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Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team
A wide-reaching, revolutionary narrative history of the Team of Destiny (da Mets, for anyone not keeping score), that takes us from their 19th century inception to their 1962 resurrection to the present day.
A love letter to a franchise and a thrilling study of New York City history, 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 through the quality of their play to producing some of the greatest chokes in sporting history, from integration to desperate labor struggle against millionaire and billionaire franchise owners, Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the fascinating singularity of the New York Mets—and why it should be not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but anyone with a beating heart.
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 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.
But this is a book not only for Mets fans, or New York partisans, but anyone interested in the Mobius strip dynamic of sports and politics, the history of the national game, or the beautiful contradiction of baseball 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.
A love letter to a franchise and a thrilling study of New York City history, 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 through the quality of their play to producing some of the greatest chokes in sporting history, from integration to desperate labor struggle against millionaire and billionaire franchise owners, Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the fascinating singularity of the New York Mets—and why it should be not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but anyone with a beating heart.
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 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.
But this is a book not only for Mets fans, or New York partisans, but anyone interested in the Mobius strip dynamic of sports and politics, the history of the national game, or the beautiful contradiction of baseball 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.
496 pages, Hardcover
Published March 31, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 44 reviews
May 7, 2026
This covers so much ground, but it is also incredibly readable. Whether or not you agree with the broader conclusions and ties and implications Gittlitz makes, he does a fantastic job weaving so much history together.
Where else are you gonna get a book that has both the Gay Grimace Mets and a breakdown of Occupy Wall Street?
Where else are you gonna get a book that has both the Gay Grimace Mets and a breakdown of Occupy Wall Street?
May 2, 2026
I loved this book for what it represented. A guy telling a cultural history of his city intertwined with the history of his own favorite sports team? As a somewhat aspiring writer, his success here is inspirational. His ability to use pop culture as a mechanism for telling an engaging history of populist movements and their spoilers is also informative to my future history teacher career. The first 150 pages or so got me really engaged—my experience reading about the late 1800s-early 1900s US usually lacks a good reference point, but the inclusion of Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, and Babe Ruth as recognizable figures makes the info about our country’s forgotten socialist history a lot “stickier.” The fall into post-WW2 paranoia about communism and “good vs evil” is especially accentuated by the Giants’ “shot heard round the world” WS-winning home run against the Dodgers in 1951. One of the first high-leverage sports moments widely televised, the event introduced Americans to a new world of divided camps and shocking finishes. You start to realize how the first hundred years of baseball’s existence was so rooted in collectivism and slow, intentional efforts towards coalition building, until huge moments like this one alerted the forces of capital that the game was too profitable to be left to mere mortals to manage. I really like this quote that the author includes from a sportswriter at the time:
“Now it is done…Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again” (page 99).
Chills! I’m spending a lot of time here because this was me at my most invested reading the book. Tracing political movements from the Tammany Hall machine, to Robert Moses’ insidious yet undeniable ambition, to the new Mets’ objection to the Vietnam war, Gittlitz is riding by the seat of his pants connecting every notable event over 200 years back to baseball. It’s invigorating. But it’s also long. And not all chapters are winners.
Particularly once we reach the present, the author seems to lose sight of his thesis. Our last glimpse comes in the 9/11 era, with a concession that “people’s team” doesn’t always equal leftist as the Mets embrace a populist conservative patriotism for the early aughts. It’s a compelling argument, but it needs some more effort to be squared with the rest of the book’s arc. Instead, we spend a lot more time with the story of the author’s rekindled fandom for the team. You blink, and suddenly the richest team in the league is back to being lovable underdogs in the eyes of Gittlitz, with irony losing out to nostalgia. Understandable, but kind of disappointing. The flat ending revisits none of the rich history of earlier pages, and it reframes the whole story negatively. Like, I don’t blame you for not wanting to wade the bloated mess we just finished either. Who’s driving this thing, anyway??
Oh well. I respect Gittlitz a lot for his ambition, and he’s clearly a skilled researcher. I’m just not sure I’d recommend this to a non-leftist baseball superfan. Good thing I am one!
“Now it is done…Now the story ends. And there is no way to tell it. The art of fiction is dead. Reality has strangled invention. Only the utterly impossible, the inexpressibly fantastic, can ever be plausible again” (page 99).
Chills! I’m spending a lot of time here because this was me at my most invested reading the book. Tracing political movements from the Tammany Hall machine, to Robert Moses’ insidious yet undeniable ambition, to the new Mets’ objection to the Vietnam war, Gittlitz is riding by the seat of his pants connecting every notable event over 200 years back to baseball. It’s invigorating. But it’s also long. And not all chapters are winners.
Particularly once we reach the present, the author seems to lose sight of his thesis. Our last glimpse comes in the 9/11 era, with a concession that “people’s team” doesn’t always equal leftist as the Mets embrace a populist conservative patriotism for the early aughts. It’s a compelling argument, but it needs some more effort to be squared with the rest of the book’s arc. Instead, we spend a lot more time with the story of the author’s rekindled fandom for the team. You blink, and suddenly the richest team in the league is back to being lovable underdogs in the eyes of Gittlitz, with irony losing out to nostalgia. Understandable, but kind of disappointing. The flat ending revisits none of the rich history of earlier pages, and it reframes the whole story negatively. Like, I don’t blame you for not wanting to wade the bloated mess we just finished either. Who’s driving this thing, anyway??
Oh well. I respect Gittlitz a lot for his ambition, and he’s clearly a skilled researcher. I’m just not sure I’d recommend this to a non-leftist baseball superfan. Good thing I am one!
April 16, 2026
I have had a life long, white hot hatred of the New York Mets. This in no way diminished my enjoyment of this magisterial work on the socio-political history of Baseball in New York City (and Brooklyn) from the inception of the professional game in 1876 through the Mets' epic collapse in 2025. Very insightful work.
June 28, 2026
I admire authors that take big swings, whether or not they result in home runs. Good writing can take you to places you never imagined, and great writing can make you glad that you went for the ride. So when you get a chance to read about the New York Mets within the context of a Leftist history of baseball and America, you sign up and fasten your seat belt.
"Metropolitans," by A.M. Gittlitz, may not end up as a Ruthian blast deep to the stands, but it works on such a profound level that, even with its flaws, it shatters your expectations. A bold, at times unwieldy, history not just of the Mets, and not just of organized baseball, Gittlitz's book takes on many of the foundational myths of America, showing how history sometimes ignores the poor and downtrodden, people of color and women, minorities in terms of race or gender identity and sexual persuasion. It's all a lot more than you'd likely expect if you're hoping for a book about, you know, the Mets. But it mostly works because of the context.
