New York Mets

Life isn’t easy in the shadow of a bigger, richer, more successful older brother and the New York Mets have shared their city for over a half century with the biggest hitters of all, the crosstown powerhouse New York Yankees. This has often made the poor ol’ Mets into something of a punchline in their own city. David Letterman once joked that during the 1994 baseball strike, one of the top demands by players around the league was that they would get to play “more games against the Mets.” After the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants relocated to the West Coast (LA and San Francisco) the Big Apple was left without a National League baseball team and so the Mets (short for Metropolitan) came into existence in 1962. They had a rough start, setting a new record for the worst season of all time with a shocking 40-120 record, but in 1969 the “Miracle Mets” defeated several highly-favored teams in the postseason en route to beating the Baltimore Orioles in the World Series. The Mets reached another World Series in 1973 but fell in a heartbreaking Game Seven to the Oakland Athletics. After a period of struggling, the team then made a pair of superb draft picks in the early 1980s, selecting heavy hitter Darryl Strawberry and ace pitcher Dwight Gooden to bolster their squad. They won their division in 1986 and pushed on all the way to the World Series, where they beat the Boston Red Sox 4-3 in a nailbiter of a series that saw them come within a single strike of dropping Game Six to their opponents. Their next appearance in a World Series was not until 2000, but it was worth the wait, as a showdown with their crosstown rivals the Yankees that was dubbed the “Subway Series.” Unfortunately for the Mets, they lost the World Series in five games, as they did again in 2015 to the Kansas City Royals, their most recent appearance to date. 2023 has been a year to forget for Mets fans, with the team posting a losing record and missing out on the postseason. Anticipation is already rising, however, for 2024, when New York Mets fans will hope to see their team back in contention again. 

New York Mets Rivalries

Note: If you want to attend a New York Metsgame, the team has intense rivalries with the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, and Philadelphia Phillies, so tickets might be hard to find. Your go-to spot should always be TicketX, where you can find the best (and cheapest) tickets to all the most exciting Mets games!).