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An institution for sports talk and information. This is the sports reporters.

Here's Mike Lupica and Bob Ryan.

I'm Bob Ryan of the Boston Globe and ESPN. I am Mike Lupica, MLB.com, and the New York Daily News.

Welcome to this edition of the Sports Reporters podcast.

Mitch is off for a week or so at his orphanage in Haiti doing God's work.

And we have much to talk about today.

And we thought that the conversation would be almost exclusively about the NBA playoffs and the games we saw last night.

And then came the word last evening that the great Tom Seaver had passed away.

He has been battling dementia.

It turns out COVID-19 and he never really recovered from Lyme disease. And Tom

Steve had died at the age of 75. I knew him a long time, but you didn't have to know him to know him.

And Bob, as I was saying to somebody last night, as sad as the news was, it was another occasion for it to be October of 1969 all over again.

And I wrote in the column I wrote last night, Bobby, Tom Seaver didn't win as much as Michael Jordan, but he was the Mets the way Michael Jordan is the Bulls. And, you know,

only people of an age can speak properly about what 1969 met, meant in New York City.

Seaver came along in 67, Bob. It was 10 years after the Dodgers and the Giants had left Brooklyn and the Polar Grounds for California.

And, you know, for years, I've said he didn't make the pain of that go away for New York baseball fans.

But Seaver was the first guy who made it hurt a little less.

Oh, he was a transcendent figure, and the thing was that in addition to the prowess on the mound,

he was a compelling personality, captivated the media with this wit and intelligence.

All but one major media person didn't quite

sign on, and we got to talk about the Dick Young feud because it speaks to a time and

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