gave up 25 runs to the Washington Nationals, losing 25-4.

12 It was the most runs any major-league team scored in a nine-inning game in 1972. The New York Yankees had an 18-10 win over the Chicago White Sox in 13 innings on June 3.

13 Joe Trimble, “Seaver Cleavered by Cubs, 18-5,” New York Daily News, September 17, 1972: 115.

14 Red Foley, “Seaver’s 15 K’s Delays Bucs’ Clincher, 4-1,” New York Daily News, September 21, 1972: 129.

15 He led the National League in K/9 innings with 8.6. “Black ink” refers to the bold numbers on a player’s Baseball Reference overview page. A player’s statistics are in bold if they led their league in that category, or bold and italic if they led the majors. Seaver, not surprising for a Hall of Famer, earned plenty of black ink, including in seven categories in 1971 and 10 in 1973.

16 Seaver placed second in 1971 and won the award in 1973 and 1975.