Friday, June 9, 2006

The next Tom Seaver ... almost



Tom Seaver is a 10th cousin of mine (I blogged about this before) – our common Seaver ancestor is the immigrant, Robert Seaver and his wife Elizabeth Ballard, who married in Roxbury, Massachusetts in 1634.

When Linda and I got married in 1970, Tom Seaver and his wife, Nancy, were big hits in the newspapers and pop magazines, since he was a star pitcher for the New York Mets. We followed his career closely, since he bore our surname and he was the only well-known person with a Seaver surname in the country.

We always had names for our babies while they were in the womb, and we didn’t know the gender, so the names were fairly generic. Our second child was named “T.J.” in the womb and, since it was the bicentennial year (1976), was going to be named “Thomas Jefferson Seaver” if it was a boy. Being big baseball fans, he was going to be “the next Tom Seaver.” My dad was very hopeful and excited about this.

Linda was due in October 1976, and had to go to the DMV to renew her driver’s license. She stood in line and when her name was called, she went to the window and presented her paperwork. The clerk looked at it and said “Are you related to Tom Seaver?”

Linda responded with “I may be any minute.”

Our Tami Joy was born the next day, and has been a joy and a blessing to both of us and to her friends and family ever since. And the "next Tom Seaver" wasn't, so he didn't have real high expectations to meet.

No comments: