Only 25 percent of New Yorkers admit to being Mets fans. But over the years, the Amazins have managed some amazing comebacks.
• The Mets played their inaugural season in 1962 and didn’t get a win until the 10th game. They ultimately lost 120, the most losses in one year in modern MLB history. But by 1969 the team was playing its best season yet, winning 100 games, sweeping the Atlanta Braves to win the National League pennant, and finally beating the Baltimore Orioles in five games to win the World Series, the first expansion team ever to take the title. The season earned them the nickname “the Miracle Mets.”
• During a May 1973 game at Shea Stadium, Atlanta Brave Marty Perez cracked a line drive right into the forehead of Mets pitcher Jon Matlack. The ball hit Matlack so hard that it fractured his skull and then bounced off one of the dugouts. Many Mets players and fans thought Matlack’s career was over, but he returned to the mound just 11 days later to pitch a win in Pittsburgh.
• By the late 1970s, the Mets had fallen into the “losers” category once again, and in 1979, they posted their worst record ever: just 63 wins…and 99 losses. Shea Stadium sat nearly empty throughout the season, earning it the nickname “Grant’s Tomb.” But the team rallied during the 1980s, signing stars like Darryl Strawberry and Gary Carter. By 1986 they’d rebounded once again to appear opposite the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. By game six, all appeared to be lost—the Red Sox were up 3–2, and one of the scoreboards even flashed a congratulatory message to the Boston team. But the Mets went on to stage one of the most impressive comebacks in baseball history. Thanks to a lot of impressive hitting—and an infamous error from Boston first baseman Bill Buckner, who let a slow ball roll through his legs—the Mets went on to win game six, and then game seven, to take their second World Series title.
• On April 17, 2010, the Mets beat the St. Louis Cardinals 2–1 in a 20-inning game that lasted for seven hours. It was the first time in MLB history that neither team scored for the first 18 consecutive innings.
“When a man is tired of NY, he is tired of work. And thought. And cheesecake.” —David Frost