A newspaper columnist libeled them, but they got the last laugh.
by Rich Watson
Tom Seaver was the lynchpin of the astonishingly successful 1969 Mets, an expansion team that went from cellar-dwelling losers to World Series champions in seven years. The Mets won a second National League pennant in 1973. Seaver and his wife Nancy were the toast of New York.
In 1977, contract renegotiations between Seaver and the Mets broke down. A newspaper column by a firebrand sportswriter made matters worse by implicating Nancy as a factor in the breakdown.
The next day Seaver had been traded.
