Baseball Hall of Famer Tom Seaver aka Tom Terrific turns 68 today. Tom Seaver is without question the greatest New York Met in franchise history. I have been watching baseball for 46 years and I don’t know if Seaver is the best pitcher I’ve seen during that time but he’s at the least on my Mt. Rushmore of Greatest Pitchers. The more I think about it if Seaver isn’t the best pitcher I’ve ever seen, I don’t know who was better.

Seaver had a career record of 311 wins and 205 losses with a 2.86 ERA. He was a 3 time Cy Young Award Winner, a 12 time All-Star. Although best remembered as a Met, he also played for the Reds, Mets again, White Sox and Red Sox. His career went from 1967-1986. He was the best pitcher on the 1969 Miracle Mets World Championship team. He was a first ballot inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame. He is the only player in the Baseball Hall of Fame with a Met baseball cap on the plaque. Tom Seaver and Gil Hodges are the only Mets to ever have their number retired. Tom Seaver never looked right in any uniform other than a Met one.

Tom Seaver also had the highest vote percentage in favor of his induction into the Hall of Fame. He received 98.84 percent of the vote. Only 5 out of 430 voters didn’t vote for him. No one has ever gotten 100% of the vote.

The biggest mistake the Mets ever made was trading Seaver during the 1977 season to the Reds. He was in a contract dispute with Met management and they decided they could do without him. What I remember leading up to the trade was Dick Young’s columns that were very negative towards Seaver and pro-management. Dick Young was a great writer but an awful human being by all accounts I’ve read. If Dick Young wasn’t on your side you must have been alright. You just don’t trade a ‘franchise player’ like Seaver, especially back then.

As a Red he pitched his only career no-hitter, in 1968.

One of my first memories of Tom Seaver is seeing my favourite player Willie Stargell hit a home run over the roof off of Seaver on a July 4th game in 1969 . Only 18 home runs were ever hit over that 86 foot high roof. Willie Stargell ended up doing it 7 times. I was just a kid but I can still remember that blast.

Another thing about Seaver , and a lot of great pitchers are this way, if you are going to get them you had to get them early. You might get your chances early but once Seaver settled in, it was all over.