The New York Mets unveiled a massive statue of franchise legend Tom Seaver outside of Citi Field a few weeks ago. The 3,200-pound sculpture has been well-received by fans, but unfortunately it features a historical inaccuracy.
Paul Lukas of Uni Watch heard from a longtime reader recently who pointed out that one of the numbers in the rendering of Seaver’s No. 41 jersey has a minor error. The “4” in Seaver’s jersey number does not have the small stub that extended off the right side of the numeral in his actual Mets jersey. Lukas shared a side-by-side comparison of the statue versus the real thing.
The Mets have used the same font for the numbers on the backs of their jerseys for 60 years. Lukas reached out to the sculptor who made the statue, William Behrends, and the artist said there was no explanation for the error on Seaver’s “4.” He simply missed it.
“That clay model, I worked on that for about 10 and a half months. I laid out the torso, laid out the the uniform, and blocked in the letters,” Behrends explained. “At an early stage, I know I had that little stub on the ‘4.’ But during the process of adjusting the model, you take things off and rebuild them elsewhere. So those numbers were probably built and rebuilt five or six times in the process. And in the later part of the process, I clearly was not thinking about the number — I was thinking about other things, and I just missed it. It’s embarrassing.”
Fans who attended the Mets game on April 16 were given a small replica of the statue. The replica features the correct font, which Behrends says proves he had it in an early rendering. He accidentally changed it after that. Behrends said he sent weekly photos of the sculpture to the Mets, which means they missed the error also. Though, he said he does not want to point the finger and that the mistake is “all me.”
Behrends said the error can technically be fixed but that it would be “quite a production.” It is unclear if the Mets will ask him to do that.
Seaver pitcher for the Mets from 1967-1977. He won three NL Cy Young Awards during that span and led the Mets to a World Series title in 1969. The mistake on his statue is so minor that most people would never notice. Others will say it is just standard procedure for a tortured franchise like the Mets.
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