Mar 30 2021 09:44 AM
Peter Golenbock has co-written one terrific baseball book (The Bronx Zoo, 1979) and followed that with a long career writing or co-writing mostly drivel. Histories and memoirs that have been slapdash and formulaic. I was disturbed to read that he was allegedly partnering with Bobby Valentine on a memoir, and the sooner Lunchie checks him over the boards for that role, the better.
His Amazin': The Miraculous History of New York's Most Beloved Baseball Team (2002), while more ambitious, unfortunately proved to be no exception to that pattern, and certainly failed to live up to it's title. But one of the few more interesting things he included was to start with a brief history of The New York Metropolitans (1883–1887) of the old American Association, an extinct early major league circuit that included several franchises still operating today.
The connections are few, but they are the main source for the name "Mets" and they played at the original iteration of The Polo Grounds. The Mets came into being largely with a goal of claiming the real inheritance of both The Brooklyn Dodgers and The New York Giants, and somewhat wrestling for the New York legacy those west coast franchises left behind. While this has mixed success and failure, it's led to at least a little controversy as well now that the team is closing in on six decades old, having plenty of legacy of their own to exploit.
But the legacy of the Metropolitans remains orphaned, and I type with the notion that Golenbock was on to something. I think (a) a small amount of history from the earlier team in Mets museum displays, (b) an acknowledgment among the honorees in the team Hall of Fame (and retired "numbers") of legendary pitcher Tim Keefe and perhaps manager Jim Mutrie, and (c) maybe an occasional throwback uniform day seems like it would be educational and fun. And since the demise of the team occurred as several of the stars jumped to the Giants, with the Dodgers buying out the remaining assets, the connection isn't so non-linear as all that.