Saturday, March 25, 2023

1971 'BASEBALL'S GREATEST MOMENTS": TOM SEAVER

I just realized recently that for some reason I stopped creating any more "Greatest Moments" cards, my all-time favorite Topps oddball set, so let's get it started again with one for the great Tom Seaver:


Here we celebrate his 1969 campaign that saw him take home the first of his three (shoulda been four) Cy Young Awards while leading the New York Mets to a shocking World Championship over the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles.
In that Cy Young campaign all he did was go 25-7, with a 2.21 ERA, five shutouts and 208 strikeouts over 273.1 innings of work, completing 18 of 35 starts at the age of 24.
He was in prime form in the mid-70’s, putting together nine straight 200 strikeouts seasons while getting tabbed to ten all-star teams in his first eleven seasons.
Seaver was a star baseball player before he was even a pro, commanding HUGE attention during his college days, eventually leading to some controversy when he originally signed with the Braves in 1966, only to have the signing voided, allowing the New York Mets to make arguably the best pick in franchise history in the 1966 amateur draft.
Talk about a colossal "what if" had the Braves been able to keep that signing!