Metropolitans - by A M Gittlitz (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"Metropolitans expertly unpacks the 'cruel optimism' linking the yearning of a fanbase whose suffering is alleviated by sporadic miracles to the genuine dissident legacies that surrounded the team's creation and which have occasionally, miraculously, come back to life." --Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

A love letter to a franchise and a thrilling study of New York City, Metropolitans traces the electric and calamitous history of the New York Mets.

Metropolitans is for Mets fans, New York partisans, and everyone interested in the Mobius strip dynamic of sports and politics, the history of the national game, or the beautiful contradiction of baseball itself: a middle-class game owned by billionaires, in which the players--like the spectators--look to traverse the diamond and ultimately safely escape its many dangers. Along the way, A.M. Gittlitz re-introduces us to an eccentric cast of Metsian characters: Joan Payson, the first woman to buy a Major League Baseball team; a young Tom Seaver with an interest in progressive politics; and the contentious but beloved Mike Piazza.

Gittlitz leads us through baseball's amateur beginnings to the Mets' first heady World Series on the heels of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements that many Mets players participated in. He guides us to the bad boy years, the exploitative development of farm academies in developing nations, and their inglorious purchase by a new breed of capitalist--even after which they remained lovable losers.

Metropolitans brilliantly shows us that sports have long been a site of political struggle, rousing class consciousness, and animating fights for racial equality. From purportedly calming riots in '69 to producing some of the greatest chokes in sporting history, from integration to desperate labor struggle against franchise owners, Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the fascinating singularity of the New York Mets--and why they are not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but the beloved team of anyone with a beating heart.

Review Quotes

"Metropolitans expertly unpacks the 'cruel optimism' linking the yearning of a fanbase whose suffering is alleviated by sporadic miracles to the genuine dissident legacies that surrounded the team's creation and which have occasionally, miraculously, come back to life. How appropriate that I write these words while watching the Mets being no-hit through eight innings--precisely the situation of the U.S. left at this moment. How will our heroes survive? Stay tuned!"
--Jonathan Lethem, author of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude

"Shea belongs to the people! Metropolitans unpacks the singular and wondrous history of Mets baseball. From Tom Seaver's bold stand on Vietnam to the big-dollar glitz of the Piazza years, A.M. Gittlitz has assembled a true people's history of New York City's most special franchise."
--Noah Kulwin, co-host of Blowback podcast

"Metropolitans is a gem, an ode to the countercultural working-class punk side of baseball that gets ignored by corporate ownership and media. Its vehicle: the singularly star-crossed New York Mets, and this is a rich, roaring, necessary text for Mets fans, but it also deserves to be widely read as a socio-political history of America in the last 60-some years. Metropolitans reminds us that beneath its stifling monopolistic business practices, Major League Baseball is a complex civic institution populated by wise-ass humans yearning for good baseball, cheap beer, and a living wage."
--John W. Miller, author of New York Times bestseller The Last Manager: How Earl Weaver Tricked, Tormented, and Reinvented Baseball

"If Howard Zinn himself had written a people's history of 20th century baseball in New York City and the rise of the Amazin' Mets, he would've been hard-pressed to approach what A.M. Gittlitz has accomplished in Metropolitans. Filled with captivating detail and historical insight, Gittlitz's work is a singular account of a period in America when pro sports, mass culture and urban politics collided and became inextricably linked forever."
--Devin Gordon, author of So Many Ways to Lose: The Amazin' True Story of the New York Mets―the Best Worst Team in Sports

"The book is unlike any other Mets-related book we've seen; Gittlitz has gone deep into not just Mets history, but the societal context of the team's founding, its early years, and all the subsequent eras of the team's existence. It is a book that's not just for baseball fans, but for anyone with an interest in late 20th century New York or American sports culture."
--Brian Salvatore, Amazin' Avenue

"[Metropolitans comprises] staggering amounts of backstory, dozens of details that have been lost to time until now, and a blend of perspective and context that feels as relevant in 2025 as it would have in 1969."
--Greg Prince, Faith and Fear in Flushing

About the Author

A.M. Gittlitz is an organizer and writer focusing on counterculture and radical politics. He is the author of I Want to Believe: Posadism, UFOs and Apocalypse Communism and co-host of the podcast This Wreckage. He lives in Ridgewood, Queens, but can be often found Tuesday nights at the Vegan City food stand at Citi Field.