From their inception in 1962, as lovable losers, the Mets have been the team of the people, the dispossessed and the ignored. They won in 1969, as much of a feel-good story as the moon landing, while not shying away from speaking out on Vietnam when stars were supposed to "shut up and play." And they won again in 1986, with a legendary roster of players whose off-the-field antics were in a league of their own. But as my favorite book about the team ("So Many Ways to Lose") showed, there was quite a lot of history between those championships and also between then and now, and Gittlitz conveys a lot of that through a particular lens that embraces the notion that the Mets were and remain the team for the rest of us.
This is not to say that I agree with every assertion made; long-time followers of my reviews (God, how pretentious was *that*?) have some notion of my liberal beliefs, but some of the reaches that Gittlitz makes are a bit far even for me (and I gather from some of the other reviews that the more conservative readers so far are even less enamored of that). Plus, the Mets of today are no longer "scrappy underdogs" necessarily; they have a high payroll and a billionaire owner. But the *image* of the Mets as scrappy everyday players is still potent, some sixty years after their birth. And this book provides a valuable service early on.
As it turns out, the blue-and-orange team of Tom Seaver, Keith Hernandez, and Mike Piazza isn't the first to have had the name; there was an earlier team known as the "Metropolitans" in the post-Civil War baseball leagues, which vied for workers' rights as much as they did championships. And the story of how organized baseball struggled to define itself as either a utopian socialism for the players versus a lucrative cash cow for the owners is fascinating. Initially I worried that Gittlitz was biting off more than he could chew in including all of this, but he does a great job of making the connection between the Mets of that bygone era and the Mets post-1962 into a believable one.
Do I agree with every assertion made by "Metropolitans"? Nope, but I'm sympathetic to any author who writes about the Mets, and to any author who aims to find an angle that may be a bit of a reach but which could also yield a dynamic story. A.M. Gittlitz does a remarkable job of tying the epic story of the Mets to the Leftist cause in America, and he does so with verve, wit, and passion. I predict that "Metropolitans" is the beginning of a brilliant writing career for the author, and I look forward to what he does next.
"Metropolitans," by A.M. Gittlitz, may not end up as a Ruthian blast deep to the stands, but it works on such a profound level that, even with its flaws, it shatters your expectations. A bold, at times unwieldy, history not just of the Mets, and not just of organized baseball, Gittlitz's book takes on many of the foundational myths of America, showing how history sometimes ignores the poor and downtrodden, people of color and women, minorities in terms of race or gender identity and sexual persuasion. It's all a lot more than you'd likely expect if you're hoping for a book about, you know, the Mets. But it mostly works because of the context.
From their inception in 1962, as lovable losers, the Mets have been the team of the people, the dispossessed and the ignored. They won in 1969, as much of a feel-good story as the moon landing, while not shying away from speaking out on Vietnam when stars were supposed to "shut up and play." And they won again in 1986, with a legendary roster of players whose off-the-field antics were in a league of their own. But as my favorite book about the team ("So Many Ways to Lose") showed, there was quite a lot of history between those championships and also between then and now, and Gittlitz conveys a lot of that through a particular lens that embraces the notion that the Mets were and remain the team for the rest of us.
This is not to say that I agree with every assertion made; long-time followers of my reviews (God, how pretentious was *that*?) have some notion of my liberal beliefs, but some of the reaches that Gittlitz makes are a bit far even for me (and I gather from some of the other reviews that the more conservative readers so far are even less enamored of that). Plus, the Mets of today are no longer "scrappy underdogs" necessarily; they have a high payroll and a billionaire owner. But the *image* of the Mets as scrappy everyday players is still potent, some sixty years after their birth. And this book provides a valuable service early on.
As it turns out, the blue-and-orange team of Tom Seaver, Keith Hernandez, and Mike Piazza isn't the first to have had the name; there was an earlier team known as the "Metropolitans" in the post-Civil War baseball leagues, which vied for workers' rights as much as they did championships. And the story of how organized baseball struggled to define itself as either a utopian socialism for the players versus a lucrative cash cow for the owners is fascinating. Initially I worried that Gittlitz was biting off more than he could chew in including all of this, but he does a great job of making the connection between the Mets of that bygone era and the Mets post-1962 into a believable one.
Do I agree with every assertion made by "Metropolitans"? Nope, but I'm sympathetic to any author who writes about the Mets, and to any author who aims to find an angle that may be a bit of a reach but which could also yield a dynamic story. A.M. Gittlitz does a remarkable job of tying the epic story of the Mets to the Leftist cause in America, and he does so with verve, wit, and passion. I predict that "Metropolitans" is the beginning of a brilliant writing career for the author, and I look forward to what he does next.
June 22, 2026
Good read if you're into baseball or leftist politics at all. The material early in the book links late 19th/early 20th century labor movements and the baseball players union goings on of the same time in a way that sets a strong tone for the rest of the book. Big fan of the way that specific New York teams from that era are framed as a sort of spiritual predecessor to the Mets-imo, something American sports are missing out on is teams with a defined 100+ year history as opposed to "an investment group decided to put a team here in the 60s". The middle part of the book is strong as well and even if you're well versed on late 20th baseball history it's cool to see the way the author frames it in the bigger context of New York (Wall Street and the Mets in the 80s both framed as soulless hedonistic domination, for example). The book sort of sputters near the end with a blow by blow of the 2024 Wild Card race. It's vaguely Bill Simmons-esque but with the writer rambling about early 2020s politics the whole time in a way that gets tiring quick. Still 4 stars on the strength of the beginning and middle of the book.
June 17, 2026
took a while to get through, but i’ve learned so much!
“It seemed the gayer the Mets got, the more they won. A study of the 2009–10 NBA season by Berkeley sociologists found that ‘early season touch predicted greater performance for individuals as well as teams later in the season,” with the touchiest teams—the Celtics and Lakers—topping the league.’ It was not protest of the wars, race riots, and climate chaos engulfing the world, but something deeper and more personal—an embrace of camaraderie and joy in the face of the right-wing culture war against free expression of gender and sexuality.”
HAPPY PRIDE I LOVE DA GAY METS 💙🧡⚾️🍎
“It seemed the gayer the Mets got, the more they won. A study of the 2009–10 NBA season by Berkeley sociologists found that ‘early season touch predicted greater performance for individuals as well as teams later in the season,” with the touchiest teams—the Celtics and Lakers—topping the league.’ It was not protest of the wars, race riots, and climate chaos engulfing the world, but something deeper and more personal—an embrace of camaraderie and joy in the face of the right-wing culture war against free expression of gender and sexuality.”
HAPPY PRIDE I LOVE DA GAY METS 💙🧡⚾️🍎
April 14, 2026
Thanks to Net Galley & Publisher for the ebook ARC.
From the epilogue: The Mets are a team bursting with all the desperation, pain, chaos, and cruel optimism for a better future that persists through civilizations sunset.
I may have been born with a front row seat the Metsian circus - but my guiding principles of never looking away and holding on to hope for better - were also forged in the same flames that keep the our dump built out of capitalist thievery, burning bright.
Stay True. LFGM 🧡💙
From the epilogue: The Mets are a team bursting with all the desperation, pain, chaos, and cruel optimism for a better future that persists through civilizations sunset.
