FLUSHING, N.Y., April 11, 2022 – The New York Mets today announced the club will unveil a Tom Seaver statue in a pre-game ceremony beginning at 10:30 am on April 15 prior to the Mets’ 1:10 pm home opener vs. Arizona.
Mets owners Steve and Alex Cohen will be in attendance, along with Tom’s widow, Nancy, their two daughters, Sarah and Anne, and Hall of Fame catcher Mike Piazza. The statue will be located to the right of the Home Run Apple in front of Citi Field.
“This is a wonderful way to honor Dad’s legacy, and to celebrate his wonderful years in New York,” said Sarah Seaver, Tom’s oldest daughter. “The Mets have been working on this for years, and to see William Behrends’ vision come to fruition is so exciting and very touching. We are thrilled to share this with all the fans who supported Dad throughout his career.”
“There is a reason he was called ‘The Franchise’,” said Mets Chairman, CEO and owner Steve Cohen, “You can’t measure what Tom Seaver meant to this organization. This magnificent statue will be a wonderful daily reminder to Mets fans coming to Citi Field that Tom Seaver is forever a Mets legend.”
Sculptor William Behrends, who designed and sculpted a Willie Mays statue outside Oracle Park in San Francisco, Tony Gwynn’s monument outside at PETCO Park in San Diego and for over the last 30 years sculped faces onto the Borg-Warner Trophy for winners of the Indianapolis 500, was commissioned for the Seaver statue.
“Tom Seaver’s larger than life presence on the mound and his dynamic pitching delivery were both a challenge and a rich inspiration to me as a sculptor,” said Behrends. “I am most grateful to the Seaver family for being so generous with their time in sharing stories of him and insights into the extraordinary man he was.”
The statue of Tom Seaver features his iconic drop and drive delivery and is two times life-size to scale. The statue is 10 feet high from the granite pitcher’s mound and 13 ½ feet in length. The total weight of the statue is 3,200 pounds (2,000 pounds of bronze and 1,200 pounds of structural stainless steel). The granite mound came in nine separate pieces that weighed 33,600 pounds and added approximately three feet in height.
