NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Tom Seaver transformed a franchise and captivated a city, setting enduring standards as he whipped his powerful right arm overhead for the Miracle Mets and dirtied his right knee atop major league mounds for two decades.
A consummate pro and pitching icon, he finished fulfilled after a career remembered with awe long after his final strikeout.
“It is the last beautiful flower in the perfect bouquet,” Seaver said on the afternoon he was inducted into baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Seaver, the galvanizing force who steered the New York Mets from the National League cellar to a stunning World Series title in 1969, has died. He was 75.
The Hall 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.
“He will always be the heart and soul of the Mets, the standard which all Mets aspire to,” Mike Piazza, a former Mets catcher and Hall of Famer, tweeted when Seaver’s dementia diagnosis was announced.
Nicknamed Tom Terrific and The Franchise, Seaver was a five-time 20-game winner and the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year. He went 311-205 with a 2.86 ERA, 3,640 strikeouts and 61 shutouts during an illustrious career that lasted from 1967-86. He became a constant on magazine covers and a media presence, calling postseason games on NBC and ABC even while still an active player.
“He was simply the greatest Mets player of all-time and among the best to ever play the game,” Mets owner Fred Wilpon and son Jeff, the team’s chief operating officer, said in a statement.
Seaver 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 baseball writers, and in 2020 when Derek Jeter fell one vote short of a clean sweep.
Seaver also spent time on the First Coast with the then Jacksonville Suns.