I may have been born with a front row seat the Metsian circus - but my guiding principles of never looking away and holding on to hope for better - were also forged in the same flames that keep the our dump built out of capitalist thievery, burning bright.
Stay True. LFGM 🧡💙
April 20, 2026
“invented by the middle class, baseball became a game that could be watched from the perspective of the boss, or that of the worker. one fan becomes a fantasy GM who desires only glory and curses all failure in “you’re fired” fantasies. the other identifies with the greats, journeymen and chokers alike, seeing baseball as a quotidian workplace drama— a shared experience of making choices and struggling through a life that does not fully belong to us.”
insanely readable for a 400 page nonfiction book about baseball history (and my beloved mets). loved it!
insanely readable for a 400 page nonfiction book about baseball history (and my beloved mets). loved it!
May 31, 2026
4.25. A fun and thought provoking look at the history of the New York Mets, baseball, New York, and resistance movements.
June 13, 2026
This is a book on the intersection between baseball and leftist politics, where the intersections often don't intersect. Gittlitz is clearly a big Mets fan. Gittlitz is also a big leftist activist. So he wrote a book on how the two interrelate, and it seems like they often don't interrelate.
There are times when things do work well. There is a very compelling argument that the late 1960s Mets were tied to the counter-culture and the anti-war ethos in America. This is most famously maneifst in Tom Seaver's comment: If the Mets can win the World Series then we can end the war in Vietnam.
Other times the links come out well. For instance, he notes polling in 2020 showing that Mets had the highest percentage of fans of any MLB identify as Democrats and the second lowest as Republican. Gittlitz also notes how the team's identity does shift. After 9/11, it was much more lining up behind Bush - not only because of the Twin Towers, but also prominent players on the team like Al Leiter and Mike Piazza were clearly conservative. Shortly after that, Gittlitz does a decent job showing how the rise of Omar Minaya and an infusion of Hispanic players created a newer, Los Mets identity. So at times the intersections do intersect.
Many times it feels like Gittlitz is trying to make strained analogies or make big points out of coincidence or curiosities. For instance: one of the students shot in the Kent State massacre was a Mets fan. True fact - but I'm not sure it means a damn thing. The last chapter is a sustained diary of the 2024 season where he tries to draw parallels between the Mets "Gay Grimace" season and the 2024 electoin. This felt really weak and forced. Earlier in the book, he tries to draw an analogy between Bobby Thomson's 1951 home run with a big nuclear test under Stalin. A few pages later, Gittlitz tries to relate the decline in New York Giants attendance in the early 1950s to the Red Scare. The heck?
Wait a second - why's he talking about the New York Giants in a book on the New York Mets? Well, the Mets don't show up until page 125 or so in this 400 page book. Earlier, it's a "brief" history of baseball in New York City, and this is easily the worst part of the book. It feels out of place - I expect a book on the Mets - and is full of surface-level assertions that he baldly states and doesn't back up. The Babe Ruth Yankees were a team for the masses but the 1930s Yankees were teams for the elite. Source? He says so. The 1930s Dodgers embodied the spirit of the New Deal. The Branch Rickey Cardinals farm system created a stridently obedient batch of players. (Because that's how I'd describe the Gas House Gang!) I mean, maybe there is something too these assertions, but .. he just asserts them.
Making it worse, sometimes he clearly gets his facts wrong. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor after the 1942 season. (Ooph. Historical dates aren't that important, but that's a big one. It was 1941). The Beatles reemerged from a hiatus to release a song denouncing war and play a rooftop concert in Manhattan. (It's not a book on music, but he's constantly trying to tie baseball to other areas, so catching him stepping on rakes.... It doesn't make it easier to accept his assertions listed, now does it?) Back to baseball, he implies the Giants beat the Yankees in the 1954 World Series. Now, this might just be bad wording, but - yeesh.
I'll also note the intro has tons of jargon. Fun fact: I began this book at about the same time I began a book on the ideology of the 2020s new right by a person with a Ph.D. in political thought. I was quite surprised that the other book had less jargon and was easier to read than the book on the Mets. Gittlitz does lighten up on the jargon after the intro, but then you get 100-some pages waiting for the Mets to show up, filled with questionable assertions. When the Mets show up, the earlier problmes decline, but you're still left with two tracks of narratvie that aren't always as well attached as the authors wants it to be.
1.5 stars, but I'll round up because most of the book is on the Mets and that's better than the stuff that comes before.
This is basically a 400-page book on the Mets where the Mets don't show up until page 125.
There are times when things do work well. There is a very compelling argument that the late 1960s Mets were tied to the counter-culture and the anti-war ethos in America. This is most famously maneifst in Tom Seaver's comment: If the Mets can win the World Series then we can end the war in Vietnam.
Other times the links come out well. For instance, he notes polling in 2020 showing that Mets had the highest percentage of fans of any MLB identify as Democrats and the second lowest as Republican. Gittlitz also notes how the team's identity does shift. After 9/11, it was much more lining up behind Bush - not only because of the Twin Towers, but also prominent players on the team like Al Leiter and Mike Piazza were clearly conservative. Shortly after that, Gittlitz does a decent job showing how the rise of Omar Minaya and an infusion of Hispanic players created a newer, Los Mets identity. So at times the intersections do intersect.
Many times it feels like Gittlitz is trying to make strained analogies or make big points out of coincidence or curiosities. For instance: one of the students shot in the Kent State massacre was a Mets fan. True fact - but I'm not sure it means a damn thing. The last chapter is a sustained diary of the 2024 season where he tries to draw parallels between the Mets "Gay Grimace" season and the 2024 electoin. This felt really weak and forced. Earlier in the book, he tries to draw an analogy between Bobby Thomson's 1951 home run with a big nuclear test under Stalin. A few pages later, Gittlitz tries to relate the decline in New York Giants attendance in the early 1950s to the Red Scare. The heck?
Wait a second - why's he talking about the New York Giants in a book on the New York Mets? Well, the Mets don't show up until page 125 or so in this 400 page book. Earlier, it's a "brief" history of baseball in New York City, and this is easily the worst part of the book. It feels out of place - I expect a book on the Mets - and is full of surface-level assertions that he baldly states and doesn't back up. The Babe Ruth Yankees were a team for the masses but the 1930s Yankees were teams for the elite. Source? He says so. The 1930s Dodgers embodied the spirit of the New Deal. The Branch Rickey Cardinals farm system created a stridently obedient batch of players. (Because that's how I'd describe the Gas House Gang!) I mean, maybe there is something too these assertions, but .. he just asserts them.
Making it worse, sometimes he clearly gets his facts wrong. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor after the 1942 season. (Ooph. Historical dates aren't that important, but that's a big one. It was 1941). The Beatles reemerged from a hiatus to release a song denouncing war and play a rooftop concert in Manhattan. (It's not a book on music, but he's constantly trying to tie baseball to other areas, so catching him stepping on rakes.... It doesn't make it easier to accept his assertions listed, now does it?) Back to baseball, he implies the Giants beat the Yankees in the 1954 World Series. Now, this might just be bad wording, but - yeesh.
