My favorite day of all-time at Shea. I will never forget as Tom Seaver strolled in from right field. The Franchise was back. Only a bunch of idiots would ever let him go again. From Sports Illustrated…
At about one o’clock, Seaver went out to the rightfield bullpen to begin warming up. Ed Lynch, the swingman on the Mets staff, was also asked to get ready, in case Seaver hurt the left thigh that had bothered him in spring training.
It wasn’t until the Sunday before the Tuesday, April 5 game that Seaver committed himself to his 14th Opening Day. He’d pulled the quadriceps muscle of the thigh during a spring-training game against the Phillies 11 days before, and he’d missed one warmup game and cut short another tune-up. But on Saturday he’d thrown fine.
As Seaver started warming up, Lynch was pacing back and forth. “All these people were here to see him pitch,” said Lynch, “and if I’d had to start, I could just hear the boos. No, actually, I’d have heard a lot of whos: ‘Who the hell is Ed Lynch?’ “
I was at that game, but don’t recall the possibility of Seaver not pitching…very interesting.
As for letting him go again, I do think it is possible that he may have not fit in with that young clubhouse and Davey Johnson may have not ben too sad to see him go if you get my drift. He was a new manager in 1984 and wanted full authority. It may not have been a bunch of idiots after all. Seaver definitely would not have fit in with the 1986 bunch. That would have been matter and anti-matter mixing.