New York Mets

▪ American baseball team

 American professional baseball team based in Flushing, Queens, N.Y. The Mets won two World Series championships (1969, 1986) and four division titles. They play in the National League.

      The Mets trace their roots to the proposed Continental League, whose formation was announced in 1959 by New York attorney Bill Shea; a New York-based team was to be a charter member of the league. The league was abandoned in 1960 when it was promised two teams each in the American and National Leagues as part of professional baseball's expansion. The organization was formed in 1961, and the name Mets was chosen over several other suggestions because it was short and easy, similar to the corporate name (the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club Inc.), widely accepted by fans, and reminiscent of an earlier New York baseball team, the Metropolitans of the 19th century American Association. The team, also known as the Amazin' Mets or the Amazins, began play in 1962 at the Polo Grounds; after two seasons they moved into the brand-new Shea Stadium.

 Early Mets rosters were populated with popular New York ballplayers from a bygone era—over-the-hill veterans such as Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, and Yogi Berra (Berra, Yogi)—coached by Casey Stengel (Stengel, Casey), the Yankees manager during their string of five consecutive World Series championships (1949–53). This nostalgic effort did not translate into success on the field, and the team earned the nickname “Lovable Losers,” losing a record 120 games in its first season.

      The 1969 team, with future Hall of Fame pitchers Tom Seaver (Seaver, Tom) and Nolan Ryan (Ryan, Nolan), won an improbable World Series championship, beating the favoured Baltimore Orioles in the World Series, and came to be known as the “Miracle Mets,” having trailed the Chicago Cubs by 9.5 games in mid-August in the National League East. With famed centre fielder Willie Mays (Mays, Willie) joining the team in 1972, the Mets returned to the World Series in 1973 but lost to the Oakland Athletics in seven games (the team's rallying cry that year—“Ya Gotta Believe!”—was coined by pitcher Tug McGraw in July when the team was well under .500). The rest of the decade the team posted a mediocre record.

      In the 1980s the Mets were rejuvenated by a group of young pitchers including Dwight (“Doc”) Gooden, Jesse Orosco, and Sid Fernandez and powerful hitters such as Darryl Strawberry and Gary Carter. In 1986 the team won 108 games and its second World Series, beating the Boston Red Sox in a legendary series, best remembered for first baseman Bill Buckner's error in the 10th inning of game six that allowed the Mets to steal an improbable victory and then go on to claim the championship with another comeback win in game seven.

 Substance abuse plagued some of the most talented young Mets' stars (including Gooden and Strawberry), and, though the team won the National League East in 1988, it failed to reach the World Series in the rest of the 1980s or in the 1990s. The early 1990s saw the franchise fall on hard times; it lost 103 games in 1993, posting its worst season since 1965. By the late 1990s, however, the team became stronger, and in 2000 it reached the World Series, led by slugging catcher Mike Piazza, though the Mets lost to their crosstown rival, the Yankees, in what was named the “Subway Series.” The Mets again made the play-offs in 2006, but the following year they missed the postseason after losing a seven-game lead with 17 games left in a dramatic late-season collapse. In 2008 the Mets again missed out on a play-off spot after leading their division for most of August, and they became the first team in major league history to be eliminated from postseason contention in consecutive years by losing their final regular-season game at home.

 

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