God, Seaver passing stings. I never got to see him pitch, but watching old games and footage and then looking at where he ranks in almost every major pitching statistic post World War II, there's a case to be made that he's the greatest right-hander to ever start a MLB game.
I always view Seaver through the prism of how it must've been to watch him burst onto the scene from my dad's point of view. My dad comes from a family of first generation Sicilian immigrants and their children, most of whom were National League fans, but with the Giants and Dodgers gone after 1957 dad could've easily become a Yankees fan; after all, he was 8-9 years old when the Maris/Mantle home run chase was happening and the Yankees won the '61 World Series. And while dad did love Mantle, he still immediately embraced the Mets when they started the next year...and got to put up with years of losing in return.
But Tom Seaver appearing in '67 was the first big sign that that faith was going to be rewarded, and by 1969 the Miracle Mets happened, with Seaver leading the way. Makes me feel a little bit better about growing up and having to tolerate all the Wilpon-related nonsense I've seen as a Mets fan. But what really sucks here is that Seaver's death was announced on my dad's birthday; just another kick from a year that's been crappy for everybody, tearing a chunk of his youth away like that.
Still, I'm probably going to get on YouTube and find some old games to watch, like Seaver's return to the Mets on Opening Day 1983. Hard to fathom a pitcher that great for so long, and harder to fathom what he meant to generations of fans; the Devils equivalent is the connection so many of us felt with Marty, both because of his in-game performance and what he represented for the franchise as a whole.
