Former teammates on Friday recalled John Stearns as a fierce competitor who shined behind the plate in an era of mostly bad Mets baseball.
Stearns, a four-time All-Star catcher for the club, died in Denver after a long battle with cancer, the team announced. He was 71.
Despite his failing health, a frail Stearns appeared at Old Timers’ Day last month at Citi Field. Stearns played for the Mets from 1975-84 after arriving as part of a trade that sent reliever Tug McGraw to the Phillies.
To teammates Stearns was “Dude” — a rugged former University of Colorado linebacker who thrived on aggression.
“We played a different game back then and Dude was really good at playing it,” former Mets pitcher Ed Lynch told The Post.
Lynch recalled a game in Atlanta in 1981 in which Stearns used his aggression on the Braves’ mascot, Chief Noc-A-Homa, who had a pregame ritual of sprinkling dust on the mound and home plate before putting his head down and sprinting along the third-base line to his tepee behind the left-field fence.
“Chief Noc-A-Homa is on the mound and [Stearns] goes, ‘Lynchie, watch this,’ ” Lynch said. “Chief Noc-A-Homa puts his head down and starts sprinting down the third base line, and Atlanta’s dugouts in the old stadium were toward the outfield a little bit. [Stearns] comes out of the outfield side of the dugout and he’s got a beeline, and Chief Noc-A-Homa has got his head down, and [Stearns] just clothes-lined the living hell out of him. And Chief Noc-A-Homa goes down like he got shot, there are feathers flying everywhere.”
Said former Mets outfielder Lee Mazzilli: “That was the greatest open-field tackle I have seen.”
Lynch recalled Stearns, in his shin guards, returning to the dugout laughing, but manager Joe Torre wasn’t so amused.
“I have never seen a manager dress down a player — as he should have — like he did with John that day,” Lynch said. “It was one of the most unbelievable things I have ever seen. If you did that now with the mascot you would be banned probably for life.”
In another instance, Stearns took on a fan who had run on the field at Shea Stadium.
“All of a sudden this guy runs on the field and he’s pretty athletic, he is pulling Walter Payton on the security guards,” Lynch said. “They can’t catch him. He is running around the infield and Dude is standing there with his mask in his hand, he’s got his hands on his hips and the guy runs right in front of the plate. Dude drops his glove and his mask, grabs this guy around the waist and just pile-drives him right into the ground.”
Stearns had a collision at home plate with Dave Parker that resulted in the Pirates star sustaining a broken jaw.
Stearns’ best season offensively was in 1978, when he hit 15 home runs and stole 25 bases for the Mets. He was selected as a National League All-Star in 1977, 1979, 1980 and 1982 for perennially bad Mets teams.
Mazzilli said Stearns was thrilled to return for Old Timers’ Day on Aug. 27. Mazzilli posted a picture on social media of himself and Stearns coaching first base during the game.
“It meant all the world that he got to see all the guys,” Mazzilli said. “Kind of like a sendoff for him, just special.”
