Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Mets great Seaver dies at age 75
Tom Seaver, the galvanizing leader of the Miracle Mets 1969 championship team and a pitcher who personified the rise of expansion teams during an era of radical change for baseball, has died. He was 75.
The Hall of Fame said Wednesday night that Seaver died Monday from complications of Lewy body dementia and COVID-19. Seaver spent his final years in Calistoga, California.
Seaver’s family announced in March 2019 he had been diagnosed with dementia and had retired from public life.
He continued working at Seaver Vineyards, founded by the three-time NL Cy Young Award winner and his wife, Nancy, in 2002 on 116 acres at Diamond Mountain in the Calistoga region of Northern California.
Seaver was diagnosed with Lyme disease in 1991, and it reoccurred in 2012 and led to Bell’s Palsy and memory loss, the Daily News of New York reported in 2013.
Nicknamed Tom Terrific and The Franchise, Seaver was a five-time 20-game winner and the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year. For his career, from 1967-86, he had a 311-205 record with a 2.86 ERA, 3,640 strikeouts and 61 shutouts.
He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 when he appeared on 425 of 430 ballots for a then-record 98.84%. His mark was surpassed in 2016 by Ken Griffey Jr., again in 2019 when Mariano Rivera became the first unanimous selection by the writers, and in 2020 when Derek Jeter fell one vote short of a clean sweep.
Seaver pitched for the Mets from 1967 until 1977, when he was traded to the Reds. He threw his only no-hitter for the Reds in June 1978 against the Cardinals and was traded back to the Mets after the 1982 season. But Mets GM Frank Cashen blundered by leaving Seaver off his list of 26 protected players, and in January 1984 he was claimed by the White Sox as free agent compensation for losing pitcher Dennis Lamp to the Blue Jays.
While pitching for the White Sox, Seaver got his 300th win at Yankee Stadium and did it in style with a six-hitter in a 4-1 victory. He finished his career with the 1986 Red Sox team that lost to the Mets in the World Series.