Meet the Mets: From Birth to Rebirth

The New York Mets and Houston Colt 45s were the first new franchises in the National League in 70 years. The last time the league had expanded was 1892, after the folding of the American Association led to the NL absorbing four AA clubs. The two new teams in 1962 had come from another league as well—though it was a league that never played a game.

The departure of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants for sunnier shores after the 1957 season marked the first time since 1883 that New York was without National League baseball. In 1959, after unsuccessful attempts to lure existing teams to New York—and having the idea of expansion rebuffed by the eight-team NL—New York lawyer William A. Shea turned his eyes toward starting a new league. The Continental League had a big-name president in Branch Rickey and big dreams as well. The league had commitments from well-heeled investors in several cities, including New York and Houston,

The Continental League disbanded after a year without ever playing a game, but it fulfilled its purpose: It made the major leagues blink. The National League agreed to expansion in New York and Houston, though it would hold off on adding teams until 1962. The American League voted to expand in 1961 with the Los Angeles Angels and Washington Senators (a team that would take the place of the old Senators—an AL franchise since 1901—that was relocating to Minnesota to be heretofore known as the Twins). Everything in baseball seemed to be growing—the schedule even expanded from 154 to 162 games in ’61.

Joan Payson, who had owned 10 percent of the Giants and had been the lone dissenting vote in their move to San Francisco, had been part of the Continental League dream, owning equal shares with Dwight Davis and Dorothy Killian. With Killian departing after the Continental League folded and Davis eventually giving up his shares when it became clear that M. Donald Grant would be running things, Payson wound up owning 80 percent of New York’s NL franchise. With her Whitney family pedigree and interests in the worlds of art and horse racing, Payson’s wealth was estimated at between $100 and $200 million. The Mets were a business investment as well as a cause. She favored the name Meadowlarks for the team, but she acquiesced to “Mets”—the same name as an American Association championship club in the 1880s—when it proved to be the public’s choice in a fan poll.

George Weiss had put together the New York Yankees team that won 10 pennants between 1949 and 1960, and continued winning after he left. All of those pennants had been won by manager Casey Stengel, who, like Weiss, had been let go in the Bronx after the team was stunned by the Pittsburgh Pirates in the 1960 World Series. Weiss hired Stengel as the first manager of the fledgling Mets—and it seemed a natural choice. Stengel had played for the Giants in the 1920s under John McGraw, managed Brooklyn in the 1930s, and guided the Yankees to dominance in the 1950s, so it only seemed fitting that he take over a fourth New York club in his 70s. Yet unlike his other stops in the city, Stengel would be the star of this show. It was easy to see why.

An equitable amateur player draft wouldn’t be instituted for almost another four years, so the Mets had to sign available talent wherever they could find someone willing. The Mets could also make deals with other clubs, but that was hard because the Mets had little to offer in return other than Payson’s cash. So Weiss and the Mets banked on history and recognizable names nearing the end of their careers, especially former Giants and Dodgers. The rest of the NL chipped in a few names as well at the expansion draft on October 10, 1961 at the Netherland-Hilton Hotel in Cincinnati. The expansion clubs felt pick pocketed when it was over.

The Mets paid the eight existing National League teams a total of $1.8 million for 22 players, many of whom probably would have been released or buried in the minors had expansion not come calling. It was hardly a who’s who of great NL players.

Looking over the names that would comprise his new club, Stengel deadpanned, “I want to thank all these generous owners for giving us those great players they did not want. Those lovely, generous owners.”

The astute Stengel was sure of one thing; His team would be at the bottom of the league. So he worked tirelessly to overshadow his team by applying ever greater doses of Stengelese (his own language that New York sportswriters were already fluent in) and trying to sell the team to the public as entertainment as opposed to competition. It worked. The press covering this new team was a young, hardworking crew seemingly up to the challenge of taking on something new in an old city. “The New Breed” made the Mets front-page news, even if what they achieved on the field should have doomed them to obscurity. While the ’62 Mets were a horrendous club, they were new, they were fun, and in a decade when the staid ways of the older generation had started to change, the Mets were something that the young and disenfranchised could latch onto and call their own. Though playing at the ancient Polo Grounds, abandoned by its previous tenants, the Mets still drew 922,530 fans in their inaugural year. That may not sound like a lot today, but that still put the Mets ahead of four teams in the league. The Mets would not be so fortunate in the standings.

