On May 8, 1961, the Mets were chosen as the name of the new National League franchise in New York.
According to the book “Tales from the 1962 New York Mets Dugout: A collection of the Greatest Stories from the Mets Inaugural Season” by Janet Paskin and Greg Prince, in the spring of 1961 the public was asked to vote for one of 10 proposed team names including the Avengers, Bees, Burros, Continentals, Jets, Mets, NYBs, Rebels, Skyliners and Skyscrapers.
The personal preference of new owner Joan Payson was the “Meadowlarks” as the team would be playing eventually at the new stadium being built in Flushing Meadows, but her preference was not included in the final 10.
The corporate name of the team was the “New York Metropolitan Baseball Club”, so the nickname Mets does make sense, both then and now. It was at the Savoy Hilton Hotel in New York City, that Mrs. Payson, christened the winning name as the New York Mets “by breaking a champagne bottle with a baseball bat.” as reported and pictured the next day in the New York Times.
Besides being a play on the team’s corporate name, the name also suggested continuity with the New York Metropolitans from the nineteenth century. That team, as reported by SABR, was initiated as an independent team financed by well-heeled cigar manufacturer and baseball enthusiast John Day and Jim Mutrie.
Politically connected to Tammany Hall, Day and Mutrie were able to rent the Polo Grounds, just north of Central Park at Fifth Avenue and 110th Street, in Manhattan for their team. In 1883 the Metropolitans joined the American Association and in 1884 won the American Association pennant.
Prior to the 1886 season, Day and Mutrie sold the Mets to developer Fred Wilpon Erastus Wiman who moved the team to the Staten Island, hoping to promote travel on his ferry line. His plan did not succeed and the original Mets ceased operation following the 1887 season.
The team was bought by the Brooklyn Grays (later the Brooklyn Bridegrooms and later still the Brooklyn Dodgers) for $15,000 to gain territorial protection and the contracts of several of the Mets’ stars.
LETS GO MEADOWLARKS METS
