Favorite Athlete: Tom Seaver

Tom Seaver did me a priceless favor on the evening of June 15, 1977. I’d grown up cheering, admiring – worshipping – Seaver, idolized him, kept score for all his games. I was 10. There is never a time when a favorite baseball player means more to you than at 10.

And then he was gone. The papers called him greedy. Seaver called the Mets cheap. I cried the…