Every team has one. The icon. The Man. The one player the fan base agrees — as much as fan bases can agree on anything — who symbolizes all it's ever meant to wear the uniform.

The Mets lost theirs earlier this week. Tom Seaver, whose mystical right arm turned a franchise from a punchline into The Amazins, died at 75. Tom Seaver is the once and future king of his franchise, the same perch that Yaz holds in Boston and the Mick does across town in New York.

His death got me thinking about the sad state of baseball today. Do young people — if there are any young people watching anymore — have a Tom Seaver? Do they have a Mickey Mantle? Do they have a Yaz? Does any team have The Guy who captures everyone's fancy?

If you are a Yankee fan, who is The Guy anymore? Aaron Judge, who can't stay on the field long enough to tie his shoes (which would undoubtedly lead to an oblique injury?)

If you are a Sox fan, who is The Guy anymore? It should be Mookie, of course. But we know how that ended.

And the Mets? Oy.

Across baseball, too ... who is a must watch anymore? I mean, I guess if you are watching baseball to scrutinize launch angle, exit velo and BABIP, you can get your jollies watching anybody. But the rest of us cattle are yawning.

That's why Met fans of a certain age really ought to treasure their childhoods and formative years. They got to watch Tom Terrific.

My friend Bob Bono is the associate men's basketball coach at Coast Guard (the defending conference champs, by the way). Bones has a deep baseball background, too, leading the Waterford Babe Ruth program to several state and regional titles. Bob is famous for saying, "This is Waterford. We don't bunt here."

Anyhoo, Bones texted me this the other day: "(Seaver) had 231 complete games and 61 shutouts. These guys today can't pitch past the sixth inning."

A more cynical fellow might even point out that Seaver managed to win 311 games without ever knowing his "spin rate," too.

In Seaver's 20 years, he eclipsed 250 innings 12 times. Last season, Gerrit Cole, frequently slobbered over in the media and who merited a $324 million contract, pitched 212. Think about that.

My favorite pitcher growing up was Catfish Hunter. Maybe when you're an 8-year-old, you like a guy just because he's called "Catfish," or "Catfood" Hunter as Norm Crosby once called in in a beer commercial.

Or maybe because Catfish was so trustworthy: In 15 years, he pitched 181 complete games and eclipsed 250 innings nine times. From 1974-76, his inning totals 318, 328 and 298. Sorry. But that's the stuff of legend.

Now we have Cy Young Award winners who can't throw 200 innings, as someone named Blake Snell did (or didn't do, in this case) two years ago.

Stats aside, Seaver had that je-ne-sais-quoi. That aura. He was just ... different. Gone are the days when we should refer to athletes as "heroes," but there was probably something heroic about him to little kid Met fans. Maybe big kid Met fans, too.

Simon and Garfunkel had no idea the kind of foreshadowing they provided when they asked, "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?" The Joe Ds of the world, the iconic figures, are gone from baseball. Seaver's death only underscored their absence. It's sad. No wonder why kids don't care anymore. Maybe they'd be less inclined to dismiss baseball as "boring," if they had a Tom Terrific to watch.

But then, baseball is losing its connection to us through starting pitchers making cameos and not aspiring to Catfish/Seaver levels. Players babied on to disabled lists. How there's a corresponding stat for every eye blink whose contexts are rarely explained.

I'll consider myself fortunate to say that I saw Tom Seaver. Makes me feel sad for the rest who didn't.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro