Guest post: The New York Mets 1977-1980

Good morning, today is a travel day for me (and a very busy next three days) so I may be a little slow on the comments.  Dan is minding the store in case Tom Seaver unretires or the injury bug strikes again.  In the meantime, some great guest posts came in over the weekend in response to Mets Yearbook 1976. DyHrd posted a comment about the “black hole” between 1977 and 1984 which I wrote about here.  In turn, that inspired a few others which I’ll post today while I fly the friendly skies.

Here’s Charles:

I was sitting in the living room, in the heart of Bensonhurst. Since that was “the room” that had the TV it was the central area of any given night. The slow news crawl at the bottom of the 25-inch Zenith was only reserved in those days, for real news. Big news. It was in the day before a 24 hour news network and it was long before sports radio.

I wish I could tell you why we werent watching the Mets that night, they were in Atlanta and would win that against the Braves, however Baretta was channel 7.

Eyewitness News, the News we all watched, was telling us the Mets had traded away Tom Seaver.

My father just sat there and said, “Oh no”.

It was a moment even for a pre-teenager that you remember, I never did hear my father say, “oh no” ever again when it came to anything in sports.

That “Oh No” night would give birth to a dark time in New York Met history.

Joan Whitney Payson was a woman before her time.

She was a heiress to a fortune, owned a small percentage of the Giants, the New York baseball Giants.

When those Giants left for the coast, she voted against moving the team to San Fransico.  Her desire to have a NY team other then the Yankees was realized in 1961 when she co-founded and became the majority owner of the New York Mets.

She loved baseball, Willie Mays and wore big hats on old timers day.  She loved the fans and adored the players.

She died in 1975.

One can only wonder what would have happened had she lived, one can only wonder what would have happened if Gil Hodges hadnt died three years before that.

But that’s another story for another time.

Her fortune was left to her husband, Charles Shippman Payson, who cared very little about baseball. He gave the day to day operations of running a baseball team, to his daughters. One of which, Lorinda DeRoulet would become the team president.  Ms DeRoulet sadly, didnt love or understand baseball as much has her mother, so she gave the overall running of the franchise to their trusted financial advisor, M. Donald Grant.

This chain of events would stir the pot of a very distasteful mix for the Mets and their fans.

Its almost impossible to tell the story of the late 70s Mets and their plunge into the abyss without understanding what was happening in baseball.

Free agents, my friend, come one and come all.

The mid- 70s saw the owners and their reserve clause die a long overdue death.

Players,whose contracts were up, now had the right to make their services available to the highest bidder.

Across town something else was also happening.

A loud ego driven man by the name of Steinbrenner who vowed to stay in the back round as an owner was making a lot of noise. He was promising to return the Yankees to their glory years, he promised he would do it anyway he could.

His roster was being filled with charismatic players, some of who Mr Steinbrenner was paying a great deal of money too through this new thing, called free agency.

Mr.  Grant was not amused. M Donald Grant was every bit of his name.  He considered himself a blue-blood who wouldn’t even dream of himself on the same page as a player. He would rub George Thomas Seaver, on many occasions the wrong way, even one time laughing at him and asking how and why he could purchase a golf membership the Greenwich Country Club.

Mr Grant could hardly understand a player actually being allowed in, let alone have a membership at the ritzy conclave.

It would come as no surprise that Grant and Seaver would clash. It would also come as little surprise to anyone that money and baseball and baseball players would never mix.

Grant would openly tell the press, most notably Dick Young, who was a columnist for the New York Daily News, the writer everyone read in the city, that the NY Mets would have nothing to do with free agency.

The same Young whose well documented attack on Seaver portraying his wife as being jealous over the fact that Ruth Ryan, wife of Nolan Ryan was now making more money then the Seavers, whose son-in-law was employed by, you guessed it, M Donald Grant and the New York Mets. Young would constantly write that Grant and the Mets were doing the right thing in the face of free agency and doom and gloom were awaiting the “other team” in town and all others who would partake in the forbidden fruit.

The Mets would not spend money on any of the big name free agents. The fans, the media (some of them) even Seaver would plead with Grant and management to spend and help get them the hitter or two they needed to put them back into the playoff hunt.

The answer was always the same.

No.

What was also becoming very apparent was that the team was not putting any money into the minor leagues either and the talent bud there was now producing players like, RoyStaiger, Butch Benton and Sergio Ferrer.

Things were getting very lonely at Shea.

The stadium would earn the moniker by a banner which was confiscated at a game, “Welcome To Grant’s Tomb”.

By the end of 1978 the Mets drew their lowest attendance figure in their 16 year history.

Meanwhile, the “other team” in town was celebrating back to back to championships.

Bensonhurst was turning into a lonely place also. Most of us, young Met fans were dwarfed by the other team. We paled in comparison and what could we say, Lee Mazzilli was our best hitter, Jerry Koosman could still pitch. Skip Lockwood?

Yay.

At the end of 1978, Mrs DeRoulet who was suffering through her own personal tragedy, dealing with the loss of her husband decided that something had to be done about what had become to her mother’s prized possesion.

After consulting with some, she relieved M Donald Grant of his duties, Grant would remark that he ran things the best he could and in regards to free agency, that people would “come to my grave and look down at me, and say, you were right”. Grant would pass away in 1998, living to the age of 94, there have been no known people going to his grave site and saying he was right.

Dick Young’s son-in-law would move on and so did Dick, commenting how great the Yankees are for New York and how Mets had become a joke of a franchise.

The daughters DeRoulet would run things in 1979 trying to right a ship that had already been struck by an iceberg. The daughters would try, even trying to be inventive by agreeing that the Mets needed a new mascot.

Mettle the Mule would be trotted on the field leaving many to wonder who was the real jackass.

The daughters tried running the franchise as a true business, cutting corners internally, openly wondering if they could get fans to give back baseballs that had gone into the stands. They did realize that should go after high priced players, making several overtures to Pete Rose in the winter of 78. Rose chuckled and politely declined and would sign with the Phillies.

The Mets in 1979 would for the first time in their history draw less then 1 million fans. The daughters much to their own feelings of sadness would put for sale what their mother had loved so much.

The beginning of new era started for the Mets when Doubleday and Co. would purchase the club.

And the first glimmers of light, light from out of the abyss would begin to be seen.

Another take on the dark days will publish on Friday morning.