New York Mets Trade Tom Seaver: Midnight Massacre, 1977! 

I was 11 years old and remember it vividly. I cried. RIP Tom Terrific.

6/15/1977 The midnight massacre. i was ten years old. boy did i cry like a baby when Seaver was traded.

This was from a VHS tape that I had too. Came out in 1985 or 86' I think. Tape is long gone. Thanks for this. And a shocking day for this young met fan then.

In Webster's Dictionary under the term "Shumck" it should read: "See M. Donald Grant."

I grew up a big Tom Seaver and Mets fan but like so many, the next day, we traded the Mets for the Yankees. I never watched a Mets game after that unless they were playing the Yankees. For the Mets trading Seaver away would've been like the Yankees trading Mickey Mantle or Derek Jeter.

Met's management and Dick Young, the sports writer, caused this trade; my father never read a column by Dick Young ever again and I didn't watch a Met's game for close to 8 years after they traded Seaver.

Great trivia question - Art Howe made that last out before Seaver was traded.

That last "C'mon George" really got me....

I cried for days

Rip to Mr. Tom Seaver, a great pitcher and legend.

It is so hard every time I watch this. This changed the course of the Mets. Pat Zachary? Doug Flynn? Steve Henderson? For a top 5 pitcher in the history of the game? Ugh! It still pisses me off. He should have been like Jeter and Mariano and played his entire career in NY. Players like him don’t get traded. You’d figure they learned their lesson after trading Nolan Ryan for basically nothing. Then we get him back finally six years later and I cried my eyes out when he walked from the bullpen, but they leave him exposed and the a White Sox snag him. UGH! All of his career milestones were with other teams. Rest In Peace, Franchise. You deserved so much better.

Tom Seaver didnt deserve that. Shea Stadium crowd dropped abruptally when Seaver was traded to Cincinnati and some returned everytime he pitched against the Mets.

I was 11 when that happened...and had been a fan since the "Ya Gotta Believe" 1973 team. It helped me grow to the fact that professional sports teams have no loyalty to their fans, the cities they call home ... or really anything other than the Almighty Dollar. In the years since, I've still followed sports but have never become attached to a particular team. It is always just one Midnight Massacre away from breaking your heart.

I'm a diehard Reds fan...... And I remember this being one of the happiest days of childhood. Tom Terrific.... My all-time favorite pitcher.

M. Donald Grant, the Met's board chairman, was a shithead. He had no plan to change with the times. Free agency, and higher salaries were the wave of the future, but Grant had no intention of running the team any differently than he had been doing, like a cheapskate. I'd say that Grant, and sportswriter Dick Young were equally responsible for Seaver leaving NY. Grant was finally axed in 1978, and died 20 years later. When Dick Young died in 1987, you couldn't find many pro athletes who were sad to see the last of him.

I remember that day as it was yesterday. You don’t do that to a premier star that has proven it to you every year. So sad but I still cheered for him wherever he went. The standing “O” he received during player intros when he was on the Boston team first game 86 World Series was priceless! That’s how much he meant to us in New York. Never to be forgotten. Rest In Peace, Tom!

My all time favorite pitcher. I had a wicked crush on him when I was a kid.

That characteristic shoulder shrug that Seaver made (0:03) when a ball was crushed off him....I can't explain why, but I always thought that looked cool as a kid.

M. Donald Grant was likely THE WORST General Manager in the history of Professional Sports (though Phil Jackson is challenging for that honor). While it is true he did not change with the times, a lot of the problems the Mets had in 1977 really had to do, however, with a long-running estate dispute with the Payson family that continued for many years after the Mets were sold to Nelson Doubleday and The Wilpons in 1980. Dick Young (then with The New York Daily News and later with The New York Post) was no fan of free agency (which was still relatively new in 1977) and that was part of the reason I believe he wanted Seaver out when Seaver wanted more money, having come the era of the "reserve clause" that gave the owners far more control.