The Mets lost the first nine games of their existence and they followed that with double-digit losing streaks of 17, 11, and 13 games. The team did see a few players enjoy solid years with the bat: 34 home runs and 94 RBIs from Frank Thomas, an All-Star performance from Richie Ashburn (.306 batting/.424 on-base/.393 slugging), solid play at third base from Felix Mantilla (.275-11-59), and the club drew more walks than any team in the league. The pitching and defense, however, were entirely different matters. The Mets had a 5.05 ERA—a half run higher than any other team—and that does not count the astounding 147 unearned runs that crossed the plate. The Mets led the majors with 210 errors and made horrendous fielding into an art form. The shortcomings of the team seemed to be encompassed by Marv Throneberry. The defensively-challenged and slow-footed first baseman was celebrated as “Marvelous Mary,” even though he was anything but.

The Mets were 40 games behind first place by July, reached 100 losses with August still on the calendar, and were 61½ games out heading into the last weekend of the season. They managed to win one of those last three games against the worst team in the Cubs’ 90-year history—a 103-loss Windy City debacle under owner Philip K. Wrigley’s “College of Coaches.” Thanks to two merciful rainouts during the season, the Mets’ legendary line of losing came out at an even 40-120, a full 60 games out in the NL. True, the Cleveland Spiders had gone 20-134 in 1899 (an unrivaled 84 games out), but that club had been plagued by syndicate ownership, had divested itself of every decent player, drew crowds so miniscule that they transferred almost every home game to the road after June, and was on its way to being dissolved after the season (along with three other clubs). The ’62 Mets, on the other hand, were in the “just born” category. Stengel, who’d turned nine years old during the Spiders’ milestone final year, had the final say on losing and the Mets: “They have shown me ways to lose I never knew existed.”

The Mets were better in 1963. It would have been impossible not to be. The Mets lost “only” 111 and finished a mere 48 games out of first. It was a season of landmarks, however.

As a result of the outpouring of emotion and bedsheets sprawled with homemade sayings about the club—“placards,” Stengel liked to call them—the Mets held their first Banner Day in 1963, an annual event that allowed fans to parade on the field; it would remain a Mets tradition into the mid-1990s. The Mets played their first “Mayor’s Trophy Game” against the Yankees—and won—with Stengel using his best pitchers for the exhibition game and Mets fans invading Yankee Stadium with their homemade signs. (The Mets would go 8-7-1 through 1981 vs. the Yankees in the charity exhibition in New York.) The team’s laughable exploits in 1962 made for entertaining reading in 1963—and beyond—in Jimmy Breslin’s still classic book, Cant Anybody Here Play This Game. And those who didn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the team could always sing—a catchy little ditty called “Meet the Mets” was sold in 45s at the Polo Grounds—the record cost a buck and had a cute new character with a giant head on the dust jacket: Mr. Met.

Beloved Brooklyn icon Gil Hodges ended his playing career after a trade in May of ’63 sent him from the Mets to the Washington Senators, where he was named manager. Another old-time Dodgers favorite, Duke Snider, hit his 400th career home run on June 14, one of his few highlights in a Mets uniform. The Mets won that night against the defending NL champions in Cincinnati, and won again the next day to creep to within one game of ninth place … and then the Mets began an assault on the 20th century mark for consecutive road losses in the National League. The Mets dropped 22 straight away from New York, a period of seven weeks between road victories. The losing, though, continued wherever the Mets played. Roger Craig suffered 18 straight losses; not to be outdone, teammate Craig Anderson, who had won three times in a week for the 62 Mets, would go nearly three seasons without winning, ending his career on 1964 with a 19-game losing streak (that mark would be broken by another Met, Anthony Young, with 27 straight defeats in 1992-93). One of Anderson’s defeats came on September 18, the final major league game at the Polo Grounds. Though the team was shut out 30 times in ’63, the Mets managed to plate one run off Chris Short of the Phillies that day; Philadelphia scored five off Anderson and Craig. The Mets’ tenure in Manhattan ended fittingly, with a double play grounder by Ted Schreiber.

