Maybe it’s too soon to hear this story, but it feels important to tell anyway in this week when David Stearns has managed to make himself the most unpopular person presently working in New York City. This isn’t to make him feel any better, mind you, but rather an effort to make you see if, as a Mets fan, you’re lucky you can reach back for a dollop of precedent.

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It’s a confirmed part of Mets history and New York City lore that the most reviled front-office type ever was M. Donald Grant, who engineered Tom Seaver’s exile in 1977, and was aided and abetted by a small cabal of the city’s powerful newspaper voices — actually, a party of one, Dick Young. That was a trade that left real scars in its wake, scars still evident almost 49 years later.

A close second?

Frank Cashen in the middle portion of January 1984.