I'll also note the intro has tons of jargon. Fun fact: I began this book at about the same time I began a book on the ideology of the 2020s new right by a person with a Ph.D. in political thought. I was quite surprised that the other book had less jargon and was easier to read than the book on the Mets. Gittlitz does lighten up on the jargon after the intro, but then you get 100-some pages waiting for the Mets to show up, filled with questionable assertions. When the Mets show up, the earlier problmes decline, but you're still left with two tracks of narratvie that aren't always as well attached as the authors wants it to be.
1.5 stars, but I'll round up because most of the book is on the Mets and that's better than the stuff that comes before.
This is basically a 400-page book on the Mets where the Mets don't show up until page 125.
April 28, 2026
Very fun history of the Mets (and New York baseball to some extent) that puts a spotlight on labor, social justice, social history, and wildcat-like fan engagement. The history itself may not be super-revealing to deep baseball people, but the writing moves along easily enough that it won't be a bother to read. For semi-casual fans like myself, it's a mix of good reminder and good background. While the book doesn't have a clear argument or central thesis, it has a purpose as a fan-driven counterpoint to more buttoned-up hagiography.
Overall, very original and insightful writing. A bunch of things I flagged below. The first one is really excellent.
---
"Invented by the middle class, baseball became a game that could be watched from either perspective of the boss, or that of the worker. One fan becomes a fantasy GM who desires only glory and curses all failure in 'you're fired' fantasies. The other identifies with the greats, journeymen, and chokers alike, seeing baseball as a quotidian workplace drama—a shared experience of making choices and struggling through a life that does not fully belong to us."
"Nothing makes us dumber than the electoral spectacle that turns millions of Americans into such fans of the plutocratic parties that they fill their lawns and plaster their bumpers with the names of their favorite cronies."
"With the loss of sleep and the fatigue of the games, we lose all appreciation of the interesting and the beautiful." - Mickey Ward
"The Mets would lose the next game and the next. Then the next, the next, and the next. After losing their first nine games, they finally popped champagne in Pittsburgh to christian their maiden win. They then proceeded to lose three more, and seven of their next nine, for an impressively bad opening of 3-16."
"The Mets fans—they don't worry about anything. They spill all over themselves, their neighbors, their wives, all over the stands. Great for business." - Polo Grounds beer vendor, 1960s
"He had seen in the sparse and dispassionate crowd at Baltimore Memorial Stadium that afternoon what their powerful opponents lacked—the Beach Boys' 'good vibrations' or Jim Morrison's _mojo_—a confidence that everything will supernaturally go your way."
"Professionals are never amazing, only amateurs are, because when they succeed, it's a surprise, a wonder, a true gift. Professionals do what they're supposed to do, every time, on cue; their craft consists in the elimination of chance, the displacement of the amateur." - Jerry Herron in "The Amazing Mets and Structuralist Activity," 1981
"Liberalism's bounce-back after Reagan and Bush Sr. sprang from the illusion that a conflictual history had ended with the Cold War, thus restoring an inevitable arc toward indefinite economic and social progress. The morning of terror sent that trajectory chaotically astray through the legs of the Harvard-educated rules-based international order. In a single morning, all widely held antiwar, antiracist, and antiauthoritarian principles of American politics were wiped away, replaced by millions of American flags, making the entire country look like any street in Long Island's whitest enclaves. The popular rebirth of bloodthirsty patriotism following the attacks would infect every aspect of American society—including, finally, her beloved _Metties_.
"But in a generally depoliticized climate, speaking out like this would have taken immense bravery. The sports establishment, especially in baseball, tends to only tolerate political statements from athletes like Seaver or Don Smith in the midst of mass and popular movements. In 2024, when these movements were suppressed by police and the Democrats' failed centrist strategy, it's likely the would have ended up censored like Carlos Delgado, or blacklisted like Paul Robeson and Colin Kaepernick. It was not the Mets' fault, then, that they fell short. In the fall of 2024, progressivism, like their pitching staff, _hit a wall_."
Overall, very original and insightful writing. A bunch of things I flagged below. The first one is really excellent.
---
"Invented by the middle class, baseball became a game that could be watched from either perspective of the boss, or that of the worker. One fan becomes a fantasy GM who desires only glory and curses all failure in 'you're fired' fantasies. The other identifies with the greats, journeymen, and chokers alike, seeing baseball as a quotidian workplace drama—a shared experience of making choices and struggling through a life that does not fully belong to us."
"Nothing makes us dumber than the electoral spectacle that turns millions of Americans into such fans of the plutocratic parties that they fill their lawns and plaster their bumpers with the names of their favorite cronies."
"With the loss of sleep and the fatigue of the games, we lose all appreciation of the interesting and the beautiful." - Mickey Ward
"The Mets would lose the next game and the next. Then the next, the next, and the next. After losing their first nine games, they finally popped champagne in Pittsburgh to christian their maiden win. They then proceeded to lose three more, and seven of their next nine, for an impressively bad opening of 3-16."
"The Mets fans—they don't worry about anything. They spill all over themselves, their neighbors, their wives, all over the stands. Great for business." - Polo Grounds beer vendor, 1960s
"He had seen in the sparse and dispassionate crowd at Baltimore Memorial Stadium that afternoon what their powerful opponents lacked—the Beach Boys' 'good vibrations' or Jim Morrison's _mojo_—a confidence that everything will supernaturally go your way."
"Professionals are never amazing, only amateurs are, because when they succeed, it's a surprise, a wonder, a true gift. Professionals do what they're supposed to do, every time, on cue; their craft consists in the elimination of chance, the displacement of the amateur." - Jerry Herron in "The Amazing Mets and Structuralist Activity," 1981
"Liberalism's bounce-back after Reagan and Bush Sr. sprang from the illusion that a conflictual history had ended with the Cold War, thus restoring an inevitable arc toward indefinite economic and social progress. The morning of terror sent that trajectory chaotically astray through the legs of the Harvard-educated rules-based international order. In a single morning, all widely held antiwar, antiracist, and antiauthoritarian principles of American politics were wiped away, replaced by millions of American flags, making the entire country look like any street in Long Island's whitest enclaves. The popular rebirth of bloodthirsty patriotism following the attacks would infect every aspect of American society—including, finally, her beloved _Metties_.
"But in a generally depoliticized climate, speaking out like this would have taken immense bravery. The sports establishment, especially in baseball, tends to only tolerate political statements from athletes like Seaver or Don Smith in the midst of mass and popular movements. In 2024, when these movements were suppressed by police and the Democrats' failed centrist strategy, it's likely the would have ended up censored like Carlos Delgado, or blacklisted like Paul Robeson and Colin Kaepernick. It was not the Mets' fault, then, that they fell short. In the fall of 2024, progressivism, like their pitching staff, _hit a wall_."
