Here’s something to make baseball fans of a certain age feel ancient today - November 17, 2009 marks Tom Seaver’s 65th birthday.  The Franchise was once the Boy Wonder for the 1969 Mets. Now Tom Terrific is old enough to get full Social Security.

Forty years after his biggest triumph, Seaver is still the best-known face of the Mets franchise, and he is arguably the most talented player to ever toil in Flushing.  Seaver won Rookie of Year in 1967, and Cy Young Awards for the Mets in 1969, 1973, and 1975. He led the team to an improbable 1969 World Series title, and a memorable battle against the Oakland Athletics in the 1973 World Series. The Franchise was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1992. Seaver was the only Met player to ever have his number retired. And he was the most beloved player of a generation of New Yorkers.

I was born too late to remember much of Seaver’s heyday with the Mets, or his pitching in either the 1969 or the 1973 World Series. But I do remember The Trade - June 15, 1977 - when M. Donald Grant traded Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds. New York City was irate, and my family was no different. My two older brothers - one of them a Yankee fan - showed up for Banner Day at Shea Stadium that year with this rhyme painted on a sheet:

Rose Is a Red
Vida Is Blue
If Grant Had Those Players
He’d Trade Them, Too

As a Yankee fan, I do remember when Seaver pitched his 300th win, because it was against the Bombers. And because The Franchise got upstaged by a cow. A few years ago, I wrote an article looking back at that day. Seaver was with the Chicago White Sox in 1985 when he went for that victory. The Yankees held Phil Rizzuto Day before the game, and brought out a live cow to honor Rizzuto, who was known for his “holy cow” broadcasting line. The cow knocked Rizzuto down to the ground - he described the bovine as doing “a karate move” on him.  And although Rizzuto openly hoped that Seaver would not win his 300th victory that day, he did get it in New York, albeit at Yankee Stadium.

Seaver ended his career in Boston in 1986, technically on the World Series roster that faced the Mets in the World Series that year (although he was injured at the time.) Tom Terrific got perhaps the loudest ovation of anybody when he was introduced before Game 1 at Shea Stadium that year. He also threw the ceremonial last pitch at Shea Stadium in 2008, and the first pitch at Citi Field in 2009.

The Mets legend, who is now a winemaker, ought to be toasted for what he did for the team - he helped turn a joke of a franchise into World Series champs. Will Johan Santana be able to do the same for the Mets next year? Dare to dream!

Photo by William Hartz

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