The Mets win the lottery...
The Mets open their 2006 baseball season at Shea Stadium this afternoon but let's go back to the same date 40 years earlier when they made the most important signing in franchise history. It would be a signing that would signal the molding of a championship team just 3 years later...
The Atlanta Braves had drafted a hard throwing right handed pitcher from USC and made the mistake of signing him a month after his college season had started, a rules violation. Baseball Commissioner William Eckert and the NCAA quickly voided the contract, putting the pitcher's name in a lottery drawing among those teams willing to match the Braves' terms of $50,000 and the Mets were the winners...
George Thomas Seaver would spend one year in the minor leagues, joining the New York Mets for the 1967 season and would win 16 games for the last place team and be named National League Rookie of the Year. "The Franchise" would lead the Mets to their 1st World Series Championship in 1969, win 3 Cy Young Awards, 311 games, strike out 3,640 and have a miniscule 2.86 ERA during a 20-year career. In 1992, Tom Seaver would gain election to the Baseball Hall of Fame by receiving the highest percentage of votes (98.84%) ever...
As the New York State Lottery would say, "you gotta be in it to win it" and on April 3, 1966, the Mets did both...
More April 3 Memories...
1882] Outlaw Jesse James is shot to death in St. Joseph, Missouri by Robert Ford, a member of his gang...
1936] Bruno Hauptmann is electrocuted in Trenton, NJ for the kidnap-murder of the Lindbergh baby...
1948] President Harry S. Truman signs the Marshall Plan, allocating more than $5 billion in aid for 16 European countries...
1953] "TV Guide" is published for the 1st time...
1955] Fred Astaire appears on television for the 1st time on "The Toast of the Town" with Ed Sullivan...
1956] Elvis Presley appears on "The Milton Berle Show" (broadcast live from the aircraft carrier USS Hancock, Elvis sang "Heartbreak Hotel", "Money Honey" and "Blue Suede Shoes")...
1962] Jockey Eddie Arcaro retires after 31 years and 24,092 races...
1965] "Wooly Bully" is released by Sam The Sham and the Pharaoh's...
1966] The Mets sign Tom Seaver (feature story)...
1968] Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his "mountaintop" speech to a rally of striking sanitation workers in Memphis...
1982] John Chancellor steps down as anchor of "NBC Nightly News" and is replaced by Tom Brokaw and Roger Mudd...
1985] Baseball owners and players agree to expand the post-season championship series from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven...
1988] The New Jersey Devils beat the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-3 in OT to make the playoffs for the 1st time...
1989] The Mets win their 11th consecutive home opener, 8-4 over St. Louis at Shea Stadium...
1990] Jazz great Sarah Vaughan dies of lung cancer at 66...
1996] An Air Force jet carrying Commerce Secretary Ron Brown crashes in Croatia killing all 35 people aboard...
1996] Unabomber Theodore John Kaczynski is arrested by FBI agents, accused of sending 16 mail bombs that killed 3 and injured 23 during an 18-year period (he was sentenced to 4 life sentences plus 30 years)...
2000] A federal judge rules that Microsoft had violated U.S. antitrust laws by keeping "an oppressive thumb" on its competitors (Microsoft will appeal)...
[To ensure accuracy of dates and content, multiple reference sources are used in the timeline]...
Happy Birthday To...
1924] Doris Day...
1942] Marsha Mason...
1942] Wayne Newton...
1944] Tony Orlando...
1958] Alec Baldwin...
1959] David ("Frasier") Hyde Pierce...
1961] Eddie Murphy...
[Today is the 93rd day of 2006 with 272 days remaining in the year and 56 days until Memorial Day]