April 16, 2026
Rating: 5* of five
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Non-Fiction For the week ending April 12, 2026
The Publisher Says: A wide-reaching, revolutionary narrative history of the Team of Destiny (da Mets, for anyone not keeping score), that takes us from their 19th century inception to their 1962 resurrection to the present day.
A love letter to a franchise and a thrilling study of New York City history, 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 through the quality of their play to producing some of the greatest chokes in sporting history, from integration to desperate labor struggle against millionaire and billionaire franchise owners, Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the fascinating singularity of the New York Mets—and why it should be not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but anyone with a beating heart.
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 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.
But this is a book not only for Mets fans, or New York partisans, but anyone interested in the Mobius strip dynamic of sports and politics, the history of the national game, or the beautiful contradiction of baseball 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'm giving this book five stars because the Miracle Mets defeating the Orioles in 1969 was the first time I understood why my grandmother wanted to live to see the Cubs win the Series again (she didn't), and why my dad took me to freezyfrosty cold Candlestick Park to see the Giants play, and lose.
I can't not love anything about baseball, even as I get more and more uneasy with the concept of these gladiatorial games organized to give people some outlet for their desire to hate that is not threatening to "Them"—the capitalist class that very, very badly does not want you to expend that energy in political action.
Carefully entwined into the history of the US, the story of the Metropolitans and of team sports in general is told here with acuity and concision. It's a purpose and a point expressed best in this quote:
I can't really add anything to that statement except to say "+1" to it.
I'm old, so I remember when baseball mattered to lots and lots of Americans, held a real place in our cultural conversation. Football and basketball have that centrality now. But for those of us still loving the sound of a snapped bat connecting on a fastball, this book is catnip. Leftist social critique and economic analysis are seldom more appealingly presented than when entwined with a cultural mainstay of generations-long standing.
I hope I live long enough to see my Mets win the Series again.
The Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers: Non-Fiction For the week ending April 12, 2026
The Publisher Says: A wide-reaching, revolutionary narrative history of the Team of Destiny (da Mets, for anyone not keeping score), that takes us from their 19th century inception to their 1962 resurrection to the present day.
A love letter to a franchise and a thrilling study of New York City history, 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 through the quality of their play to producing some of the greatest chokes in sporting history, from integration to desperate labor struggle against millionaire and billionaire franchise owners, Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the fascinating singularity of the New York Mets—and why it should be not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but anyone with a beating heart.
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 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.
But this is a book not only for Mets fans, or New York partisans, but anyone interested in the Mobius strip dynamic of sports and politics, the history of the national game, or the beautiful contradiction of baseball 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.
My Review: I'm giving this book five stars because the Miracle Mets defeating the Orioles in 1969 was the first time I understood why my grandmother wanted to live to see the Cubs win the Series again (she didn't), and why my dad took me to freezyfrosty cold Candlestick Park to see the Giants play, and lose.
I can't not love anything about baseball, even as I get more and more uneasy with the concept of these gladiatorial games organized to give people some outlet for their desire to hate that is not threatening to "Them"—the capitalist class that very, very badly does not want you to expend that energy in political action.
Carefully entwined into the history of the US, the story of the Metropolitans and of team sports in general is told here with acuity and concision. It's a purpose and a point expressed best in this quote:
From this communal vantage, the abstractions of statistics and standings are confronted by the reality of what we are really seeing—not a game between two opposing teams, but a common human struggle, within and against the economic, legalistic, and mechanical structure of the game itself, and its role as opiate for the physical and existential pain of wage labor.
I can't really add anything to that statement except to say "+1" to it.
I'm old, so I remember when baseball mattered to lots and lots of Americans, held a real place in our cultural conversation. Football and basketball have that centrality now. But for those of us still loving the sound of a snapped bat connecting on a fastball, this book is catnip. Leftist social critique and economic analysis are seldom more appealingly presented than when entwined with a cultural mainstay of generations-long standing.
I hope I live long enough to see my Mets win the Series again.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
When the New York Mets started play in 1962, they were not the first New York baseball team to have the team nickname of “Metropolitans” (not the official name, but many will call them that) nor were they the first team that captured the hearts of many of those in the middle class over the “richer” teams like the Yankees. This book by A.M. Gittlitz captures that connection between those citizens and the baseball team.
The book’s strengths are Gittlitz’s research and the passion for which he writes about the subject, whether it is baseball and the Mets or about the working class and the struggles they have with the political landscape, among many other things. I felt the writing and description of the early Metropolitans and the battles that players had to either form a union or field competing baseball leagues to go up against the National League in the late 19th century was the best aspect of the book.
He also does an excellent job of showing how the Mets of the 1960’s, capping it off with their 1969 championship, resonated with people who may not have cared one bit about baseball but showed how those who have been down for so long can still be successful. He goes deep into that topic as well as the other Mets teams, especially the 2000 team that lost the World Series to the Yankees. They too had connections with the middle class according to Gittlitz.
Where the book was a bit of a downer while reading it was the addition of much political commentary. This isn’t to say that I am one who says politics and sports don’t mix – they indeed do. It isn’t also because I want to insert my own political opinions while reading or writing this review because it doesn’t matter – what matters is how Gittlitz writes about his views and they come across as strong, consistent and passionate. I was only surprised at how much of the book discussed political issues without talking at all about the baseball connection. Nearly every sports book about a particular team, player or era will at least give a few sentences to the social and political climate at the time – this one goes well beyond that. And to the author’s credit, he does a very good job of laying out his beliefs and why he feels that way.
Overall, while I was surprised at the level of detail and how well connected the author put the Mets with the working class, it was quite an interesting book to read and one that is recommended not only for Mets and baseball fans, but also for readers who wish to read about politics and class struggles as well.
I wish to thank Astra Publishing House for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
The book’s strengths are Gittlitz’s research and the passion for which he writes about the subject, whether it is baseball and the Mets or about the working class and the struggles they have with the political landscape, among many other things. I felt the writing and description of the early Metropolitans and the battles that players had to either form a union or field competing baseball leagues to go up against the National League in the late 19th century was the best aspect of the book.
He also does an excellent job of showing how the Mets of the 1960’s, capping it off with their 1969 championship, resonated with people who may not have cared one bit about baseball but showed how those who have been down for so long can still be successful. He goes deep into that topic as well as the other Mets teams, especially the 2000 team that lost the World Series to the Yankees. They too had connections with the middle class according to Gittlitz.
Where the book was a bit of a downer while reading it was the addition of much political commentary. This isn’t to say that I am one who says politics and sports don’t mix – they indeed do. It isn’t also because I want to insert my own political opinions while reading or writing this review because it doesn’t matter – what matters is how Gittlitz writes about his views and they come across as strong, consistent and passionate. I was only surprised at how much of the book discussed political issues without talking at all about the baseball connection. Nearly every sports book about a particular team, player or era will at least give a few sentences to the social and political climate at the time – this one goes well beyond that. And to the author’s credit, he does a very good job of laying out his beliefs and why he feels that way.
