When Tom Seaver Was Traded, a Poison Pen Didn’t Keep Him and His Wife Down

A newspaper columnist libeled them, but they got the last laugh.

by Rich Watson

Tom Seaver was the lynchpin of the astonishingly successful 1969 Mets, an expansion team that went from cellar-dwelling losers to World Series champions in seven years. The Mets won a second National League pennant in 1973. Seaver and his wife Nancy were the toast of New York.

In 1977, contract renegotiations between Seaver and the Mets broke down. A newspaper column by a firebrand sportswriter made matters worse by implicating Nancy as a factor in the breakdown.

The next day Seaver had been traded.

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The Twisted Path to Marriage for Leo Durocher & Laraine Day

It took two weddings and two divorces before they legally tied the knot.

by Rich Watson 

Baseball manager Leo Durocher met Hollywood actress Laraine Day in 1942. They were married to other spouses at the time, yet they fell in love. 

He divorced in 1943. By 1946, once she obtained a divorce from her husband, bandleader and airport manager Ray Hendricks, she was ready to wed Durocher.

They would have to jump through a number of hoops first.

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