It all began in the fall of 1957 when the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants decided to leave town for the greener pastures of the California sunshine.  The move worked beautifully for the Dodgers as they moved to L.A. and immediately gained a strong following.  The Giants on the other hand were not so fortunate.  This is how National League Baseball came to leave New York.

Philip Kossoy of Freehold, NJ, the author, was not even born when the first pitch in Mets history was thrown and that's a good thing as they lost their first 11 games and went 40 / 120 on the season setting the all time record as having the worst won loss record of any team ever in Major League Baseball. Over 50 years later this record still stands.

The first players to don a Mets uniform were either the rejects from other teams or old Dodger and Giant heroes from the past who were washed up at the time. First was their showman manager the great Casey Stengel.  He was known to fall asleep on the bench during games.

Then there were a few former New York greats such as Brooklyn's Gil Hodges and Duke Snyder.  Even Yogi Berra played in a few games in 1965 before becoming a coach. By this time our author Philip Kossoy now of Freehold NJ was in diapers and as the old professor Casey used to say...get em' early to start saying Metsie, Metsie, Metsie. 

The team sure had it's cast of characters.  There was the Marvelous Marv Throneberry...nothing very marvelous about Marv...then there was Catcher Choo Choo Coleman who couldn't hit, couldn't catch, and couldn't remember anyone's name so he just called everyone Bub.     

They did have a few good players early on.  There was Frank Thomas who in 1962 hit 34 Home Runs.  There was former Philadelphia Phillies Center Fielder Richie Ashburn who led the team with a .306 batting average. And in 1964, the year our author Philip Kossoy was born, the Mets opened up their shiny new ballpark "Shea Stadium".  Philip Kossoy was 8 days old when the first pitch was thrown. The Mets of course lost this game to the Pittsburgh Pirates by a score of 4-3.  But better days were ahead as the worst team in the history of Major League Baseball would become the best team in baseball practically out of no where in just 7 short seasons as the 1969 New York Mets made national headlines by winning the World Series.  Unfortunately, Philip Kossoy of Freehold New Jersey was not old enough to enjoy this celebration.

Philip Kossoy

Freehold NJ