Signed 87 Set Pickup - Tom Seaver

This was going to be a tough card to get, far before Tom Seaver announced that he would be retiring from public life due to a recent diagnosis of dementia.  He had already largely given up signing, and I knew my best hope of adding him to my collection was going to be through the secondary market.

Luckily, I have two other guys I know that either are putting the set together, or have already completed it.  They both have been helping me look for some of the tougher guys, and when one of them messaged me the other day to tell me that a Seaver popped up on Ebay, I jumped at the chance to go ahead and cross that name off of my list.

The cost was pretty high, but in the end, I would have regretted letting it pass, so I made sure the card would be in my album.

Seaver (b. 1944) played in the majors from 1967 to 1986 for the Mets, Reds, White Sox and Red Sox.  He had a career record of 311-205 with 3,640 strike outs and an ERA of 2.86.  He won the 1967 NL Rookie of the Year Award and was a three-time NL Cy Young Award Winner (1969, 1973 and 1975).  He was a 12-time All Star (1967 to 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978 and 1981).  His best MVP finish was 2nd in 1969.  He won the World Series with the Mets in 1969.  He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1992 with a then-record 98.8% of the vote.  His vote percentage still ranks third all-time.