Saying Goodbye To the Kingsport Mets

The Kingsport Mets did not know it at the time, but the conclusion of their 2019 season would end up being their last. After Kingsport spent 99 years in the Appalachian League as a professional baseball team, the Appy League will transition to a wooden-bat league for college players in 2021.

The new collegiate summer baseball league will be for the nation’s top rising college freshmen and sophomores, according to the MLB’s press release in late September 2020. All of the former Minor League clubs in the Appalachian League will no longer be affiliated with a Major League organization.

This is a huge loss for small baseball communities everywhere, as the city of Kingsport will lose its long-time professional baseball team. Kingsport’s baseball club first operated in 1921 and has spent time as a minor league affiliate for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Washington Senators, Chicago White Sox, New York Giants, Baltimore Orioles, Pittsburg Pirates, Kansas City Royals, and the Atlanta Braves.

This isn’t just a loss for the Mets, who have been affiliated with Kingsport since 1980, this is practically 100 years of professional baseball history coming to an end.

We’re not just talking about the legends of the game who played in Kingsport (as there are many). Those lost in history- the countless players that never made it to the big leagues but played in front of the Kingsport community- deserve our mourning.

So while we should remember that guys like Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm managed the Kingsport club for the Braves franchise in 1974, we should also remember guys like Timothy Waclawcyzk, who led the 74′ team in ERA but never even made it to Double-A. Waclawcyzk, who is completely unknown, probably mattered more to the people of Kingsport at the time than say Catfish Hunter, the 1974 NL Cy Young Award winner.

Kingsport is just a small northeastern city in Tennessee that is extremely close to the southern Virginia border. Kingsport had a population of 5,692 when the team was first established in 1921. Today, Kingsport has a population of 54,127.

To root for a professional sports team in Tennessee, your options are the Memphis Grizzlies and Tennessee Titans. There is no professional baseball option at the Major League level for the people of Tennessee. The closest MLB club to the state of Tennessee is the Atlanta Braves, which is still practically a five-hour drive away.

Major League Baseball is simply not accessible to the people of Tennessee, which highlights the necessity for Minor League clubs to exist in the state. What makes a team like the Kingsport Mets so valuable is that it provides small-town America the opportunity to have baseball in their community. It turns baseball into something that isn’t just for the big cities to have.

When stars like Dale Murphy (with the Braves), Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, A.J. Burnett, David Wright, and Jacob deGrom play for Kingsport, that gives the people in the community something to invest in.

How exciting must it be for the locals to follow the careers of former Kingsport players when they reach the national stage?

The community can take pride in the fact that some of the best players in Mets history had a brief stop in Kingsport.

This creates Mets fans in places that otherwise would have no reason to follow the Mets. People from a small city in Tennessee have no business being a Mets fan. Having a minor league club in Kingsport gives the people of Tennessee a reason to care about and engage with the Mets organization. Because of Minor League Baseball, loyalty to the Mets organization can develop outside the confines of the NYC tri-state area.

Kingsport financially benefits from their relationship as a Mets affiliate. Frank Lett, the manager of Hunter Wright Stadium (where the K-Mets played) and director for “Visit Kingsport” told the Times News: “The Kingsport Mets spent hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in Kingsport.”

Between the players and coaches on the Mets and any visiting team personnel and their fans, having a minor league team in Kingsport brings money into the economy. It gives the community something to call their own and sell to tourists. The Mets became apart of the identity of Kingsport, with local shops selling Mets gear. Watching the Mets play at Hunter Wright Stadium is an attraction that brought people to Kingsport.

Baseball in Kingsport will be different without the Mets, but there will still be baseball. The new collegiate baseball league will still be beneficial for the Kingsport economy.

Frank Lett told the Times News, “There’s going to be about 30 players and they’re going to be eating meals and spending money on other things and there’s going to be a coaching staff that’s going to be doing the same thing. And hopefully, when some other teams come to Kingsport, they’re going to be staying in hotels and eating here. It all adds up very quickly.”

So the Mets leaving town won’t be a total loss for Kingsport, as the collegiate summer league will have a 54-game season slated to begin June 2, 2021. Kingsport will remain a baseball town and will still reap some financial benefits of hosting a summer league. But, it’s not the same. They’re not the Mets.

It didn’t have to be this way. With the MLB’s restructuring of the MiLB, over 42 clubs have been eliminated from affiliation. Teams went from having five or six farmhands down to four. Instead of billionaire owners investing in their minor league affiliate’s communities, they’ve decided to simply cast them aside, with the fans and communities along with it.

After over 100 years, the Appalachian League as we know it as a professional baseball league was killed. They’ve decided that the small baseball communities in Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and North Carolina are not important to the growth and development of Major League Baseball. The MLB has all of these ideas for how to grow the game of baseball, yet their actions are shrinking the game.

The Mets organization will head into 2021 with a big chunk of their family and history missing. The memory of there ever being a Kingsport Mets will fade. The K-Mets will be lost to obscurity, just as every defunct minor league team has.

But, it doesn’t have to be this way.

We as Mets fans can keep the history of Kingsport in our folklore and celebrate its importance to the Mets organization. K-Mets gear should continue to be sold at Citi Field and online. It would be cool if fans could purchase throwback Kingsport jerseys/shirseys of classic K-Mets players.

Somewhere in Citi Field, perhaps in their Hall of Fame should be a plaque celebrating the history of all of the Mets former MiLB farmhands. There are a lot of quirky old minor league Mets logos that fans would appreciate.

The Mets can host Minor League Night at Citi Field every year to honor their defunct MiLB history and make a day of it. Think of it like Old Timers Day but for their former minor league clubs and players. The Kingsport Mets, the Columbia Fireflies (who also got dumped by the Mets), and all the teams that came before them can be remembered if WE the fans celebrate them!

Thank you to the Kingsport Mets for their forty years affiliated with the New York Mets organization and best of luck to the rest of the Appalachian League.

Notable Players for Kingsport:

Doug Sisk, John Gibbons, Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Kevin Mitchell, Gregg Jefferies, Randy Myers, Lloyd McClendon, A.J. Burnett, David Wright, Jose Reyes, Lastings Milledge, Carlos Gomez, Heath Bell, Collin McHugh, Josh Thole, Wilmer Flores, Angel Pagan, Yusmeiro Petit, Daniel Murphy, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, Rafael Montero, Brandon Nimmo, Seth Lugo, Jeff McNeil, and Amed Rosario