Article:Players from the Past: Steve Chilcott

In talking off-line with Niteowl, he raised the concern of not having enough time to continue with both his daily column and all the features that go with it. I mentioned I could contribute his "Players from the Past" column, but not on a daily basis. He said with his work schedule time was becoming an issue for him, and any help I could give him would be appreciated, so as long as time is not an issue for me, I will write something on his behalf, beginning now.

If recent history tells us anything, time truly does not heal all wounds, especially when coming to sports. Bill Buckner, a 22 year veteran, former All-Star and batting champion, is still receiving blame for one single play which ocurred twenty-one years ago. How about doubling that amount? How about being looked upon as a failure, almost forty-two years later? Being deemed a failure for things totally out of his control, and by people who don't even remember, or even weren't born yet? I'd bet even if you asked our resident Mets' fans the story repeated would be the popular one, albeit the incorrect one. Time changes the stories, denouncing the bad and giving more credibility to the good. This story should be one of the good, while at the same time the unfortunate.

This is the story of Steve Chilcott.

Major League Baseball in 1965 had initiated the free agent draft, with their first ever pick, the Mets selected left-handed pitcher Les Rohrout of West High School in Billings, Montana. Unbeknownst to them at the time, Rohr would appear in only six ML games and would be out of professional baseball before his 24th birthday. Baseball in the 1960's was a development machine, each team had several minor league teams, including multiple in the same classification. Scouting was broken down into region, it was also common for teams to share information and reports, sometimes on the sly. When a scout found a player he liked, he would contact is regional supervisor, who would come out and see the kid, if he liked him, then he would contact the teams ML front office, where the Player Development Director would travel and watch. If HE liked him enough to file a report, then the General Manager would also make it a point to find the time to see him, even if just one time.

Such was the case heading into the 1966 draft, held as usual at the Commodore Hotel in Manhattan. The Mets had spent the previous three months focusing on the two players they had narrowed their choice down to, Steve Chilcott, and Reggie Jackson. Chilcott was a catcher from Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, California, Jackson a sophmore outfielder and football defensive back from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona.

In scouting Chilcott, the Mets turned to one of their own, former Manager Casey Stengel, then the Mets Vice-President of western scouting who was based in his hometown of Glendale, California. Chilcott, 17 at the time, had hit .500 his senior year at AV, with eleven homers and 38 RBI's in 25 games. Jackson had hit .327 at ASU, finishing second in the nation in homers (15) and RBI's (65). Upon receiving a call from a Mets scout, Stengel drove to Lancaster for a first hand look at Chilcott, he went 4-4, prompting Stengel to put in his report to New York, "one look is enough for me, this kid has all the tools to become a major league hitter." Upon receiving Stengel's report, General Manager Bing Devine and Player Development Director Bob Scheffing both headed to California to watch Chilcott, with both returning to New York similarly impressed.

As the draft approached, both the Mets and the other teams were split on who should go number one. "I was at the draft that day," said then Mets coach Whitey Herzog, "and I remember our GM, Bing Devine surveying all the other teams on their choice, it came back 10-9 for Jackson. "It was a positional choice," said assistant GM Joe McDonald, "at the time we had no adequate catching prospect in the entire system."

Dee Fondy, a former major leaguer and a west coast scout reporting to Stengel, had seen Chilcott more than anyone in the organization. "In our draft meeting, I said I believed Jackson would be a regular ML player by 1968, with Chilcott maybe a year later, but we would be no better off drafting one over the other." "For a high school kid," Fondy continued, "Chilcott had the whole package, he ran well for a catcher, had a strong, accurate arm, understood the game well and was a hard competitor."

When the draft began, armed with file folders of scouting reports and knowing of the organizations need for an impact receiver behind the plate, Scheffing unhesitatingly wrote the name "Steve Chilcott" on the Mets draft board. After signing for a $75,000 bonus, (Jackson went second overall, to the Kansas City Athletics and received an $84,000 contract]]. Following a fall and winter playing in the Instructional League, Chilcott was assigned to the Mets Single A Winter Haven team in the Florida State League. On July 23, 1967, Chilcott, on second base, dove headfirst back to the bag on a pickoff play, with the infielder covering falling knees first onto Chilcott's right shoulder.

"I was in constant pain," Chilcott recalled, "every doctor I saw said the same thing, they couldn't find anything." Finally, in 1970, Chilcott dislocated his shoulder while attempting to throw out a runner trying to steal second base. Upon ex-raying the shoulder, doctors found evidence the shoulder had chronically dislocated as many as fifteen times since the original injury. After surgery, Chilcott's shoulder returned to 90% of what it had been. "I lost some arm strength and it affected my release, too", Chilcott said, "and it also affected my ability to drive the ball, which had been another strength of my game." "I went from a dead pull, dead fastball hitter to someone who couldn't turn and drive anymore, and there are a thousand average lefthanded hitting catchers around."

"Before the injury in 1967, I was leading the team in every offensive category except stolen bases, and I was leading the league in doubles," said Chilcott. "After the injury, with all the rehab and cortisone shots and time lost, (just 29 games played combined between 1968 & 1969), it affected me mentally as well as physically." Chilcott continued to play, suffering along the way two other significant injuries, a broken right hand and a split kneecap. Following the 1971 season, the Mets traded Chilcott to the Yankees, who released him in 1972.

Chilcott returned to California, where he went into the home construction business. He has continued to struggle with injuries, some he believes are related to the original injury over 40 years ago. "I've had surgeries on both shoulders, my back, my hands and on both feet," Chilcott said. "It hasn't been fun, I tell you that."

Steve Chilcott has been unfairly labeled a failure. In the first 40 years of the draft, (1965-2004), only three overall number one picks has failed to reach the major leagues. When counting ALL number one picks in that time, the number is a surprising 37%. A team can't forecast injuries. What if the Mets had taken Jackson with the first overall pick and it was he who had been hurt? The pressure, even then, in the days before money is as much of a factor on who you pick as their ability on the field, for the overall number one to reach the majors was immense. Much more is expected, maybe unfairly, than even the second pick, or fifth or even the tenth. Someone has to be first.

We should be celebrating Mr. October as we do, a truly great player with an equally great knack for the dramatic and a personality to match. We should also be celebrating Steve Chilcott, 3000 miles from his family and friends, alone for the first time and who through no fault of his own had his career taken away from him. Not by drugs or alcohol, not by any other off field indescretions, but by injury. An injury which has happened a thousand times before and since, an injury sustained doing what any other 18 year old kid would kill for, the opportunity to be paid playing a game.

Source: The Baseball Draft, the First 25 Years, published by Baseball America