This is a re-run from October 8, 2023 in the wake of Willie Mays’ passing on June 18, 2024. We’re looking back at the 50th anniversary of the Mets’ 1973 National League pennant-winning team by reviewing the most inspirational figures of that remarkable run. We continue with one of the greatest players of all-time, who made the last stop of his legendary career where it all...
Women’s Equality Day is today, and the goal of the #EmbraceEquality campaign is to start a conversation on why equal opportunities aren’t enough. In the sports world, especially baseball, women are just beginning to make significant and historical strides. In the 2021 Racial and Gender Report Card from the University of Central Florida, MLB received a C grade for gender hiring, a stark...
The pages of Mays’ storybook career were yellowing at the edges. But his star had yet to fade. Now, the Giant icon was returning to the city where it all began. Willie Mays became the game’s best player in San Francisco. Yet he remained a beloved figure in New York — even 15 years after the Giants had moved to the West Coast. Mets owner Joan Payson, once a New York Giants stakeholder when...
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,...
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,...
