NEW YORK — The New York Mets on Thursday unveiled their long-overdue tribute to Tom Seaver, the player who only changed the course of their team history.

The thoroughfare formerly known as 126th St. will henceforth be known as Tom Seaver Way, and the official address of Citi Field, where of course Seaver never pitched, will from now on be number 41. At some point, there will be a statue of Seaver unveiled outside the ballpark.

It was a rather festive occasion with remarks delivered by a Queens city councilman, the Archbishop of New York, Mets CEO Jeff Wilpon and, most movingly, Seaver’s eldest daughter Sarah.

But of course, the Mets being the Mets, the occasion came 12 hours after yet another act of defiance and disrespect by Jason Vargas, for whom it can be safely assumed no streets in this town will ever be named.

And so, as the Mets were trying to commemorate the legacy of an all-time great, they were forced once again to answer questions about the obstinance of a mediocrity.

“We’re all angry with him,’’ a Mets official said Thursday, who requested anonymity. “Think he’ll be here next year?’’

The man went on to say Vargas, who at the moment is the Mets most reliable starter, might not even be a Met come Aug. 1. ‘’This did not help him,’’ he said.

The juxtaposition of the two pitchers, their relative abilities and the different ways in which they handled crises with the media could hardly have been more striking.

Forty-two years ago this month, Seaver became embroiled in a public spat with Dick Young of the New York Daily News, at the time the most powerful columnist in the city.

View photos Jason Vargas’ pettiness cast a shadow over the Tom Seaver ceremony on Thursday at Citi Field. (AP) More

For whatever reason, Young took the side of Mets management in a salary dispute between the Mets and Seaver. He wrote columns calling Seaver “greedy’’ and “selfish’’ and “disloyal,’’ which was kind of rich considering no time afterward, Young would run out on the News for the greener paychecks of the New York Post.

Then, he brought Seaver’s wife into it, implying that the real cause of the dispute was some sort of jealousy between Nancy Seaver and Ruth Ryan, spouse of Nolan, who had been traded away to the California Angels.

It was an ugly dispute, but according to contemporary newspaper accounts as well as conversations with reporters who were there, at no time did Seaver confront Young in the clubhouse, curse him or threaten to “knock you the f--- out,’’ as Vargas did to Newsday’s Tim Healey on Sunday, basically because he didn’t like the look on his face.

All he did was march into the office of M. Donald Grant, the Mets chairman of the board, and demand a trade. Grant obliged, and that day -- June 15, 1977 -- remains one of the darkest days in Mets history.

Contrast that with what Vargas has pulled over the past five days. Given a second chance to clean up the mess he created on Monday when he refused to apologize for, even acknowledge responsibility of, the ugly clubhouse that followed the Mets loss to the Cubs, Vargas doubled down on his arrogance and lack of accountability.

“I don’t think all the information is really out there,’’ Vargas said. “I don't think this is the time to get into that. But I think that anybody that knows me or played with me through the duration of my career, there's never been a situation like that. So to think that it just happened out of the blue would be foolish. The organization put out a statement. For that information to be out there like that, for only one side to be told, that’s just not it.’’

Whether it’s the general breakdown of civility in our society over the past 50 years, or simply the misbehavior of one bad apple, you could hardly find two more different individuals than Seaver and Vargas.

In essence, Vargas was flipping the bird at Wilpon and Brodie Van Wagenen, his two bosses, who, he implied, were keeping him from telling his side of the story.

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