This post will be even more rambling than usual.
I just feel like It’s Over. Like as in the Mets. It’s Over. Everything that was is now gone.
As I went to bed last night I could feel one more piece my childhood slip away. There isn’t much to hold onto any more All gone. All so many years ago now.
I watched SNY for two hours last night. I loved the rage coming from Howie when he got to the end of Seaver’s return. Not the heartbreak of 1977, the one from 1983. Just the stupidity of letting Tom go a second time.
There was 1977, of course, when a scowling cheapskate named M. Donald Grant exiled Seaver to Cincinnati and tried to kill the Mets all in one brilliant brushstroke of idiocy. But that wasn’t enough; 6 ½ years later, the Mets allowed him to leave a second time, this time to Chicago, this time because an otherwise competent man named Frank Cashen thought it wiser to protect a catcher named Junior Ortiz on his roster than a Franchise named Seaver. (Mike Vaccaro, New York Post)
Howie’s opinion was that having Seaver in the 1984 and 1985 rotations (check Tom’s stats with the White Sox, he had two good years) could have had the Mets win the division both years. We can argue some other time about if Gooden makes that 84 team if Tom is still around.
Seaver was on the 1986 Red Sox, and the injury gods prevented him from pitching and probably winning Game 7 and making us Mets fans even more tortured. I just smiled when I read this in the Times this morning.
“It showed a lack of killer instinct,” he said. “When you’re within one pitch of winning, you have to win. If you don’t, you don’t deserve to win.”
On SNY last night, Gary Cohen brought up – and I forget his phrasing – how the Mets really never appreciated Tom, and I think it was a dig at modern times.
That brings us to the statue and all that. I don’t want to go there yet. That rage blast is coming, believe me. It’s all I can do to hold it back today, but my inner Paul Lukas is reminding me that today is not about that or patches or arm bands etc, thats will all come. I will just lead with a reminder to tell people you love them while they are still around.
So, I have this blog about the Mets and right now I feel like the Mets are over. The best thing is there is a game today to restart the cycle. But I don’t feel like doing my Dom vs. Pete act, or goofing on a pitcher struggling in Kansas City, or any of that.
Tom will forever be the Greatest Met. Some young pitcher can come along and win 400 games and have the electricity of Dwight Gooden on a Friday night. He’ll be #2. A Paul Bunyan can come along and play in 3000 straight games and hit 80 HRs a year for 20 years…he’ll be number two.
….
“Tom Seaver was one of the best and most inspirational pitchers to play the game,” Reds owner Bob Castellini said. “We are grateful that Tom’s Hall of Fame career included time with the Reds. We are proud to count his name among the greats in the Reds Hall of Fame. He will be missed.”
Seaver was inducted into the Reds’ team Hall of Fame in 2006. (Via Cincinnati.com)
…
He led the Reds to the National League Championship Series in 1979 when they were swept by the Pittsburgh Pirates.
He owned a league-best 14-2 record in 1981, a strike-shortened season, but the Reds missed the postseason after they finished second in both halves of the season.
The Reds paid tribute to Seaver on their video boards after their walk-off win against the Cardinals on Wednesday: “In loving memory. Tom Seaver. 1944-2020.” (also via Cincinnati.com)
…
This I did not know…
With their fresh-faced California good looks, they were invited to host a television talk show and to co-star in a regional theater production. A 1970 article about the two of them in McCall’s magazine was headlined “Tom & Nancy Seaver: America’s Very Own Beautiful Couple.” (from the New York Times)
And also from the Times.
“Dick Young dragged my wife and family into it, and I couldn’t take that,” Seaver said after the trade. “I called the Mets and said, ‘That’s it, it’s all over.’
I plan to wear my Mets racing stripe Seaver 41 today. Other than that, I have no idea what to do.
