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Home > Baseball > MLB Teams > New York Mets
New York Mets
Baseball is an outdoor sport in which a pitcher pitches a hard, fist sized ball to the hitting area of a batter. The batter hits the hard ball with a tapered, smooth, cylindrical bat made up of wood or metal. The batsman scores by running counter-clockwise within the four markers called the bases arranged at the corners of a diamond. Baseball is sometimes called hardball to differentiate it from similar games such as softball.
The Mets began as a franchise in the Continental League proposed by Branch Rickey. When the major leagues absorbed this potential rival, as they had so many others, by selling Major League franchise rights to some of its sounder backers, the gap that had been left in New York City by the departure of the Dodgers and Giants after 1957 was filled by the expansion Mets. Gil Hodges, Don Zimmer, Gus Bell, Roger Craig, Clem Labine, Richie Ashburn, Frank Thomas, Gene Woodling, Duke Snider, Jimmy Piersall, Roy McMillan, Yogi Berra, Warren Spahn, and Joe Pignatano, all local favorites or former stars who would be remembered, played for the Mets in their first four seasons.
In 1969 season, a homegrown rotation anchored by Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, and Gary Gentry, with Nolan Ryan as a spot starter and Tug McGraw in the bullpen, took the Miracle Mets to a completely unexpected World Championship under manager Gil Hodges. The pattern was set for the 1970s, great pitching and below-average hitting. In mid-1972, in a move reminiscent of their earliest years, the Mets acquired Willie Mays, a favorite of Misses Payson's, so the Hall of Famer could finish his Major League career in the city where it had started.
The Mets finished in third place for three years and then had another surprise pennant in 1973 under new manager Yogi Berra. Their record of 82-79 is the worst ever for a league champion. But they beat the 99-63 Reds in the NLCS, National League Championship Series, and took the team to seven games in the World Series. Once again, the Mets' success was based on pitching, with Rookie of the Year Dwight Gooden leading a staff that included Ron Darling, Sid Fernandez, and Jesse Orosco. They remained the favored team in the National League through 1989, but won only the 1988 National League East title in the three seasons following their World Championship.
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