41

Tom Seaver died. I am rarely affected by celebrity deaths; these aren’t people I knew personally. I did not have a relationship with them. Not many eulogies have found their way into Wise Madness but Tom Terrific cannot be denied. New York was filled with sports hero in my adolescence, Namath, Frazier, and Reed, but Seaver was head and shoulders above them all. The only one that was an in the inner sports pantheon. According to Baseball-Reference he has the second highest WAR of any post-war pitcher, behind only the great pitcher but miserable human being Roger Clemons.

It’s about more than numbers. He turned the Mets from a joke to Champions. The 1969 were not a great team, they were incredibly lucky, but Seaver was as great as his numbers showed. There was a reason he was called The Franchise; he was the embodiment of the team. When he struck out 10-straight Padres he made them look like they couldn’t see the ball. He just fired unhittable pitch after unhittable pitch. On the mound he was master of all he surveyed.

1969 was the most eventful year of my life, baseball might not seem important compared to the glory of landing on the moon or the tragedy of the Vietnam War, but the Mets and Seaver were just as much a part of it. Game four of the World Series coincided with the Vietnam Moratorium. I followed the guidelines from the leadership and went to school but war a black armband. With everything on the line Seaver considered not pitching to respect the Moratorium as he was deeply against the War. He was convinced that he didn’t have to sit out the game to do his part for peace. He made it clear where he stood, just what this 12-year-old wanted from him. I needed peace and I needed the Mets to win.

When the Mets traded him in the midst of another great season, 1977, I gave up on the Mets. I still watched on TV, I still rooted for them, but I would not go to a game. I would not give them my money. It was not a matter of them being bad, it was a matter of them not trying to win, and getting rid of Seaver, their heart. As soon as the team was sold I went back to going to games even though they were still terrible. When they got Seaver back in 1983 I was overjoyed. He was no longer a dominant pitcher, but he was solid. I was crushed when the Mets let him slip through their fingers the next season when they left him open in the Free Agent Compensation draft. I can now see the team’s point. The White Sox got the pick because they weren’t willing to pay enough to keep a player. It made sense to think they wouldn’t want an aging high-priced pitcher. But they did. When Seaver went for his 300^th victory against the Yankees in Yankee Stadium, I was there. It was Phil Rizzuto day so there was a big advance sale. I ended up sitting in one of the last rows in the upper deck in fair territory in left field. I was far away but Seaver still loomed large. He didn’t just win he pitched a complete game. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the game on the line Dave Winfield hit a ball deep to left. From our seats we couldn’t see the left field wall. We heard a cheer go up. Was in Met fans cheering Seaver’s win or Yankee fans cheering Winfield’s home run? We had to look at the reaction of the players to find out. Seaver won! I cheered my lungs out. 42 might be the answer to life the universe and everything but on that day, and today, it’s 41.