Joan Whitney Payson was a sports enthusiast who was a minority shareholder in the old New York Giants Major League Baseball club. She and her husband opposed moving the team to San Francisco in 1957. After the majority of the shareholders approved the move, Ms. Payson sold her stock and began working to get a replacement team for New York City. Along with M. Donald Grant, the only other director who opposed the Giants' move, Payson put together a group that won a New York franchise in the Continental League, a proposed third major league. The National League responded by awarding an expansion team to Payson's group, which became the New York Mets. Payson served as the team's president from 1968-1975. Active in the affairs of the baseball club, she was much admired by the team's personnel and players. She was inducted posthumously into the New York Mets Hall of Fame in 1981. She was also the first woman to buy majority control of a team in a major North American sports league, rather than inheriting it. Payson was instrumental in the return of Willie Mays to New York City baseball in May 1972 by way of trade and cash from the Giants.I'm no crazy historian and can't name the starting lineup of the 1962 Mets, but you NEED to know who Joan Payson is. Not everyone is a die hard that cares about every little detail of the Mets organization but it's always good to know your roots. LGM!
We'll be spending Opening Weekend in Houston! Hopefully you'll be one of the 1,300 Mets fans kicking the season off with us in Texas! The Astros didn't have enough availability to fit us for Opening Day, so we locked up 1,300 tickets to game 2 of the season on March 29th.
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