Famous ’82 Mets draft class had some help from Norfolk products
Helped turn New York into World Series champions
Forty years ago, Mets executives were split over whom to take with the fifth overall pick in what turned out to be a remarkable, franchise-altering 1982 draft. Some in the organization wanted Sam Horn, a high-school slugger from San Diego, while others preferred Dwight Gooden, a rocket-armed prep pitcher from Tampa, Florida.
Back then, the Mets had their spring training home in St. Petersburg, just across the bay from Tampa, so it was easy to scout Gooden. The Mets “must have had 10 people go see him,” says Joe McIlvaine, the Mets’ scouting director from 1981-85 and later their general manager.
They got perhaps their best look at the state high school all-star game in Sebring, two weeks after Gooden’s high school season had finished. Other stars were there, such as Rafael Palmeiro and Mike Greenwell, and Gooden delivered three dominant innings.
“I pretty much stole the show,” Gooden says.
“He was rested and ready and, wow,” McIlvaine recalls. “He blew everyone away.”
It sealed the Mets’ decision. “Guess we made the right choice,” McIlvaine says now, chuckling.
It was the first of many that year. That year, the Mets were so successful at pegging future big leaguers that 48% of their picks (14 of 29) eventually reached the major leagues. It’s the highest percentage in a single June draft in Mets history, according to data on baseball-reference.com. So far, anyway.
The Mets have reached 25% only four other times. Scouts say if you’re getting 8-10% big leaguers in your draft, you’re doing OK. “The likelihood of reaching MLB if you are drafted, through the whole history of the draft (since 1965), is 13.9%,” says Allan Simpson, the founder of Baseball America, the publication that emphasized draft coverage.
Not all of those 14 picks in ‘82 reached the majors with the Mets — they took Palmeiro in the eighth round, for instance, but he didn’t sign.
But that draft is one of the most important in Mets history, bringing key ‘80s cogs to the Mets — Gooden, Roger McDowell (third round) and Barry Lyons (15th). Their second-round pick, Floyd Youmans, was a vital piece of the Gary Carter trade, which many believe was the finishing flourish for the Mets’ club that won the 1986 World Series. Many players in the Mets’ organization, such as Lyons and later Gooden, played in Triple-A in Norfolk with the then-Tidewater Tides.
If the Mets do nearly as well in this year’s MLB draft, which began Sunday night in Los Angeles, look out National League. There certainly is potential for impact, especially near the top, where the Mets pick 11th and 14th in the first round and have two more picks in the second round.
It’ll all be done with fanfare —
television coverage, in-person interviews and social media alerts — that did not exist in 1982. In that long-gone era, Gooden and two other Tampa-area prep stars and likely high picks, Rich Monteleone and Lance McCullers Sr., accepted an invitation to follow their baseball fates via newspaper ticker from Tom McEwen of the Tampa Tribune.
“I was supposed to go third out of the three of us,” says Gooden, who had also signed a letter of intent to play for the University of Miami. He was the first of the trio drafted. “We’re watching and we see [Shawon] Dunston go first overall and, a little while later, the Mets picked me. I had Tom McEwen call New York to make sure it was right.
“I was so excited that I couldn’t even drive,” Gooden adds. “My high-school catcher [Eddie Ganzy] had come with me and he had to drive my dad’s car back to my house. When we got there, there were so much media waiting outside, it was like making the big leagues. All the neighbors were watching. They had no idea what was going on.”
At the time, Simpson says, there was some industry surprise that Gooden had been taken that high. “He was known and there was acknowledgment that he’d get into the first round, but that was viewed as an overdraft,” Simpson says.
Gooden eventually signed for an $85,000 bonus, but not before Gooden briefly thought his pro dream was dead. Negotiations stalled and McIlvaine shook Gooden’s hand and said, “Well, sorry we couldn’t get anything done. Good luck in school.”
“I remember my mom blasting my dad and my dad said, ‘He’ll be back,’” Gooden says. “About three days later, my dad said Joe called and we had a deal.”
Gooden, of course, became a phenomenon.
In 1983, his first full pro season, the 18-year-old Gooden struck out 300 batters at Class-A Lynchburg. A season later, he was the NL Rookie of the Year. A year after that, he won the 1985 NL Cy Young Award with one of the greatest seasons in pitching history.
Youmans had been Gooden’s teammate at Hillsborough High School until senior year, when Youmans moved to California. When Gooden was a junior, Youmans got in trouble with the high school coach, Gooden says, and Gooden got his rotation spot.
The Mets took him 33rd overall
and gave him $62,500 to sign, the highest bonus in the second round, Simpson says.
“His stuff was crazy,” Lyons says of Youmans.
That’s why the Expos wanted Youmans in the Carter deal, along with the already-established Hubie Brooks, a catcher to replace Carter in Mike Fitzgerald and outfield prospect Herm Winningham.
“When you can get Gary Carter, there isn’t much you hold back,” McIlvaine says. “All four of those guys played in the big leagues, but Gary Carter helped us win the World Series. That’s what you’re in business for.”
Before the draft, McDowell, a pitcher at Bowling Green, only had contact with the Mets and the Phillies. He had thrown for legendary Philly scout Tony Lucadello, known for signing Ferguson Jenkins and Mike Schmidt, and talked to Bob Wellman, the Mets scout who handled the Ohio area. Wellman’s recommendation cinched the Mets’ choice.
“Bob said he’d be a good pitcher and I went with Bob,” McIlvaine says. Bob was right — McDowell became a crucial Mets reliever. He signed for $32,500 and went to Shelby, North Carolina, to the Mets’ franchise in the South Atlantic League. He recalls that nails hammered into two-by-fours stripped across the clubhouse wall served as hangers. The only furniture was old wooden benches. Spare? Yes. Beautiful, too.
“I thought I’d died and gone to heaven,” McDowell says. “This was pro ball, what I wanted to do my whole life.”
He initially slept on a cot in an elderly woman’s house for $5 a week, but became roommates with Lenny Dykstra and John Gibbons after another pitcher, known as “The Creature” — McDowell cannot remember his name — got clobbered in a game and moved out in the middle of the night. Moving in with Dykstra meant that McDowell got lifts to the ballpark in Dykstra’s Porsche Boxster.
“It was the only vehicle we had,” McDowell says. “As the new guy, I got the back. I didn’t get to sit so much as lie down back there.”
Eight picks from that Mets draft played at least 253 games in the Majors — Palmeiro (2,831), Gerald Young (640), McDowell (620), Tracy Jones (493), Greg Olson (414), Doug Henry (348), Gooden (318) and Lyons (253).