Love Those Mets

They lost their first nine games, and went on to even bigger things. Now they were deep in the cellar, 23 1/2 games off the pace, and they had just run up a 17-game losing streak--the worst record of any team in New York history. But after a hiatus of four years, National League baseball was back in the big city, and the fumbling, bumbling New York Mets were the sensation of the 1962 season. For whatever perverse reasons, the fans were wild about them.

At home on Coogan's Bluff, the Mets even outdrew the pin-striped New York Yankees. In one hectic week, nearly 200,000 screaming, clapping, foot-stomping fans swarmed into the Polo Grounds to watch them lose three games to the Los Angeles Dodgers and another four to the San Francisco Giants. Banners fluttered in the bleachers--WE LOVE OUR METS: RUN SHEEP RUN--and the din was deafening.

"In Milwaukee," marveled one visiting player, "they used to cheer line-drive fouls. But this is the first time I ever heard them cheer balls and strikes." The Mets' board of directors bought ads in the New York papers. "Never in sports history," they read, "has there been such a heart-warming demonstration of loyalty and affection." TV Announcer Lindsey Nelson politely thanked the fans for showing up--and promised that the team would try to do better.

The Mets were easy to love. Their names stirred fond memories--Manager Casey Stengel, for twelve years the double-talking grand panjandrum of the Yankees, ex-Dodger Gil Hodges, still a hero in Flatbush, Pitcher Roger Craig, another well-remembered ex-resident of Ebbets Field. And they sure did try: in six of their 14 lonely victories, they came from behind to win; in 21 of their 37 defeats, they managed to get the tying run to bat in the last inning. Even in defeat, they had humor. "That feller can hit it to the centerfield wall," said Casey of one Met regular, "if only they don't curve it first." In one game, the Mets left eleven runners stranded, failed to score with the bases loaded and nobody out. Moaned Casey: "You pick up the bases and bats and balls when you finish a game, but home plate is supposed to just sit there all day. My players still can't find it." For a while, the Mets kept one record intact: after 46 games, they were the only team in the National League that had never been shut out. Last week, that went, too, when they lost, 2-0, to the Philadelphia Phillies--the club that had set a modern National League record for frustration last year by losing 23 straight games. For Stengel, it was the last straw. "Somethin' hasta be solved around here real quick," said Casey, and he put every man on the Mets roster on the trading block--even slugging Outfielder Frank Thomas, who was enjoying the best season of his big-league careeer (.307 batting average, 13 homers). Yet by week's end, even though the Mets cut short their losing streak by edging out 4-to-3 their cellarmate Chicago Cubs, Stengel had found no market--no one wanted his Mets except the fans.

"When we call the other clubs," he sighed, "they don't even answer the phone."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.