Memories of Winter Meetings Past...

By David Rubin

Prior to 1977 and the trade of Tom Seaver, there was always a sense of fun and wonder for me when it came to speculating about who the Mets might trade for, during the season and ESPECIALLY during the winter meetings. Once Seaver was traded, a lot of my youthful optimism disappeared, as the thought that anyone could be traded at any time was still a very new way to view the game, not only for Mets fans but for all baseball fans. Obviously, free agency changed everything, for better or worse, but "blockbuster" trades were still the most exciting thing a team could be a part of, short of a World Series victory, and the biggest difference from 30 years ago until now is the amount of information available via a multitude of platforms, compared with the few tidbits of information that we yearned for then.

Outside of ridiculous trade rumors from the NY Post's Lyle Spencer and the occasional tidbit here or there, we didn't have the MLB Network, the XM Radio MLB channel, ESPN, the internet, or blogs to let us know what was going on in the world of Mets rumors, let alone baseball rumors. Therefore, in 1977, when the Mets were part of an 11-player, 4-team trade, it caught everyone by surprise- including most of the players. There was no leak prior to the deal, no holding pattern while anyone included in the deal had to negotiate a contract extension, no parts of contracts eaten by any of the teams involved.

Four teams- the Mets, Braves, Rangers and Pirates - and 11 players later- the Mets received Willie Montanez, Ken Henderson & Tom Grieve and gave up Matlack and John Milner; the Braves received Adrian Devine, Tommy Boggs and Eddie Miller, and traded Montanez; the Pirates received Bert Blyleven and Milner, and traded Al Oliver and Nelson Norman; the Rangers received Oliver, Matlack and Norman, and traded Blyleven, Boggs, Devine, Grieve, Henderson and Miller - a blockbuster was finalized, ultimately full of sound and fury, eventually, for Met fans at least, signifying nothing.

The deal allegedly happened as the result of a meeting between Met manager Joe Torre and Rangers owner Brad Corbett over whether or not Milner would be of interest to the Rangers. Shortly afterwards, Braves owner Ted Turner got involved, and after the Pirates made it an even 4, the deal was finally formed after about a half day's worth of haggling. At the end of the day, the Mets lost an excellent starter, good for about 14 wins a season, and saw even less production at first base under the hot dogging of Montanez then they did from Milner; Henderson, a former Giant, was traded a few days into the season; Grieve, a back-up outfielder, saw little success as a player, but eventually came back to the Rangers organization as their General Manager. Oliver and Blyleven were the "jewels" of this deal, and, of course, the Mets received neither one. The Bucs benefited as Blyleven was a starter on their World Series winning team; the Braves benefited by ridding themselves of a large contract under an owner who looked at baseball as a prospecter once looked at the Wild West; and the Rangers would see excellent production from both Oliver and Matlack, but of course didn't get any better as a result of the trade. As a fan, the best part about this trade was the trade itself; at least, at the time, it LOOKED like the Mets were doing something. Ultimately, it was one more bad decision on top of a huge stack of them.

This brings us to today, with the start of yet another set of Winter Meetings about to take place, although this time, our beloved team isn't about to engage in such tomfoolery. Trading for trading sake, to appease a fan-base that is FAR more informed then that of 30 years ago, just simply won't cut it today. I'm glad to see that new team architects Alderson, Ricciardi and DePodesta are going to be far more thoughtful about the moves that they make, putting aside the issue of money, and aren't in this for either a quick-fix or to simply create headlines. We won't see the team trading "useful parts" simply to shake up the roster, and although I still LOVE hearing trades and signings every day, the fact that we have a chance to finally see some fiscal and roster responsibility outweighs the junkie-like "quick fix" that a trade might give me...

(As a side note, the reason I found a 1972 Montanez card for this post is because at the time of the deal, I had probably 15 of those cards, which had a brighter sheen to it then many others from that set, and I took out a bag of magic markers and some construction paper and proceeded to fashion a Mets uniform for our new first baseman. Oh, if ONLY Photoshop existed 33 years ago!!!)