Overall, while I was surprised at the level of detail and how well connected the author put the Mets with the working class, it was quite an interesting book to read and one that is recommended not only for Mets and baseball fans, but also for readers who wish to read about politics and class struggles as well.
I wish to thank Astra Publishing House for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Metropolitans
A.M. Gittlitz
Advanced Reader Copy from Net Galley. Thanks, Astra House.
New York City. City of amazing baseball lore, magnificent wins, and tragic, heart wrenching losses. This book tells the story of baseball’s beginnings with the Metropolitans and Gothams of the 19th century, the emergence of the New York Giants, Christy Mathewson and John McGraw, on to the New York Yankees with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio, the Brooklyn Dodgers with Gil Hodges and Jackie Robinson, and finally the re-emergence of the New York Mets with Tom Seaver, Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Mike Piazza, Francisco Lindor, and finally Juan Soto.
This story is captivating and from the beginning is fraught with peril. The ins and outs of ownership struggles, new and dying franchises, cross country moves, wealth and greed, unfair labor practices, racial tension and bigotry all amidst a backdrop of political tension, social uprising, even upheaval at times give a unique perspective to the development of America’s pastime.
Gittlitz does a great job of weaving the story of baseball into the story of America and the tumultuous 20th century. The world wars, the Great Depression, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, and the class and race struggles that defined much of the early 21st century in America all had direct impacts on Major League Baseball. This story is focused on the Mets, but the overarching themes give credence to the story of all major league franchises navigating the world and cities which they inhabit. The fan bases linking arms and loving their teams even though, in the end, it almost always ends in heartbreak.
This book is a well researched and thought provoking look at a city that loves its baseball. This city has found two distinct groups of fans to support their Yankees or their Mets. There is no in between and no love lost between the two franchises and fan bases. I learned a lot in this book and recommend it to New York baseball fans and really any baseball fans. It’s a unique blend of history, both social and political, and the baseball that took place along the way.
A.M. Gittlitz
Advanced Reader Copy from Net Galley. Thanks, Astra House.
New York City. City of amazing baseball lore, magnificent wins, and tragic, heart wrenching losses. This book tells the story of baseball’s beginnings with the Metropolitans and Gothams of the 19th century, the emergence of the New York Giants, Christy Mathewson and John McGraw, on to the New York Yankees with Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, and Joe DiMaggio, the Brooklyn Dodgers with Gil Hodges and Jackie Robinson, and finally the re-emergence of the New York Mets with Tom Seaver, Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden, Mike Piazza, Francisco Lindor, and finally Juan Soto.
This story is captivating and from the beginning is fraught with peril. The ins and outs of ownership struggles, new and dying franchises, cross country moves, wealth and greed, unfair labor practices, racial tension and bigotry all amidst a backdrop of political tension, social uprising, even upheaval at times give a unique perspective to the development of America’s pastime.
Gittlitz does a great job of weaving the story of baseball into the story of America and the tumultuous 20th century. The world wars, the Great Depression, Vietnam, the Civil Rights Movement, and the class and race struggles that defined much of the early 21st century in America all had direct impacts on Major League Baseball. This story is focused on the Mets, but the overarching themes give credence to the story of all major league franchises navigating the world and cities which they inhabit. The fan bases linking arms and loving their teams even though, in the end, it almost always ends in heartbreak.
This book is a well researched and thought provoking look at a city that loves its baseball. This city has found two distinct groups of fans to support their Yankees or their Mets. There is no in between and no love lost between the two franchises and fan bases. I learned a lot in this book and recommend it to New York baseball fans and really any baseball fans. It’s a unique blend of history, both social and political, and the baseball that took place along the way.
July 2, 2026
A bit of context before writing what think about this book.
I am 72 years old, saw my first Mets' game in 1962, and been a diehard fan all the way. A.M. Gittlitz is about my son's age and every bit as big a Mets fan as I am. We both pay close attention to politics. My politics probably would fit most definitions of center-left. Gittlitz is easily a socialist and might be further over than that.
What I never really thought - and Gittlitz definitely does think - is that being a Mets fan is a political act. Or at least he views the Mets, and baseball in general, through the lens of class, gender equality, war, and diversity.
Gittlitz opens with a history of baseball leading to the creation of the New York Met, then through their history. Throughout, he puts major baseball events, players, and owners in a class/political category or context. He cites specific actions that demonstrate when the baseball and the Mets are very progressive and when they are very right wing.
As a life long Mets fan and one who pays close attention to current events, there is little here that I didn't remember, though there are some nuggets of revelation. What is different is that Gittlitz intertwines baseball and politics so deeply. It is an interesting historical interpretation. Politics and baseball have certainly been connected. Social, racial and economic changes have brought them together many times.
I am not as eager to view baseball as a political act as Gittlitz is. I want my baseball to be exciting, communal, and a diversion. If I took all that political overlay to a game, it would be harder to enjoy it.
While reading this, I kept thinking about the quip associated with a cigar being a phallic symbol, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
Sometimes, baseball is just baseball.
This book would appeal to a Mets fan who is a political lefty. Everybody else would probably be best advised to read a different book.
I am 72 years old, saw my first Mets' game in 1962, and been a diehard fan all the way. A.M. Gittlitz is about my son's age and every bit as big a Mets fan as I am. We both pay close attention to politics. My politics probably would fit most definitions of center-left. Gittlitz is easily a socialist and might be further over than that.
What I never really thought - and Gittlitz definitely does think - is that being a Mets fan is a political act. Or at least he views the Mets, and baseball in general, through the lens of class, gender equality, war, and diversity.
Gittlitz opens with a history of baseball leading to the creation of the New York Met, then through their history. Throughout, he puts major baseball events, players, and owners in a class/political category or context. He cites specific actions that demonstrate when the baseball and the Mets are very progressive and when they are very right wing.
As a life long Mets fan and one who pays close attention to current events, there is little here that I didn't remember, though there are some nuggets of revelation. What is different is that Gittlitz intertwines baseball and politics so deeply. It is an interesting historical interpretation. Politics and baseball have certainly been connected. Social, racial and economic changes have brought them together many times.
I am not as eager to view baseball as a political act as Gittlitz is. I want my baseball to be exciting, communal, and a diversion. If I took all that political overlay to a game, it would be harder to enjoy it.
While reading this, I kept thinking about the quip associated with a cigar being a phallic symbol, "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."
Sometimes, baseball is just baseball.
This book would appeal to a Mets fan who is a political lefty. Everybody else would probably be best advised to read a different book.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
"From this communal vantage, the abstractions of statistics and standings are confronted by the reality of what we are really seeing--not a game between two opposing teams, but a common human struggle, within and against the economic, legalistic, and mechanical structure of the game itself, and its role as opiate for the physical and existential pain of wage labor."
