The 5 biggest "what ifs" in Mets history

2) What if Tom Seaver didn’t pitch Game 6 of the 1973 World Series?

Just four years after winning their first World Championship in 1969 and in their second season without Nolan Ryan, the Miracle Mets were on their way to doing it again. The baseball world was watching a team that had only won 82 games in the regular season, hold a three-games-to-two lead over the defending champion Oakland Athletics, who won 94 games. 

New York decided to go with a three-man rotation for the entire series. Jon Matlack pitched Games 1, 4, and 7. Jerry Koosman got the nod for Games 2 and 5 and it was Tom Seaver in Games 3 and 6. 

With the teams heading back to the Coliseum in Oakland for games six and seven, the Mets would have two chances to clinch the title. Instead of saving Seaver for a possible 7th game, Owner Joan Payson insisted to Manager Yogi Berra that Seaver should start Game 6. Berra listened to his owner and watched Tom go out there, on just three days' rest. New York would go on to lose the game and was forced to be without their ace in a winner take all game that saw the A’s clinch a World Series title for the second consecutive season. 

If Berra gave Seaver that extra day of rest, would he have pitched better in Game 7, leading the Mets to another championship?