Tom Seaver passes away at 75. My childhood is now officially over.

Tom Seaver, the Hall of Fame baseball pitcher, known for transforming the New York Mets from "loveable losers to formidable foes" and World Champions in 1969, passed away on Monday, August 31st. The cause was complications from COVID-19 and underlying conditions of both Lyme Disease and Dementia.

I posted some ramblings on Facebook last night upon hearing the news. Tears and sadness overcame me as Tom was my baseball idol from time I was 5. Looking at all the posts on LinkedIn, Facebook and all across the sports media, I have a lot of company. Many of us New York born and raised (more specifically Queens born and raised) children of the 1960's and 70's idolized "Tom Terrific" or "The Franchise" as he was often referred to.

I am crushed yet again. Back in early April, I lost my best friend, literally my BFFB (best friend from birth) also from COVID-19. While losing Irwin was a whole different kind of loss, truly devastating, in combination with losing my childhood hero, this is what I consider the final blow to a miserable COVID-based 2020. My childhood is now officially over.

My childhood is now officially over.

Below is a revised version of what I posted on Facebook last night as I have added in some additional anecdotes, musings and supplemental graphics.

My boyhood baseball idol Tom Seaver has passed away. At the ripe old age of 5, I was told by a neighbor in my Forest Hills, Queens, NY apartment building that I looked like a young Tom. I was almost 5, it was 1969. I knew little of the Mets and baseball and Tom Seaver. My mom turned on the TV to show me Tom pitching in the 69 World Series. I watched for what seemed like forever. It was probably less than a few pitches and I turned off the TV. 

By 1973 at age 8, I caught the baseball bug. Everything was now about the Mets and Tom Seaver. Couldn’t get enough. Started collecting baseball cards. Watching games on WOR Channel 9. 

And 1973 turned out to be quite the year. My year. With the Mets reaching the World Series again but losing in 7 games to Oakland A's. I vividly remember where I was during certain '73 series games and plays.

As my baseball, Mets and Tom Seaver fandom developed over the next years, I became a rabid baseball card collector. And as the collection got larger and I got older, I started attending baseball card shows and subscribing to a baseball card collectors magazine. My singular collecting focus turned to Tom Seaver cards and anything else I could find. At the card shows, I was a kid in a candy store.

To this day my collection is a source of pride and joy. Filled with bobbleheads, Mets yearbooks, books, magazines, games, matchbox cars, and anything and everything Tom Seaver. 

1977: That trade on June 15, 1977, a lives in infamy for me. They called it "The Midnight Massacre" as near midnight the trading deadline approached and Mets traded (er, exiled) Tom to Cincinnati. How could they trade Tom? How? To this day, I hate former Mets General Manager M. Donald Grant and Daily News reporter Dick Young who helped instigate a trade. I cried. Again. Yes again, because I cried a year earlier misunderstanding an article in the newspaper that the Mets almost traded Tom to the Dodgers for Don Sutton. 

While I never stopped cheering for my Mets, I did became a closet Reds fan.

I allowed college to get in the way of being there for the most memorable Seaver games. I was ecstatic when he was traded back to the Mets for the 1983 season. Would have loved to have been at his return game on opening day 1983. Instead, I was watched portions of it from my college dorm in Binghamton.

More tears: After the '83 season, the Mets let him slip away again as they left him unprotected in a free-agent compensation draft where the Chicago White Sox claimed him. Mets GM Frank Cashen didn't think anyone would take the 38 year old future hall of famer. Typical Mets.

While I never stopped cheering for my Mets, I did became a closet White Sox fan.

I also missed seeing him win his 300th game at Yankee Stadium as a member of those White Sox. I was busy moving driving a U-Haul truck up from Queens to Binghamton for my first off-campus apartment. It was the only time in my Mets life, that I so badly wanted to be at Yankee Stadium. I needed to be there. But caught the tail end of the game and the celebration when we arrived at the new apartment.

And in mid-1986, Tom was traded by the White Sox to the Red Sox. The Red Sox were looking quite formidable as were the Mets. Would I have to ensure Seaver pitching against the Mets in a World Series? Who to root for? How would I handle that? As it turns out, the Mets and Red Sox did both make it to the 1986 World Series. But Seaver hurt his knee towards the end of the season and although he was very much visible in the Red Sox dugout throughout the Series, he was not able to pitch. The Mets, my Mets, did win that extraordinary Series. I've often toyed with the idea of writing a sports historical fiction book about how that Series would have gone down if Tom wasn't hurt and perhaps made his last hurrah for the Sox at Shea.

I would make it my business to be at the most important Tom Seaver post-career milestone events.

I was at Tom Seaver day on 7/24/1988 at Shea to see him honored and have his #41 retired by the Mets. Tears and goosebumps the entire day. Had those tickets months in advance.

My wife Dinah and I went to Cooperstown in 1992 for his Hall of Fame induction.

This is where I bought the prize possession of my entire Seaver collection. This is the oil painting by famous western artist Thom Ross. I stared at this painting as well as others hung in Gallery 53 on Main Street in Cooperstown, the day before the induction ceremony. Dinah said to me, "you can buy it if you really like it." Talk about love. She didn't sign up for the Seaver collection already finding its way onto the walls of our small Queens apartments.

Some other anecdotes and musings:

I wanted to name my first baby Sarah “Sarah Lynn” just like Tom’s first daughter. Dinah had none of that. Sarah was named Sarah Ariel. 

When we were planning to move from our first house in Stamford CT to our next one, we were getting price quotes and interviewing moving companies. As this one company's rep was surveying our townhouse, he noticed the Tom painting in our loft. He said, we moved Tom from Greenwich out to his Colorado house a few years ago. Done. If you could move the Seavers, you could move the Marlowes.

I almost always wore #41 especially during my years running the FCCJBL here in Stamford. Even my kids did this as they played basketball, baseball and softball in high school. If we had a family seal, 41 would be on it along with fork and knife (but that's a story for a very different article). 

There are so many other stories, too many to count and to write.

Rest In Peace Tom Seaver. Today, I have lost another small piece of myself. So sad. Sad for Mets fans. Sad for Seaver fans. How appropriate that the news of his passing happens on a day when his Mets best their '69 opponent Orioles in this bizarre baseball season and terrible, horrible, no-good year 2020.

Between losing Tom and losing my BFFB Irwin, my childhood is now officially over.