Ultimate Mets Database - Memories of Bob Scheffing

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Bob Scheffing

Robert Boden Scheffing
Born: August 11, 1913 at Overland, Mo.
Died: October 26, 1985 at Phoenix, Ariz.
Throws: Right Bats: Right
Height: 6.02 Weight: 180

Bob Scheffing was the most popular Ultimate Mets Database daily lookup on August 11, 2022.

Non-playing roles with Mets

Director of Player Development 1966 - 1967
General Manager 1970 - 1974
Vice President 1971 - 1974
Special Consultant 1975 - 1980

Share your memories of Bob Scheffing

HERE IS WHAT OTHER METS FANS HAVE TO SAY:

agee_of_aquarius
March 31, 2005
Scheffing gets a lot of heat for trading Nolan Ryan, but what most fans don't know is that Ryan was so sick of New York that he had gone to the front office and told them he would retire, rather than play for the Mets in '72. So Scheffing really had no choice but to trade Ryan, or risk losing him for nothing. Getting Fregosi? Pretty weak, in retrospect. But it wasn't Scheffing's idea (or Hodges's) to let Ryan go.

Old Fashioned Met
July 27, 2017
It's my understanding that Bob was not interested in the Mets' general manager job when it became available. He wanted to retire and move south with his wife, but M. Donald Grant persuaded him out of it. Scheffing spent five seasons in the GM position, solely as Grant's hand-picked servant, and didn't do very much. Although he made the trade to bring George Stone and Felix Millan to the team - which helped in the â€™73 pennant drive - his role with the Mets was minimal and he was soon gone. Bob's heart just wasnâ€™t in his work.

Joe Santoro
March 19, 2019
I read in Reggie Jackson's book, 'Being Mister October', that Scheffing passed on making Reggie their #1 draft pick in 1966. According to Jackson, it was because he was dating a Mexican girl, and it would have been a social problem for the organization. Could you imagine what could have been?

Paul
January 28, 2021
Many years ago, former Met Ron Swoboda substituted for sports show host John Sterling on the radio. Anyway, a caller asked how could Met GM have ever traded the young and dynamic Nolan Ryan for an aging, past his prime, Jim Fregosi?
Ron responded by somewhat surprisingly, saying, “Bob Scheffing did NOT make that trade,” and declined to say anything more.
This got me to thinking; did the warm and enlightened Met Chairman of the Board, M. Donald Grant, make the trade or did Met Manager Gil Hodges make the trade with the Angels. I guess we’ll never know; Gil Hodges died of a heart attack during the following spring training and Grant never commented on the disastrous trade.
I remember when the trade was announced at the Winter Meetings, Angels’ GM Harry Dalton commented, “I think that I have made one of the greatest trades in major league history.”
Well, I guess Mr. Dalton has been proven to be 100% correct with that sage comment.

Larry’s (Bad) Mets Memories
December 31, 2021
I’m shocked -shocked- there was BS in the Mets front office! Happy(?) Golden Anniversary! The Great 4-for-1 Deal! Really? Whom else did we receive for (Lynn) Nolan Ryan? But no, it was the Mets who sweetened the pot to land the thitherto untouchable Jim Fregosi! The Fregosi trade! You’re joking? No, that indicates the weak bargaining position with which Ryan was shopped around.
Assuming that LNR was a risk-averse commodity on the open market & the pressure on BS to dump him, the Angels played it shrewdly and BS was played for a fool. So he settles for a washed-up shortstop-turned-3BM for the liveliest young arm in MLB, plus the serviceable Leroy Stanton (expendable because of racism, IMO) & 2 throw-ins. If BS had no other takers -then call it off! Send LNR to the Instructional League. Or package him for a younger principal to a team/city that he could fit into and thus find him worth the risk (to Houston, or the newly arrived Texas Rangers for Toby Harrah?)
From Scheffing to Joe McDonald, the common denominator remains however the negative presence of M. Donald Grant, from passing on Reggie in 1966 to the annual habit of lopsided trades, getaways & the rigid resistance to free agency, culminating in both the collapse of the team & the franchise.
A lesson for life (especially Mets fans): don’t forget the dark & dreary past; we’ll be doomed to suffer thru it again!

Vinson Massif
November 22, 2022
Like everyone else in Mets management, Bob didn't care about the field success of the team. He was there just to serve as M. Donald Grant's personal servant. In the off-season after the lucky 1973 pennant, Bob did not make a single trade to improve the club while each of the other National League teams did something to upgrade themselves. The result of this was the Mets being twenty games below .500 with a fifth-place finish in 1974.

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