When Seaver was traded I was in a state of paralysis for almost 6 years until the intro of Keith, Doc, and Straw AND a GM that knew what he had to do to build a winner, you listening SA?

Anyway it is hard to read this post as many of the details I have read over the years and the part that D. Young played has never been given it’s due in the Hall of Shame in Shea!

Damn straight I rooted for Seaver! I followed him when he was with the Reds, Back to the Mets, and then with the White Sox and Red Sox!

Do I miss Carlos Beltran and Reyes? Yes, but they are a mere blip on the radar as compared to Tom Seaver and what Seaver meant to the Mets AND NEW YORK CITY!!!

If you want to take it a step further – look at Eddie G when he returned to face the Rangers; Walt Frazier when he came back to the Garden to face the Knicks; Patrick Ewing. These were guys who transcended their sports and became NYC Icons. Tom Seaver will always be my favorite Met.

What many may not realize is Dick Young was also hired by the Mets each year to write the scripts for thier YEARBOOKS which you can see since SNY replays them all the time.

While so many fans have been angry at the Wilpon’s and very critical, I have not been one of them. I think they always were willing to give us a winner. The results were not good but they spent lots of money looking to better the team over the years. The one thing that has bothered me is that they did not have a big bronze statue in front of the new ballpark to honor # 41 who certainly changed the face of the franchise when he first took the mound in 1967 for us.

But without a doubt, I will never forgive M Donald Grant for that day in 1977. He and his crony Dick Young should both be reincarnated….only to die a slow agonizing death.

My favorite Seaver memory other than his “imperfect game” and the strikeout game against the Padres is remembering my father’s favorite words spoken whenever the Mets would get an early run or two in a game. Dad would always say, there’s your support Tom….make it stick!

so wait, you rooted for another team just because you like the player?? Hmmmm…. I will wait to see if you get the same comments i get when i say i root for Hansley and Jose Reyes…

‘It was the loss of innocence for many and served as a stark reminder that when all was said and done, Baseball was a business. Not a game.’

Well said. That’s exactly when I came to this realization. Watching as a kid back then you didn’t really get – or more to the point pay attention – to the business aspect of baseball. It was a game and you rooted for the team you loved. Having just graduated High School when that trade went down, it was the first of many lessons on the road to reality as an adult.

Should have never happened. Grant just never got the he wasn’t going to stop the free agency train. The business of baseball had changed but Grant refused to change with it.

My most vivid memory of that era (78ish) was going out to Shea on a whim with my brother to see the Mets play the Giants. We arrived just as the 2nd inning ended – parked almost right in front of the big Shea Stadium sign (empty parking lot and even emptier ballpark). AND snuck down to seats right behind the Mets dugout. Nobody cared.

Yeah, I was a junior in high school when Seaver got traded, and promptly turned my attention away from the team I was born to love until 1981 when Hubie and Mookie came on the scene, when Nelson Doubleday emerged as the principal owner and when Frank Cashen took the reigns of our beloved franchise.