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Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team
Not yet published
Expected 30 Mar 27A 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, Paperback
Expected publication March 30, 2027
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 72 reviews
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!
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?
August 26, 2026
HELL YES
This book was made for me. Baseball?!! Political struggle and class consciousness??? US history??? Let's gooooo
I love the framing of our political and social history through the framework of America's pastime - time to add baseball to the list of intersectionalities
This book was made for me. Baseball?!! