The saga of Steve Chilcott

Steve Chilcott

The New York Mets make what arguably turns out to be one of the worst decisions in franchise history 59 years ago today – right up there with trading Tom Seaver in 1977 – as they select a 17-year-old high school catcher from Lancaster, Calif., named Steve Chilcott with the first overall pick of the 1966 amateur draft.

In drafting Chilcott, the Mets bypass an Arizona State University outfielder named Reginald Martinez Jackson, whom the Kansas City Athletics quickly take at No. 2.

Reggie Jackson at Arizona State

Reggie Jackson eventually plays in New York – with the Yankees, not the Mets – from 1977-81 on his way to the Hall of Fame.

By then, Chilcott is long retired, playing his last game in 1972 on the lower rungs of the Yankees’ farm system. A career-debilitating right shoulder injury keeps him from getting a chance to play more than 22 games above Class AAA.

As Jackson rises through the major leagues, becoming a 14-time American League All-Star and a five-time World Series champion, Chilcott settles for a post-playing career first as a carpenter and later as a realtor.

“I’ve had a good life, although at first it was hard for me to find things to do because I had such a desire to be a professional athlete,” Chilcott later tells the New York Post.

“I had to find my place in the world.”

Chilcott still has a place in the world of baseball lore, if for nothing else than being the guy the Mets pick instead of Reggie Jackson in the 1967 amateur draft.

“I became,” Chilcott says, “the answer to a great trivia question.”