Shea Stadium, named after the lawyer who had helped land NL baseball back in New York—and who had worked with politicians to get the state to fund the new stadium—opened for business on April 17, 1964. The World’s Fair next door kept the neighborhood hopping for two years. The dual attractions helped the 1964 Mets draw 1,732,597, second only to the Dodgers. The shining state-of-the-art stadium, which would host the American Football League’s rechristened New York Jets, was a sight to behold, but the Mets simply remained a sight. The team’s progress seemed incremental, though Shea saw its share of spectacle: a 23-inning loss to the Giants in May (in the second game of a doubleheader), a Father’s Day perfect game by Jim Running, and a thrilling All-Star Game with Johnny Callison sending NL backers back home happy with a three-run home run in the ninth.

The Mets lost 109 games and finished 40 games back, but that last loss was actually hard to come by and almost cost the Cardinals dearly. Al Jackson outdueled Bob Gibson in the opener of the season-ending series in St. Louis, 1-0. A 15-5 pounding of the Cards the next day gave the collapsing Phillies and gurgling Reds a shot at a three-way tie, but Gibson came on in relief on Sunday and the Cardinals rallied against Galen Cisco to take the pennant. St. Louis would go on to beat the Yankees in the World Series.

Warren Spahn and Yogi Berra signed as player-coaches in 1965, but Spahn left to finish his esteemed pitching career in San Francisco; Berra, dismissed as Yankees manager after winning a pennant as a rookie manager, retired as a player after nine at-bats and remained in a Mets uniform for the next decade. Stengel was also still in a Mets uniform, though even as he prepared to celebrate his 75th birthday with a lavish gathering, there were grumblings that the team needed a new leader. The argument was legitimate. The Mets continued to be fodder for every team, though occasionally showing signs of vitality that seemed uniquely Metsian, such as on June 14, when the Mets were no-hit for 10 innings by Cincinnati’s Jim Maloney and won in the 11th on a home run by Johnny Lewis. Just as that was the only hit of the game, it was also the only win by the Mets over a 16-game span. The Mets stood at 31-64 on July 24 in 10th place, 24 games out and twice as far back as the ninth-place Cubs. With Stengel celebrating the diamond anniversary of his birth, he slipped and fell in the bathroom at Toot Shor’s Restaurant and wound up with a broken hip. After a 175-404 beginning as a franchise, Wes Westrum took the reigns. Though infinitely less colorful than Stengel, the Mets picked right up where they left off with their new manager. They finished at 19-48 under Westrum, a .284 percentage that was actually 40 percentage points worse than they’d done under Stengel in ’65.

The Mets did show improvement in 1966, avoiding 100 losses and last place for the first time. The Mets enjoyed rarefied air indeed, getting within one game of .500 in mid-May and climbing as high as sixth place. They made forays at the rechristened Astros for eighth place as late as August 23 before settling into ninth place for good. The 66-96 Mets were never threatened on their lofty perch by the basement-dwelling, 103-loss Cubs, who were starting from scratch under manager Leo Durocher after five season of letting coaches run the show.

The biggest win for the Mets in 1966 did not come on the field, but rather in the lottery. The Dodgers had selected Tom Seaver in the 10th round in the inaugural draft in 1965 (two rounds before the Mets took Nolan Ryan), but Seaver did not sign and went to the University of Southern California. The next winter he was taken by the Braves in a special phase of the draft. The Braves signed Seaver a couple of days after USC had started its season. Even though the Trojans were only playing exhibition games against a Marine Corps team, it still violated the league rules and commissioner William D. Eckert called for a special drawing with every team except the Braves allowed to take part. Only the Phillies, Indians, and Mets entered and the Mets were the lucky winners. Seaver was in New York the following spring as the team’s number two starter.