Truly amazing read. A detailed history of the Mets, from a Marxist historical analysis perspective, written by a true fan of the orange and blue. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the origins of America's favorite pastime and the few highs and many lows of the New York Mets, as those peaks and valleys coincided with various class, civil rights, and labor struggles in American history. The Mets' perennial struggles reflect the near constant belittling of the working class in this country. Even now, the Mets maintain their status as "The People's Team" despite having the highest (or one of the highest) payrolls in the MLB. It was simultaneously heartening and disheartening to watch the players fight for their rights as laborers, only for capital (the MLB, the team owners, the government) to drive a wedge between them and the rest of the country's working people. Just a fascinating book overall. Loved it. A great message for baseball fans and everyone else working and living paycheck to paycheck alike. As Francisco Lindor said after the 2024 NLCS loss: "You have to build. You have to fight for each other. You have to create that bond and that trust. And like I said, fight for each other."
Netgalley and Astra Publishing House provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Truly amazing read. A detailed history of the Mets, from a Marxist historical analysis perspective, written by a true fan of the orange and blue. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the origins of America's favorite pastime and the few highs and many lows of the New York Mets, as those peaks and valleys coincided with various class, civil rights, and labor struggles in American history. The Mets' perennial struggles reflect the near constant belittling of the working class in this country. Even now, the Mets maintain their status as "The People's Team" despite having the highest (or one of the highest) payrolls in the MLB. It was simultaneously heartening and disheartening to watch the players fight for their rights as laborers, only for capital (the MLB, the team owners, the government) to drive a wedge between them and the rest of the country's working people. Just a fascinating book overall. Loved it. A great message for baseball fans and everyone else working and living paycheck to paycheck alike. As Francisco Lindor said after the 2024 NLCS loss: "You have to build. You have to fight for each other. You have to create that bond and that trust. And like I said, fight for each other."
Netgalley and Astra Publishing House provided me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
June 1, 2026
This was a very interesting read - not necessarily for the reasons I expected. As someone who was just old enough to follow baseball when the Mets were formed, they were a big part of my life until I moved away from the NY area and then paid less attention. I learned a lot about the early history of baseball in NY and how the Mets "came to be." Since I was much less familiar with the Mets history after the mid-late 70s, I also learned a lot about that part ifctheirvhistiry - which at this point is mist if it! .
It was fun to read about the differences in both management t and perception of the Mets and the Yankees and to be reminded of some of the "warts" in Mets history (M. Donald Grant was high on my list and he was indeed there, and I learned about some others whose influence was less positive than I had thought, so the book was useful on that score). I leave it to readers to decide how they feel about some of the "political underpinnings" of the book. And g
Given that background, I was hoping for a clearer explanation (maybe it was there and I missed it) of why the NY Yankees "brand" is so much more recognized worldwide than that of the Mets (just watch for hats and you'll see). If the Mets are the "Proples' Team) shouldn't more people want to be identified with them? Is it won/loss record? To me, true Mets fans (especially those "present at the creation") don't expect team success. It's great when it happens, of course, but should never be a required metric for being a fan.
If you are a long-suffrring Mets fan (is there NY other kind?) then this will ne a worthwhile read.
It was fun to read about the differences in both management t and perception of the Mets and the Yankees and to be reminded of some of the "warts" in Mets history (M. Donald Grant was high on my list and he was indeed there, and I learned about some others whose influence was less positive than I had thought, so the book was useful on that score). I leave it to readers to decide how they feel about some of the "political underpinnings" of the book. And g
Given that background, I was hoping for a clearer explanation (maybe it was there and I missed it) of why the NY Yankees "brand" is so much more recognized worldwide than that of the Mets (just watch for hats and you'll see). If the Mets are the "Proples' Team) shouldn't more people want to be identified with them? Is it won/loss record? To me, true Mets fans (especially those "present at the creation") don't expect team success. It's great when it happens, of course, but should never be a required metric for being a fan.
If you are a long-suffrring Mets fan (is there NY other kind?) then this will ne a worthwhile read.
June 7, 2026
I got caught halfway between three and four and I'll ultimately go to three, but that's probably a little harsh for a book that I ultimately enjoyed and found well worth the purchase price.
I'm a very annoying Twitter addict and, very specifically, an annoying Leftist sports twitter addict. For better or worse, this book is a complete indulgence in that identity. For better (incisive and funny tidbits about failed promotions and the various monsters brought in on the business side) or worse (the book, particularly in the epilogue, veers into reading a bit like someone who's nine tweets deep in a Twitter argument about who's team is actually based).
I think people who are less terminally online will be less turned off by what I thought were the books weaknesses (I've just seen every iteration of every argument that 'Team X' is a moral exception for Leftists).
Ultimately, I found the book very charming, particularly when we got the "remember some guys" sections of my own childhood, and thought the book was at it's best when it leaned into the being "a fan book from someone who happens to be a leftist" versus "class analysis through the lens of the Mets."
Would ultimately recommend buying!
I'm a very annoying Twitter addict and, very specifically, an annoying Leftist sports twitter addict. For better or worse, this book is a complete indulgence in that identity. For better (incisive and funny tidbits about failed promotions and the various monsters brought in on the business side) or worse (the book, particularly in the epilogue, veers into reading a bit like someone who's nine tweets deep in a Twitter argument about who's team is actually based).
I think people who are less terminally online will be less turned off by what I thought were the books weaknesses (I've just seen every iteration of every argument that 'Team X' is a moral exception for Leftists).
Ultimately, I found the book very charming, particularly when we got the "remember some guys" sections of my own childhood, and thought the book was at it's best when it leaned into the being "a fan book from someone who happens to be a leftist" versus "class analysis through the lens of the Mets."
Would ultimately recommend buying!
May 11, 2026
Life as a leftist sports fan is always being Charlie Brown about to kick the football. You always feel like this time, Lucy won’t pull the ball away, the pigskin will go end over end into the distance and you’ll feel like Adam Vinateri in the Super Bowl. Unfortunately for Charlie Brown and for me, sports have a funny way of mimicking the real world around us. The big money, power backed interest hold the majority of the cards and when the dealer turns over the river card, you’re gonna need a lot to break right.
Here, in ‘Metropolitans’ Met fandom is cast as a lens for viewing the world. Through the shared history of New York baseball, the Mets ability to once in a blue moon captivate the city is why you can’t ever give up. The strongest point of Metropolitans is that sports are both an athletic contest and a microcosm of humanity. That through shared struggle we can all find a deeper level of connection and be more human.
Here, in ‘Metropolitans’ Met fandom is cast as a lens for viewing the world. Through the shared history of New York baseball, the Mets ability to once in a blue moon captivate the city is why you can’t ever give up. The strongest point of Metropolitans is that sports are both an athletic contest and a microcosm of humanity. That through shared struggle we can all find a deeper level of connection and be more human.
