Tom Terrific and the Turning Point 1983 Mets

WHEN TOM SEAVER came back to New York Mets 35 years ago, he might as well have stepped into a time machine, the Guardian of Forever or that strange void connecting a World War II Navy yard with the '84 Nevada desert in The Philadelphia Experiment.

The '83 Mets were an infinite loop, a continuum through which one could see the team's amazing past, its sparkling future and the shabby but significant season to come. Even though they'd come nowhere near the post-season, a dozen members of that year's squad had played -- or would play -- for one of the Mets three pennant winners, 1969, 1973 or 1986.

Top: John Stearns, left fielder George Foster
and fireman Neil Allen. Bottom: Tom Seaver,
Mookie Wilson and slugger Dave Kingman

They were a team in transition. Their roster, a mashup of once and future heroes as new owners worked to repair the Mets' relationship with their fans while buying time to build a winner.

Seaver had left the Amazin's at the start of their epic fall in a lopsided one-for-four trade with the Cincinnati Reds. That deal, and the concurrent exchange of their biggest home run hitter for lesser players, came to be known as the Midnight Massacre, June 15, 1977.

From 1969 to 1976 the Mets had been a slightly better than average team occasionally kissed by the miraculous. Riding the arms of Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Nolan Ryan and others, they won the '69 World Series by coaxing just enough offense from Cleon Jones, Tommie Agee and a cast of platoon players managed by Gil Hodges with pre-sabermetric brilliance.

Hodges had a fatal heart attack just before the 1972 season. Three days later, the team acquired clutch-hitting Rusty Staub from the Montreal Expos. Seaver, Koosman, Staub and the Mets eeeked out a second National League pennant in 1973, aided by reliever Tug McGraw, hurler Jon Matlack who'd been '72 NL Rookie of the Year, shortstop Bud Harrelson and, in his last big league campaign, Willie Mays.

But the '73 flag was a fluke, a happy accident that allowed management to overlook some of the shortcomings laid bare the next year when the Mets went 71-91, their first losing season since '68. The retooling began that winter. McGraw was sent to the Philadelphia Phillies for catcher John Stearns. Slugger Dave "King Kong" Kingman was acquired from the San Francisco Giants.

A '75 Mets sensation, Kingman hammered a club-record 36 homers. Staub drove in a club-record 105 runs. Tom Terrific went 22-9, struck out 243 batters, and won his third Cy Young Award. Shea Stadium attendance surpassed 1.73 million, but the Amazin's went just 82-80, costing Manager Yogi Berra and replacement Roy McMillan their jobs.

With free agency dawning, the Mets sent Staub to the Detroit Tigers, making room for rookie Mike Vail, who flopped. The '76 season would be about the lefties in Seaver's shadow. Koosman won 21 games, Matlack 17. Kingman extended his single-season home run record to 37 and the Amazin's won 86 games, their second-most in franchise history.

Darkness descends

Seaver -- so synonymous with the team he was nicknamed The Franchise -- had a hard luck year, going a modest 14-11. It would be his last winning season with the Mets.

Seaver, the 1983 version: older, better paid
and out to prove he could still bring it.

Though Tom Terrific had inked a three-year deal at $225,000 per annum, less accomplished players were getting more on the open market, prompting him to seek an adjustment. Kingman too sought a raise. He was making just $95,000.

Seaver and the Mets struck a mid-season deal, but withering criticism from sports columnist Dick Young prompted him to spurn it and demand a trade. He got one. So did Kingman. The foundering post-Massacre Mets finished last.

Matlack was dealt to the Texas Rangers in a four-way swap that left them with less than they gave up. The Cellar Dwelling of '78 was followed by the trade of an unhappy 3-15 Koosman to the Minnesota Twins for minor leaguer Jesse Orosco.

Finally, after a third straight last place finish in '79,  the Mets were sold to new owners promising fans, "The Magic is Back."

But how to make it so?

Attendance had sagged to 788,905, nearly a million less than in 1975, the halcyon year of Rusty, Kong and Tom Terrific. Seeking to rekindle lost good will, that's where they ultimately went.

Good will hunting

Neil Allen emerged from the wreckage of '79 as the Mets fireman and saved 22 games in 1980. That year, the Mets briefly flirted with .500 before settling to fifth place. Meanwhile, Kingman -- now a Chicago Cub -- was routinely torching his old team, burning them for 20 homers after his trade, three of them off Allen including a devastating grand slam. The '80 Mets hit just 61 as a team.

Kingman and Staub in '81.
The boys were back in town.

To boost their own power and halt the rampaging Kong, the Mets reacquired the slugger. They also signed Staub, a free agent. Rookies Mookie Wilson and Hubie Brooks stayed with the team all year but the Mets still finished an aggregate fifth in the strike-split 1981 season.

Eighty-two saw another power bat acquisition, former NL Most Valuable Player George Foster, fail spectacularly as he hit just .247, with 13 homers, 70 runs batted in. Kingman led the league with 37 homers, but hit just .204.

Again, they finished last.

