Although he had spent most of his career with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals, Torre had grown up and played his first baseball in Brooklyn.
The conflict came to a head two weeks after Torre took over as manager on June 15, when Grant traded Seaver to the Cincinnati Reds for Pat Zachry, Doug Flynn, Steve Henderson and Dan Norman.
Dave Kingman was also traded to the San Diego Padres for minor league pitcher Paul Siebert and Bobby Valentine.
No matter how abrasive the relationship between Seaver and his employers had become, dealing him away was a serious miscalculation, and Shea Stadium became known as "Grant's Tomb" in the New York sports pages.
Dave Kingman was in the final year of his contract, and thus, would have become a free agent at the end of the season unless the club re-signed him, but coming on top of the Seaver trade, aligned with the fact that the team got very little in return for their big buster, the Kingman trade only added to the growing disenchantment at Shea Stadium, and June 15, 1977, would forever be known to Mets fans as "The Midnight Massacre."