Dark times for met fans

This reminds me of when my parents told me the Yankees traded Dave Winfield. I was 9 and couldn't conceive of how my favorite team could trade my favorite player. I stopped rooting for the Yankees until Winfield won the World Series with the Blue Jays. I can imagine how devastated Mets fans, young and old, were when this happened. Watching Seaver's reaction in this video is enough to make you cry.

Total Winner John Stearns was the catcher!!

The contract stuff was BS. Dick Young, a sportswriter for the Post with way too much power in NY, ran Seaver out of town. Seaver wanted a better contract, but Young made it out to be Seaver being ticked that Nolan Ryan just got a huge contract with the Angels. The truth was the Mets were cheap, didn't want to spend to develop or get talent on the team and Seaver was calling the front office out on it. Young was a supporter of Mets ownership and killed Seaver every chance he got in his column. I'll bet he didn't even vote once for Seaver for a Cy Young either. Dick Young ran Seaver out of NY and I'll go to my grave never forgiving that talentless hack of a writer for it. And the fact that the Mets couldn't even get a single legit major leaguer for Seaver shows how bad the front office was...and what an idiot Dick Young was. The only other Met worth a @#$%% was Kingman and they traded him too. To show what bad deals they were, both Seaver and Kingman would return to the Mets years later.

If Mrs. Joan Whitney Payson had lived he never would have been traded...I see Joe Torres number 9 there. Buddy all the boys still hangin around. But honestly that was the beginning of the end of that Era. It wasnt long after that everything changed. Ownership. Front office. Manager. Doubleday- Wilpon. Frank Cashen and crew. Davey Johnson. Then because the Mets were so bad 3 straight Number One picks in Strawberry, Gooden and Darling. Holding onto Mookie. Then the Trade for Keith. The trade for Carter. Hojo. Bringing up Backman and Dykstra. Building a solid bench. Then the trade to Red Sox for Bobby O. Hiring by Davey of a bench coaching staff that included Mel Stottlemeyer as pitching coach. Buddy Harrelson infield, Bobby Valentine, third base, Bill Robinson as batting coach abd first base. The dues were paid after the Seaver Trade. The Mets were rebuilt. I'm glad to this day it happened.

As a die hard mets fan, I'm greatful that I wasn't born for this, I not only wouldn't be a mets fan anymore,, I'd probably change to be a yankee fan.

I have the vhs from where this is from... It's great to say the least

Thank you, Dick Young. Never has a man been so appropriately named.

It was a dark, dark day for baseball, for sure. Unbelievable!

Actually I was upset at the time and stopped following the Mets until 1984. Later I learned -- and should have figured -- that it was a great opportunity. George "Tom" Seaver always had difficulty beating the Reds, but practically no one else.

Can you upload it to RU-vid?

All because he wanted to make about $200K. Less than a dollar for every extra fan he drew.

That would have been a home run in any other ballpark

The Darkest night in Mets history. Trading a HOF pitcher who was the team leader and fan favorite. The absolute worst move in baseball history.

I don't even know how to.. so sorry i can't... Just so you know it's called "An Amazin' Era: The New York Mets 25th Anniversary (1962-1986) [VHS]".. Maybe you can buy it for cheap

Same day I took me road test for my driver license (I passed)

I passed my road test the same day Seaver got traded.

How about June 15, 1983. Keith becomes a Met

Mistake but at least history did t change in that Weaver will always be associated as a Met and not the teams in which he was displaced in their uniforms. Only player to go in the hall with a bust and on top the NY of the Mets!

Tom TERRIFIC. METS HAD NOLAN RYAN ALSO . THE NO HIT KING. PERFECT FARM SYSTEM FOR PITCHING NEW YORK METS

Man the Mets make the dumbest trades.

Too bad degrom didn’t care this much

That’s why the met organization sucks. Do you think the Yankees would trade Jeter, or Rivera, or Williams or any of their great players.😛

terrible trade.