But Orosco, the kid acquired for Koosman, finally stuck in the majors and scrappy young infielder Wally Backman saw significant playing time. Plus, the Mets had something going down on the farm.

In 1980, they'd drafted outfielder Darryl Strawberry. In '82, they took pitcher Dwight Gooden and traded fallen star Lee Mazzilli to the Texas Rangers for pitchers Ron Darling and Walt Terrell. Now, those kids were on their way.

Things would take a dramatic turn in 1983, starting with Seaver's return from the Reds.

He'd had a bad year in 1982, the worst of his career, going 5-13 for last-place Cincinnati. His re-acquisition was more about righting a grievous wrong than it was about getting results. The biggest, most consequential roster moves were still to come.

On April 5, 1983, Seaver started the season opener. His catcher was Ron Hodges, who'd come up with the Mets as a rookie during the pennant-winning '73 season. Through all of the changes and almost never a starter, he'd remained as did another '73 rookie, pitcher Craig Swan.

In May, the Mets recalled Strawberry from the minors, anointed him the future of the franchise and installed him in right field, displacing placeholder Danny Heep.

They weren't done.

From the '83 yearbook, a rhapsody in blue and orange.
The Mets ended the year a better team than the one pictured here.

Early in the year, Allen came undone, struggling on and off the field. On June 15, 1983 -- six years after the massacre -- he and pitching prospect Rick Ownbey were traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for first baseman Keith Hernandez, a perennial gold glove winner and co-MVP in 1979.

Turning the corner

His acquisition fortified the Mets lineup and forced Kingman to the bench. Bolstered by Hernandez and Strawberry -- who won Rookie of the Year honors -- Foster bounced back with a 28 homer, 90-RBI campaign. Staub set a record with eight consecutive pinch hits and 25 pinch runs batted in. Orosco replaced Allen as closer, saved 17 games, won 13 others and finished third in Cy Young balloting. Reliever Doug Sisk joined the bullpen. Pitching prospect Ron Darling came up in September.

Seaver started 34 games, pitched 231 innings and went 9-14, proving he wasn't finished. But, at season's end, they were still a last place club. That would change with Gooden's arrival the next year, by which time Seaver would be gone again.

That winter, in a calculated risk, the Mets had left their icon unprotected from the free agent compensation pool and he was claimed by the Chicago White Sox. In their uniform he won his 300th game on the mound at Yankee Stadium two years later.

Gooden would pick up the mantle as the team's best pitcher, winning 17 games, striking out 276 hitters and winning Rookie of the Year. The new-look Mets -- Hernandez, Strawberry, Foster, Wilson, Brooks, Backman, Darling, Terrell, Orosco, Sisk and Heep -- went 90-72, finishing second in the NL East behind the Chicago Cubs.

Boosted by the acquisition of catcher Gary Carter from the Expos, two years later, they'd reach the World Series. So would Seaver, as a member of the Boston Red Sox, though a knee injury would keep him from pitching. The Mets prevailed in seven games.
_____________________________

This entry is dedicated to the great Rusty Staub, who died on March 29, 2018 while it was still being written. Staub came through in the clutch on and off the field. His charitable causes, feeding the hungry and caring for the widows and orphans of first responders, hopefully will live on forever.  

For more information, visit www.rustystaubfoundation.com and www.answerthecall.org

-- Follow me on Twitter @paperboyarchive

"By George, We've Got It!" Not. Looking back at the '82 blockbuster that didn't make the Mets contenders

HE WAS AN ALL-STAR, a perennial MVP candidate and he was available.

Thirty-five years ago this month, the New York Mets made what was then the biggest -- and costliest -- acquisition in their history: left fielder George Foster, a man with such impressive power that at his introductory press conference he audaciously warned La Guardia Airport jet traffic not to fly too close to Shea Stadium when he was up.

George Foster, with Mets owners Fred Wilpon and Nelson Doubleday, plus general manager Frank Cashen,
from the 1982 Mets yearbook.

Hyperbole? Sure. But not by much. In 1977, Foster walloped 52 round-trippers for the Cincinnati Reds -- a feat not accomplished since the legendary Willie Mays in 1965 -- hit .320 and drove in 149 runs, winning the National League Most Valuable Player award a year after finishing second to teammate Joe Morgan.

He finished sixth in MVP balloting in 1978, 12th in '79 and fell from consideration completely during a pedestrian 1980 when he still hit 25 homers and drove in 93 runs, but batted just .273.

Portrait in blue and orange

No matter.

In strike shortened 1981, Foster slammed 22 home runs, drove in 90 and hit .295 in 108 games for the shortchanged Reds, who had the misfortune to compile baseball's best record in a year when that didn't mean a guaranteed post-season playoff spot. He finished third in MVP voting behind future Hall of Famers Mike Schmidt and Andre Dawson. The 33-year-old seemed sure join them some day in Cooperstown.

If the '81 season was a cruel one for the Reds, the off-season was worse. The always bountiful New York Yankees acquired two thirds of Cincinnati's starting outfield, center fielder Ken Griffey and right fielder Dave Collins, and Foster was due for a raise. Two years earlier, they'd seen spark plug Pete Rose leave for a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal with the Philadelphia Phillies.

