Franchise Friday: When Legends Collide: Seaver, Maddux, and a Classic Night at Shea

Week 7 of Franchise Fridays brought us back home really home to Shea Stadium, where the All-Time Mets Greats opened a marquee matchup against the All-Time Braves Greats. The opponent was chosen by fan vote, the setting chosen by nostalgia, and the pitching matchup chosen by the baseball gods themselves. And thanks to Strat-O-Matic and Franchise Greats sets, we don’t just imagine these dream matchups—we get to play them out, roll by roll, and actually stare at a real, honest-to-goodness box score when it’s over.

On the mound stood two Hall of Famers who treated the strike zone like private property: Tom Seaver, owner of 311 career wins, 3 Cy Youngs, and an entire generation of Mets memories, against Greg Maddux, who won 355 games and 4 Cy Youngs while rarely breaking a sweat . Dice were rolled. Cards were flipped. Shea Stadium hummed. Legends were unleashed.

Looking for three straight wins, a chance to climb to one game under .500 after dropping the season’s first four, and their first real surge of momentum all year, the Mets handed the ball to The Franchise—trusting that, once again, everything would feel right when No. 41 went to work.

From the first pitch, it was clear neither Seaver nor Maddux had any intention of blinking.

Seaver opened the night by mowing through the top of the Braves order, striking out Ronald Acuña Jr. on three looking strikes—because of course he did—before inducing routine outs from Chipper Jones and Hank Aaron. Across the way, Maddux matched him pitch for pitch, striking out Carlos Beltrán, retiring David Wright, and calmly setting down Mike Piazza like it was just another Tuesday in 1996.

For three innings, Shea Stadium was treated to the kind of baseball purists write sonnets about: strikeouts, weak contact, and the growing sense that one run—maybe two—would decide everything.

That moment arrived in the bottom of the fourth.

After Piazza singled and Strawberry ripped a double into the right-field gap, Maddux walked Pete Alonso to load the bases, setting the stage for Gary Carter. “The Kid,” never one to miss his cue, punched a two-run single through the infield, plating Piazza and Strawberry and giving the Mets a 2–0 lead that felt enormous given the circumstances.

Seaver took that cushion and did what

Maddux settled back in, but Francisco Lindor added a little breathing room in the fifth, lofting a solo homer to center field that pushed the Mets’ lead to 3–0. At Shea, it was the kind of swing that made generations overlap—Seaver on the mound, Lindor circling the bases, and everyone pretending the upper deck still shook.

The Braves weren’t going quietly. Chipper Jones homered off Seaver in the seventh, and Hank Aaron continued to do Hank Aaron things all night, finishing with multiple doubles and constant menace.

Still, Seaver battled into the late innings, and when traffic mounted in the eighth, the Mets turned it over to the bullpen ,Familia first, then Edwin Díaz, who escaped a bases-loaded jam by freezing Eddie Mathews with a called third strike that echoed nicely across decades.

The Braves made it interesting in the ninth when Freddie Freeman launched a solo homer off Díaz to cut the lead to 3–2. Shea tensed. Old ghosts stirred.

But Díaz regrouped, retired Joe Torre and Jeff Adcock, and sealed the win—giving the Mets a hard-earned victory in a game that felt every bit as heavy as the names on the lineup card.

Final: All-Time Mets Greats 3, All-Time Braves Greats 2

Tom Seaver vs. Greg Maddux lived up to the billing. Shea Stadium got another night to remember. And for Week 7 of Franchise Fridays, the Mets finally looked like a team ready to build something—even if it only exists on cardboard, dice, and the warm glow of winter baseball imagination.