Remembered: A Trade More Shocking Than Any Made by the Pirates!

by The Last Hollywood Star


As the Cincinnati Reds come to town and with the debate among Pittsburgh Pirate fans about the team’s recent trades of its best and most popular players, I am reminded about swap that made the din surrounding Freddie, Jack et al. seem like nothing.

I’m talking about the infamous June 15, 1977 day that the New York Mets traded its star pitcher, Tom Seaver, to the Reds for four prospects: pitcher Pat Zachry, second baseman Doug Flynn and outfielders Steve Henderson and Dan Norman. (Sound familiar: stars for prospects?)

Leading up to the trade that shocked Mets fans was a long simmering salary dispute between Seaver and Mets owner M. Donald Grant.

Seaver had also been pleading with the penurious Grant to spend the necessary money on available players to help lift the Mets into contention.

Specifically, Seaver was angered that the Mets, who had finished third in 1976, 15 games out of first place, made no effort to sign any of the new free agents.

Noting that that despite a glaring need for offense and a significant financial advantage over their competitors, Grant and general manager Joe McDonald failed to make an offer for center fielder Gary Matthews, who looked like a perfect fit for the Mets but wound up signing a five-year, $1.2 million deal with the rival Atlanta Braves.

Besides dumping Seaver and his salary off to the Reds, Grant made two other trades at the deadline involving key Met players.

Grant ordered General Manager Joe McDonald to deal the Mets' top hitter, Dave Kingman, who had also been involved in rancorous contract negotiations, to the San Diego Padres for Bobby Valentine. In a third trade, McDonald acquired outfielder Joel Youngblood from the Montreal Expos for utilityman Mike Phillips.

The "Midnight Massacre" (as the trades became known) plunged the Mets into their darkest era. The team finished last in 1977 and lost 95 or more games in each of the next three seasons under manager Joe Torre, who would be fired after a 41-62 record in the strike-shortened 1981 season.

Attendance at Shea plummeted and the Mets would not have another winning season until 1984.

Seaver, however, flourished in his new Cincinnati environment. Over the balance of the 1977 season, he went 14-2. During five seasons and part of a sixth as a Red, Seaver was 75-46 including a no-hitter against the St. Louis Cardinals in 1978.

By the time his career ended, Seaver had a 311-205 record with an ERA of 2.86 and 3,640 strike outs. Elected into the Hall of Fame in 1992 with the highest-ever percentage of first place votes for a pitcher, Seaver is the only Met in the Hall.

Seaver eventually returned to the Mets in 1983 to pitch effectively. By then though, his best years were behind him though.

After his career ended, the Mets retired Seaver’s number 41. In 2008, the Mets invited him to Shea Stadium to throw out the final pitch before the team moved to Citi-Field where he threw out the Opening Day, 2009 first pitch.

In an ESPN poll among his peers, Bob Gibson, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Bert Blyleven and Don Sutton all voted Seaver “the best” of their generation of pitchers.

During the “Midnight Massacre,” I lived in New York. I was not a Met fan but like all New Yorkers, I followed every movement, allegation and counter-allegation made by the Grant, Seaver and pro-management tout, New York Daily News columnist Dick Young.

You’ll have to trust me on this: the noise from the Mets’ fan base was ten times the level compared to the fall out from Freddie and Jack.