After being the NL's dominant team during the 1970s -- accruing two championships, four pennants and six division titles -- the Reds were in the unaccustomed position of being desperate.

Karmic payback is a bitch.

Five years earlier the Mets had maneuvered themselves into a corner with superstar pitcher Tom Seaver, who sought a three-year, $600,000 contract the team wasn't willing to offer. At an impasse, they dealt him to the Reds on June 15, 1977 for reigning rookie-of-the-year pitcher Pat Zachry, infielder Doug Flynn and outfield prospects Steve Henderson and Dan Norman.

Now it was Cincinnati's turn to beg for a fair return, albeit with a catch. The Mets also had to make a deal with Foster. He would not come cheaply.

Briefly happy new manager George Bamberger
with g.m. Cashen, from the '82 yearbook

The Seaver trade, plus another made the same day off-loading moody slugger Dave Kingman, had heralded the start of a string of last place and near last finishes and the end of the franchise's original ownership.

Upon acquiring the team in 1980, Nelson Doubleday and Fred Wilpon promised fans they'd make it a winning one. In exchange for relief pitcher Jim Kern (acquired for Flynn in an earlier off-season trade), catcher Alex Trevino and ambidextrous pitcher Greg Harris, the downtrodden Mets acquired in Foster a star player still in his prime, something they'd needed and lacked since Seaver left.

Wilpon and Doubleday agreed to pay him $10 million over five years.

Comic strip author-philosopher Charles M. Schulz once observed there was no greater burden than a great potential.

Foster was a man so burdened.

He would be the backbone of a batting order that was to include Kingman, reacquired a year earlier from the Chicago Cubs for Seaver-trade acquisition Steve Henderson, plus cannon-armed right-fielder Ellis Valentine, also acquired in 1981 for Seaver deal piece Dan Norman, and reliever Jeff Reardon. They'd bolster a lineup that included speedsters Mookie Wilson and Wally Backman, plus sophomore third-baseman Hubie Brooks, who hit .307 as a rookie.

The enigmatic Ellis Valentine.
From the Mets 1982 Team Photo Album

Veteran Craig Swan would lead a starting rotation that included a former Cy Young award winner Randy Jones, and a future winner, Mike Scott. Young relievers Neil Allen and Jesse Orosco would anchor the bullpen.

Their manager would be Staten Island native George Bamberger, a former Milwaukee Brewers manager coaxed out of retirement by General Manager Frank Cashen after suffering a heart attack.

In time, the Mets would make Bamberger suffer too.

Swan won 11 games and Allen saved 19, but the pitching staff suffered from a lack of the one thing the Mets looked to have in abundance: offensive support

Valentine, who never regained his form after a 1980 beaning, batted a punchless .288 with just 23 extra-base hits including eight homers and 48 rbis. Brooks trailed off to .249 while Kingman performed the rare feat of leading the NL in home runs with 37, while batting just .204, worse than NL Cy Young winner Steve Carlton of the Phillies, who hit .218. Kong also drove in 99 runs.

Foster, in his first season as the Mets main man, batted a paltry .247, with just 13 home runs, 25 more extra-base hits and only 70 runs batted in, making him the team's second-best power hitter behind Kingman. Valentine's eight round-trippers placed him third. No other Mets batter had more than five homers, though Wilson set a team record with 58 stolen bases.

As a team they won 65 games and lost 97, finishing dead last in the NL East, eight games behind the fifth-place Cubs.

Dave Kingman, aka Kong, aka Sky King,
from the Mets 1982 Team Photo Album

In perhaps the highlight of a lost season, utility man Joel Youngblood started in centerfield for the Mets' August 4 day game in Chicago, got one hit in two at bats before being pulled, mid-game, because he'd been traded to the Montreal Expos. The erstwhile outfielder jetted to Philadelphia in time to join that night's game where he had a pinch single, becoming the first player in big league history to have hits for two different teams in two different cities on the same day.

Foster's power numbers improved in '83, as he stroked 28 homers and drove in 90 runs, though his average fell to .241. Talent around him improved too as rookie right fielder Darryl Strawberry arrived from the minors and Allen was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals for first baseman Keith Hernandez. Seaver was reacquired from Cincinnati after a career-worst 5-13 season.

That help arrived too late for the other George, Bamberger, who stayed just 46 games -- long enough to pencil in a line-up that included Foster, Kingman and Strawberry, but not Hernandez -- before quitting with the team at 16-30 and again mired in last place. He told the press he'd had enough.

Foster lasted until mid-1986, the year the Mets finally fulfilled the Wilpon/Doubleday promise and won it all, by which time he'd become an unhappy spare part in an offensive machine. Batting .227 with 13 homers and 38 rbis, he was released on August 7. Signed by the Chicago White Sox, he appeared in 15 more games before his career ended that year at age 37.

In 1984, his most complete Mets season, Foster batted .269 with 24 home runs and 86 runs batted in, helping the team to win 90 games and lose just 72 for new skipper Davey Johnson, but he was never the menacing all-star offensive presence he'd been while with the Reds.

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