MMO Fan Shot: A Mets Mom For The Ages

Mrs. Payson spearheaded the return of National League baseball to New York.

A Fan Shot by Gregg Hopps

A Happy Mother’s Day to the original Mets Mom…

Of course I’m talking about our New York Mets founder and the first female owner in Major League Baseball, Joan Whitney Payson.

One SNY feature, the only one I consider to be worth watching, is Mets Yearbook. In one particular episode, the year was 1963, they showed the final game at the old Polo Grounds, with Mrs. Payson and Casey Stengel on the field.

As I watched, I thought of how remarkable a woman Mrs. Payson was a woman clearly ahead of her time, and how the Mets will never have another owner as good and as wonderful as she was.

Just watching all the video clips of her it was so apparent that Mrs. Payson truly loved her Mets, and it was just as apparent that Met fans loved her back.

The First Lady of Shea has roses for a tearful Willie Mays during his farewell.

When was the last time we saw a Mets owner sitting in the stands with the fans, rooting for our team? Whether eating a hotdog or enjoying a box of Cracker Jacks, there she was sitting with the rest of us and rooting for the team. She wasnt isolated in an owners box, but instead enjoyed being with her people, Mets fans, and enjoying the game with them.

Before taking ownership of the Mets, Mrs. Payson was a shareholder of the New York Giants. In fact, Mrs. Payson tried all she could to talk Horace Stoneham out of moving the Giants to San Francisco. Mrs. Payson, and M. Donald Grant both voted against the Giants’ move. When the National League finally agreed to expansion and awarded a baseball team to New York, Mrs.Payson becoming the first woman ever to own a baseball team, and they couldn’t have made a better choice.

Mrs. Payson then went about the business of hiring the best baseball people available at the time. She also didn’t meddle and always allowed all of them to do their job.

With 50 years of hindsight, the early Mets were a stroke of genius. New York was starving for National League baseball and Mrs. Payson and some other key people brought it back to us.

The Mets also brought back as many former Giants and Dodgers as they could to bring a hometown feel and familiarity to the team. They scooped up the most successful manager in the game in Casey Stengel. They then let the stars of the past play, while beginning the work of assembling a strong farm system.

A night on the town with Tom Seaver and Art Shamsky.

Then came Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Tommie Agee and the rest of the 1969 Miracle Mets, led by manager Gil Hodges. What an amazing time for all of us. In just seven years since inception, and all as cellar-dwellers, the Mets became World Champions in a pre-free agency era. Incredible.

I became a Met fan in 1973. Sadly Mrs. Payson died in October of 1975, so I have very few memories of her. But to me, the thing that was so striking about her was her genuine, heartfelt love for all the Mets players, coaches and fans. I doubt we’ll ever see anything like it, or anyone like her, ever again. That my friends, is too bad.