Mets will change Citi Field address to honor Tom Seaver

The Mets will change the address of Citi Field to 41 Seaver Way in honor of Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver, a source said Thursday. At the same time, Seaver Way will replace 126th Street — the roadway in front of the ballpark — at a June ceremony to begin a 50th-anniversary celebration of the 1969 world champion Mets.

The team continues to work on a plan for a Seaver statue and expects to provide additional information during the June festivities.

Mets chief operating officer Jeff Wilpon conceived the idea to change 126th Street and the current address of Citi Field, 123-01 Roosevelt Avenue, a few years ago, according to Mets executive vice president and chief revenue officer Lou DePaoli.

“We’re going to be doing a permanent address and street name change to honor Tom,’’ DePaoli said. “It will be a permanent change to our home address.”

DePaoli said the street and address change has been approved by several agencies, including the New York city council and borough of Queens.

Seaver, 74, recently was diagnosed with dementia, a disorder of the mental processes, and has retired from public life. He will be represented by family members for the reunion of the ’69 team on June 28-30. A ceremony to unveil the street and address change will take place on Thursday, June 27, DePaoli said. The Mets retired Seaver’s No. 41 on June 24, 1988.  

Seaver’s immediate family includes his wife, Nancy, and daughters Sarah and Annie.

Over the last few weeks, the Mets have said they are considering different options to commemorate Seaver’s career with the club. A statue would be the centerpiece.

“We’ve been working on exploring a potential statue option for a couple of years in coordination with the [Seaver] family,’’ DePaoli said. “We won’t be unveiling a statue this season. We will unveil the plans of what it will look like sometime on that [’69] weekend.”

Yankee Stadium has a statue of late owner George Steinbrenner.

The Mets also will announce a promotional schedule of what DePaoli termed a “partnering with more relevant pop-culture brands. It pretty much started off with Marvel a couple years ago doing the Noah Syndergaard as ‘Thor’ bobblehead,” he said. “We saw a massive interest in that. It brought a lot of new fans to the park because they follow Marvel movies or they love ‘Thor.’ It just opened up a new audience for us.”

Bobbleheads of Jacob deGrom, Robinson Cano and Todd Frazier also are planned.

To honor the ’69 Mets, the team will give out a 1969 replica jersey on June 28, followed by a pennant the next day and replica ring on Sunday.

DePaoli was asked if the best promotion is still winning games. “You know, that doesn’t hurt,” he said. “It’s one of those things where, yeah, if you combine a good product with good marketing and sales, it’s going to be a lot of fun for everybody. We know our fans are out there patiently waiting to see the confluence of all of that. They’re excited to see what we’re going to do in 2019.”

DePaoli predicts a big crowd for the reunion and said the club expects an uptick in overall attendance for the 2019 season, starting with a sellout crowd on April 4 against the Nationals in the home opener.

“There is some limited availability for Opening Day, mostly standing room only and singles,’’ DePaoli said. “It’ll be a packed house like it always is. In terms of for the rest of the season, we‘re projecting attendance to go up. I‘m not going to tell you how much, but I can tell you based on where we are today, on our metrics, we are ahead of where we need to be to hit our budget number increase. We’re off to a good start. We are ahead of the pace we need to be to grow attendance.''

Ticket prices are unchanged from last season, DePaoli said.

The promotions start off April 6 with a Frazier bobblehead dressed as a wrestler for the WWE. “Our friends in Stamford [Connecticut] just crossed over a billion social media followers. Obviously, they‘re pretty relevant,’’ DePaoli said. “Todd Frazier bobblehead the first Saturday of the season, promoting ‘WrestleMania‘ the next day, is a different way to try to work with a relevant pop culture brand to help be a win-win for everybody.''

Other promotions include a “Game of Thrones“ bobblehead of Syndergaard and new Met Cano in a Star Wars-themed bobblehead. On July 5, the Mets will hold “Seinfeld Night'' in honor of the 30th anniversary of the first episode of the Jerry Seinfeld sitcom. Actors from the show, possibly including Seinfeld, are expected to attend.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the number of professional athletes in New York honored with statues.