Seaver went 16-13 for an awful 1967 Mets club. Though the team had lucked into an obvious ace, the Mets as a whole regressed. General manager Bing Devine, who had replaced the retired George Weiss after the 1966 season, kept busy in what turned out to be his only year in that job. Many of the faces he brought in were not worth looking at twice, but he did acquire several names that would play key roles in 1969: Don Cardwell, Ron Taylor, Cal Koonce, Ed Charles, and Art Shamsky; Devine also drafted ’69 Mets Gary Gentry and Rod Gaspar, plus a couple of players who would become known later: Ken Singleton and Jon Matlack. His best deal, though came after the 61-101 season, when he traded for manager Gil Hodges from the Senators.

Acquiring Hodges—Westrum had resigned during the final week of the ’67 season amid rumors of his imminent firing—was actually at the behest of board chairman M. Donald Grant. Assistant GM Johnny Murphy went to Washington to handle the negotiations, which entailed the Mets sending pitcher Bill Denehy and $ 100,000 to DC. And it was the newly installed Hodges who pushed Murphy, the newly-promoted GM, for three players from the White Sox: Al Weis and Tommie Agee (those two came in a trade involving Tommy Davis), and backup catcher J.C. Martin (the Mets were owed a player in a previous deal with Chicago).

Hodges brought a completely new approach to the team. His spring training camp was compared to a boot camp with Hodges serving as sergeant (he’d been a decorated Marine non-commissioned officer in the Pacific during World War II). Yet he commanded in a quiet manner that still let everyone know who was in charge without a shadow of a doubt. The Mets might not finish that much higher in the standings, but they would be fundamentally sound. It also helped that the pitching was coming along. In addition to the veteran pitchers added over the previous year, the Mets had a young catcher they’d picked up from Houston with an irritable nature but magnificent hands, a strong arm, and stronger game-calling instincts: Jerry Grote. The Mets had endured Grote’s hideous .195 batting average in 120 games in 1967 and were rewarded with an All-Star season in ’68. Grote hit .282 in a year when NL hitters batted a mere .243. The ’68 Mets were the worst-hitting team in the league, but one could also argue that their pitching staff was getting to be as good as anybody’s.

Led by rookie southpaw Jerry Koosman (19-12, 2.08), New York’s team ERA of 2.72 was fourth behind the NL champion Cardinals, who were shown the way by Bob Gibson and his otherworldly 1.12 mark. The cool and confident Kooz wound up one vote shy of becoming the second straight Mets hurler to win Rookie of the Year (Johnny Bench won the award). Koosman and Seaver gave the Mets two All-Star hurlers at the top of the rotation and rookie right-hander Nolan Ryan, though very wild, threw as hard as anyone in the major leagues … or the planet. With this arsenal of arms, the Mets allowed fewer hits than any team in the league and only the Cardinals allowed fewer overall runs.

With Hodges stressing defense and fundamentals, the ’68 club committed 24 fewer errors than any Mets team in history. Cleon Jones, just 25 and in his first year as an everyday left fielder (Jones had played center before the arrival of his boyhood friend Agee), led the team with a .297 batting mark. Ron Swoboda, Ken Boswell, and Bud Harrelson continued to develop, while Ed Kranepool, just 23, already could claim seven seasons as a Met.

The team was growing up. The young players were eager to learn and were willing to follow their manager anywhere. And the way pitching dominated the game in 1968’s “Year of the Pitcher,” it wasn’t impossible to believe that with a little bit of hitting and a lot more luck, the New York Mets might not be light years away from contention.

MATTHEW SILVERMAN has written several books on the Mets, including 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die, Mets Essential, Shea Goodbye (with Keith Hernandez), and Mets by the Numbers (with Jon Springer). He works as editor with Greg Spira on the Maple Street Press Mets Annual. He served as managing editor for Total Baseball, Total Football, The ESPN Football Encyclopedia, and as associate editor for The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia. A former associate publisher at Total Sports Publishing, he was lead editor for Baseball: The Biographical Encyclopedia. He lives in High Falls, New York.

 

SOURCES

Breslin, Jimmy. Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2003.)

Lang, Jack, and Peter Simon. The New York Mets: 25 Years of Baseball Magic. (New York: Henry Holt, 1986.)

Ultimate Mets Database, http://www.ultimatemets.com/