How It All Started

     The New York Mets have esisted since 1962 and have the richest history of any team around. After the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants left New York, the National League did not have a New York representative for four years. This did not sit well with New York City Mayor, Robert F. Wagner, who established a committee to bring National League baseball back to New York. William Shea was the most instrumental of the members of this committee. Shea could not convince any team to move to New York or to get Major League Baseball officials to expand to he and Branch Rickey started to establish a third league, the Continental League. In 1960, the National League owners club met to discuss the issue of expansion and agreed that in 1962 the National League would add a New York team and another in Houston. The Continental League fell apart before a single game was played.

     Joan Payson, the daughter of the founders of the New York Herald Tribune, purchased eighty percent of the Mets. The Mets were not left to establish the front office. Luckily for the Mets, former Yankees manager, Casey Stengel, and general manager, George Weis, were out of work. Weis was soon hired as president and general manager and Stengel was hired as head coach. The Mets would play in the Giants' former home, the Polo Grounds. The stage was set for the expansion draft and thus, the beginning of a memorable franchise, the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club, was born.