tom seaver: rip

The Franchise is dead. There is no other Franchise.

I'm kind of torn about how to approach this. I'm not a big baseball fan anymore. Arguably, I was never a big baseball fan -- I was a Mets fan. And, in particular, I was a Tom Seaver fan. Growing up as a Mets fan in the 1970's, there was no way to avoid being a Tom Seaver fan.

I was just a couple years too young to appreciate the Mets' world series victory in 1969 -- capping an ascent to respectability (and greatness?) that Seaver catalyzed. But he was the  Mets' biggest star for the first several years of my awareness of baseball. And so I followed him, and memorized his stats.

I was heartbroken when the Mets traded him in 1977, but I remained a fan of his -- which did cause me some level of internal conflict when he pitched against my Mets. I continued to memorize his statistics. I was happy for him when he pitched a no-hitter against the Cardinals in 1978, though I felt sad that he wasn't wearing a Mets uniform when he did it.

I could go on, but to what end?

When I would play ball with Jimmy or Anthony (who lived down the block from me), I was always pretending that I was Tom Seaver. Same when I played ball with my schoolmates, Morgan and Joel. Joel, for some reason, liked to pretend he was Vida Blue. I never figured that out.

The thing is, sports stars come and go. In the day, I rooted for Rusty Staub, for Daryl Strawberry, for Dwight Gooden. And for so many others. But Tom Seaver was the first ballplayer I rooted for as an individual (as opposed to as part of a team). And in the annals of the Mets, he was more than just a star. He was the franchise.

A part of my childhood died on Monday.