April 7, 2026
An absolute essential for Mets, baseball, and politically interested fans alike, you can judge people's mental standing of politics based on their reactions to this book. I don't agree with Gittlitz's politics. I am liberal, yes, but I am not an overt and out socialist. I am however, an appreciater of great writing and even moreso, Mets baseball.
I entered Metropolitans looking to get an insight from a true-blooded Queens native on my favorite baseball team, but ended up getting so much more. This book will inform you on everything the peoples-team both stood and stands for now, and will be infinitely entertaining while doing so.
I can agree with fellow readers that Glittitz's political commentaries seem out-of-place and not so tied together at times, but to act like those messages are text ruining is laughable. Read Metropolitans, you'll love it.
I entered Metropolitans looking to get an insight from a true-blooded Queens native on my favorite baseball team, but ended up getting so much more. This book will inform you on everything the peoples-team both stood and stands for now, and will be infinitely entertaining while doing so.
I can agree with fellow readers that Glittitz's political commentaries seem out-of-place and not so tied together at times, but to act like those messages are text ruining is laughable. Read Metropolitans, you'll love it.
April 26, 2026
All the baseball world is a nail when you solely have a hammer or, in the case of “Metropolitans,” a hammer and sickle. A.M. Gittlitz traces the parallel plights of the Mets and the proletariat, both long-suffering, over the past century and a half. The dense writing is alternately informative (especially about the ‘86 Mets), entertaining (dubbing the prior team ownership “Wilponzis”) and over the top (likening the building of the the 1960s Mets to the building of the atomic bomb). Some baseball references must be ruled errors: Ron Darling didn’t start Game 6 of the 1986 World Series, the Bill Buckner classic. Still, you have to forgive anyone who has persevered through the dashed hopes of the Yankees-Mets World Series and Occupy Wall Street.
April 27, 2026
I hope Gittlitz was doing regular calisthenics during the composition of this book, because some of the historical-materialist analysis is a streeeetttttch, but I am nevertheless sympathetic to the broad contours of the argument and welcome serious, politically engaged sports writing ("Invented by the middle class, baseball became a game that could be watched from the perspective of the boss, or that of the worker. One fan becomes a fantasy GM who desires only glory and curses all failure in 'you’re fired' fantasies. The other identifies with the greats, journeymen and chokers alike, seeing baseball as a quotidian workplace drama—a shared experience of making choices and struggling through a life that does not fully belong to us." - amen!). A lot of fun!
May 31, 2026
I think the strongest part of this book is the 50s leading up to the inception of the Mets, and up to just past the '86 World Series. It reads easy and the entire concept of the book starts to come into clear vision. Unfortunately, the later third of the book really lost me. The entire thesis of the book starts to feel muddied the closer we get to contemporary history, and baseball becomes increasingly corporatized and conservative. By the last few chapters it felt like I was reading a point by point retelling of American history, interspersed with how the Mets lost in embarrassing fashion yet again. The high points were fun, but the lows were sometimes a slog to get through. Similar to a typical Mets season. #LGM
June 2, 2026
I enjoyed this book. Truly I did. The premise is awesome because I also fully live my life through baseball goggles, and I also am fascinated by how societal ills manifest in sport. However: while reading the epilogue, it came into focus for me how deeply grating the author's voice can be. There are a ton of overwritten sentences throughout (which are funny, so lowkey justified?). The intermittent injections of the author's own experience, which are sometimes helpful but more often read like some strange kind of virtue signaling, knock the whole book down. I love baseball and I love the Mets and I love analyzing politics through sport and I love writing about communal fan experience, but the way this book slaps it all together often feels clumsy.
May 26, 2026
I love DA METS I love socialism and thinking about how class and culture intersect, the whole nine yards. I really enjoyed reading this but for me it didn’t quite sell me on the argument it was making, one that I also generally agree with. The Mets do have a leftist spirit and are the answer to the cultural juggernaut that is the Yankees but at the end of the day they are also part of the capitalist machine and in many ways more so than a lot of the teams with a more “elitist” label. Very cool history of baseball and its intersection with broader culture and class warfare certainly with the read but for me it didn’t stick the landing in the final third. LETS GO METS!!!
May 29, 2026
So there’s a TikTok called “Reading the final ‘hopeful’ chapter at the end of every leftist nonfiction book” and I kid you not, this ends in more or less the same way.
I was never really into baseball growing up, but this being my first book I’ve read on the sport has made me wanna seek out more historical sports writing. Gittlitz does a really great job at framing the history of the New York Mets, tying the development of the sport and the culture of the team with parallel social and political movements through the years. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? No babes you exist in the context from which you came
I was never really into baseball growing up, but this being my first book I’ve read on the sport has made me wanna seek out more historical sports writing. Gittlitz does a really great job at framing the history of the New York Mets, tying the development of the sport and the culture of the team with parallel social and political movements through the years. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? No babes you exist in the context from which you came
April 11, 2026
No surprise here, but I really loved this. Spanning from the rise of professional baseball in the 1800s (did you know the Mets were not the first baseball team to be called that?) to their cinderella run 2024 season, A.M. Gittlitz ties together the Mets’ rich history with the rise of New York City, the class divides and union crusades that created the modern sport of baseball, and the idea of “the people’s team” representing the downtrodden of the city.
Very well done, let’s go Mets baby love da Mets
Very well done, let’s go Mets baby love da Mets
May 17, 2026
As a non-baseball fan raised in a family of Mets fans, this book did what 20 years of half hearted introductions to the sport could not - it’s turned me into a Mets fan.
Gittlitz provides a broad history of Baseball, especially its foundational status in late 19th century New York. Beyond this historical account, his interweaving of Marxist theory adds a fascinating lens of analysis to the sport, and only rarely comes across as a reach.
While my lack of fandom left me lacking popular context for the latter two chapters of the book, overall it was an enjoyable read.
Gittlitz provides a broad history of Baseball, especially its foundational status in late 19th century New York. Beyond this historical account, his interweaving of Marxist theory adds a fascinating lens of analysis to the sport, and only rarely comes across as a reach.
While my lack of fandom left me lacking popular context for the latter two chapters of the book, overall it was an enjoyable read.
July 6, 2026
So, this was different. A history of baseball from a Marxist perspective, with a special emphasis on New York baseball and the Mets in particular. Labor issues are always decided in favor of the worker, the capitalism which makes the business of sport possible is yet still unjust, and the politicians who try to keep peace are sellouts. I have sympathy for this perspective, but the many factual mistakes about both history and baseball (eg Pearl Harbor happened in 1941, not 1942!) make me suspicious about some of the other biases of the author.
June 27, 2026
There is a lot to like here. The earlier chapters in particular. As we get closer and closer to present day, the writing grasps tightly to some tenuous connections and oversimplifications. As a Mets fan, I am intrigued by the conceit, but it seems to me that it may proved a little overly aspirational to bring continue a historical perspective on affairs that are still unfolding, both on and off the field.
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