Morning Briefing: Mets honor Tom Seaver

Tom Seaver is best known as “Tom Terrific” to most sports fans (sorry, Tom Brady). The baseball Hall of Famer will also be known as “Tom the Stadium Statue” and “Tom the Street Named After Him Guy” now in New York. Though those two nicknames don’t quite roll off the tongue as well, it’s unlikely Brady will try to trademark them like he did with “Tom Terrific.”

On Thursday, the New York Mets renamed the street in front of Citi Field in honor of Seaver, who pitched for 12 seasons and won three Cy Young Awards with the team and led them to the 1969 World Series title.

In a ceremony outside their ballpark, the Mets announced that 126th Street was officially renamed Seaver Way and that the address of Citi Field is now 41 Seaver Way, a tribute to the No. 41 Seaver wore throughout his career.

“Tom was a once-in-a-lifetime player and will always be remembered as one of the greatest players in Mets history. Tom truly lived up to his nicknames of ‘Tom Terrific’ and ‘The Franchise,’ ” Mets Chief Executive Jeff Wilpon said at those assembled at the ceremony.

Wilpon also said there are plans erect a statue of Seaver outside the stadium once final plans are approved by the team’s Hall of Fame committee.

In March, Seaver’s family announced that he had been diagnosed with dementia and would retire from public life. His daughters, Sarah and Anne, attended Thursday’s ceremony.

“Being here, it is more joyous and more emotional than what I had anticipated. It’s a wonderful thing, we’re thrilled, Mom and Dad are thrilled,” Sarah Seaver said after the ceremony. “Anne and I are thrilled .… Very humbling.”

Nothing to see here

Whoever is running the Grand Junction Rockies’ Twitter account is not too aware of the area wildlife.

Grand Junction is a minor-league team for the Colorado Rockies and is based in, you guessed it, Colorado. There is a federally protected type of fish, called the Humpback Chub, that swims in the Colorado, Green and Yampa rivers. It’s a well-known fish in the area. So, some fans of the minor-league team thought it would be cool if they changed their team name to the Grand Junction Humpback Chubs. One of the fans, Ian Lummis, started an online petition asking for the name change, and sent a couple of tweets to the team telling them about it.

This brought a strange response from the team: a tweet that has since been deleted but was captured via screenshot by many people. It said, “The GJ Rockies are not considering changing their name and never have. We are owned by a group led by the Colorado Rockies and having a team on the west slope helps build their brand. Suggest we would be called the GJ ‘Chubs’ is offensive and a slang sexual term .…

“The GJ Rockies pride ourselves on providing fun family entertainment and suggesting inappropriate name changes will not be tolerated. Anyone who continues to suggest the GJ ‘Chubs’ in any way will be blocked from our account.”

The problem is, no one suggested they change it to the “Chubs,” which indeed can be a slang sexual term. They suggested it be changed to the “Humpback Chubs,” an entirely different kettle of fish.

There was no context to this tweet when it was first sent out, causing many to wonder if the team had lost its mind. Now, media across the country has picked up the story, and the petition, which had about 15 signatures when the tweet went out, now has 512 and counting, well on the way to its goal of 1,000 signatures.