Pat Zachry, Pitcher Known for a Lopsided Trade, Dies at 71

Pat Zachry, who was a co-winner of the National League Rookie of the Year award in 1976, but who is probably best known for being one of the players traded to the New York Mets a year later for Tom Seaver, died on Thursday at the home of his son, Josh, in Austin, Texas. He was 71.

Jay Horwitz, a spokesman for the Mets, announced the death. He did not specify the cause, saying only that Zachry died after a long illness.

Zachry, a 6-foot-5 right-hander, began his career with the Reds in 1976 and got off to a promising start. He went 14-7 with a 2.74 earned run average in his first season and tied the San Diego Padres pitcher Butch Metzger for Rookie of the Year. He beat the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series and the Yankees in Game 3 of the World Series, which the Reds won in four games for their second straight championship.

The Mets decided to trade Seaver, a future Hall of Famer and the team’s star player, in June 1977 after a prolonged contract dispute between Seaver and the team’s chairman, M. Donald Grant. They sent him to Cincinnati for the infielder Doug Flynn, the outfielders Steve Henderson and Dan Norman, and Zachry.

The New York Times, in a Page 1 article, called it “one of the blockbuster trades in baseball history.”