Tom Seaver truly was the greatest of Mets
Mets pitcher Tom Seaver throws against the Atlanta Braves in a National League playoff game in Atlanta on Oct. 4, 1969. Credit: AP/Anonymous
Tom Seaver was nearly impossible to chase from a mound, finishing his Hall of Fame career with 231 complete games, a number that boggles the imagination here in the 21st century. The man forever known as Mets’ greatest player, or simply “The Franchise,” just refused to let go.
That’s why it was so tragic a year ago when Seaver was pulled away from public life, due to the worsening ravages of dementia, and now even more of a devastating blow with the news that he died Monday at the age of 75.
Truth is, Tom Terrific never went anywhere. Not when he’s been held so tightly, for so long, by a Mets’ community — and the baseball world as a whole — that refused to let him go, cherishing Seaver throughout a 20-year career and well beyond retirement.
“For those that knew him, no words are necessary,” fellow Hall of Famer — and his former Reds batterymate — Johnny Bench wrote Wednesday night on Twitter. “For those that didn’t, no words are adequate.”
In hindsight, “The Franchise” was a nickname that actually fit Seaver better as time wore on. In many ways, he was the Mets, his own journey marked by triumph and heartbreak, the exhilarating highs followed by crushing lows.
To this day, he remains symbolic of the team’s greatest achievement, the ’69 World Series title, and its most shocking blunder — trading him to the Reds in 1977 for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman. From the Miracle Mets to the “Midnight Massacre.”
Seaver’s story is the one that Mets fans tell their kids, passing him along as if Tom Terrific were a treasured artifact linking generations. For as much as they glow in speaking of his magnificent Flushing career — 198 victories, four 20-win seasons, 2,541 strikeouts — the lasting ache of his shocking departure is equally part of that identity.
The Flushing faithful that adored Seaver spent their baseball lifetimes trying to fill that void. It took until last year for the Mets — in the eyes of many — to mend that wound, first with the changing of Citi Field’s address to 41 Seaver Way followed by the commission of a long-overdue Seaver statue, which has yet to be unveiled.
“He will always be the heart and soul of the Mets,” Mike Piazza wrote on Twitter last year. “The standard which all Mets aspire to.”
It was unfair that Seaver didn’t get to feel the adoration showered on his ’69 teammates during last year’s anniversary celebration at Citi Field, because no one was more responsible for that magical season — or lifting the Mets from laughingstocks to champions.
Decade after decade, every Mets prospect with Cy Young promise, armed with an intimidating fastball and the mound swagger to match, is touted hopefully as the next Seaver. And no one ever comes close, because it’s an impossible comparison.
Seaver is the only Met without peer. There are other Hall of Famers, and world champs, and retired numbers. But his Cooperstown trajectory combined with that painful, premature exit from Flushing is what immortalizes him among the fan base.
Seaver is the uniquely Mets hero who dominates the sport, charms the city and yet finishes his Hall of Fame career with three other teams. He earned his 300th win for the White Sox and was in the other dugout, in a Red Sox uniform, when the Mets finally became world champions again in 1986. Even when Seaver teamed with Piazza to officially close Shea Stadium at the conclusion of the ’08 season, it generated mixed emotions, as it came right after the Mets were eliminated from playoff contention by that day’s loss to the Marlins.
There were the sporadic cameos since then, and when you were around Seaver, you knew it was a special orbit. He sort of dragged you along, as if by some gravitational pull. The brightest, most charismatic stars do that, without even trying. And the same thing would have happened again in recent years at Citi Field if fate had allowed it.
“I had the honor of unsuccessfully hitting against him and having him as a teammate,” Keith Hernandez tweeted Wednesday night. “No one will ever surpass him that wears the orange and blue.”
And so we’re left with that lasting image in our mind’s eye, the drop-and-drive delivery, that gregarious grin, the sight of pure pitching brilliance. Seaver truly was a larger-than-life character, and despite the grief over his immediate loss, he can’t really be taken away from those who will never let him go.
David Lennon is an award-winning columnist, a voter for baseball's Hall of Fame and has covered six no-hitters, including two perfect games.
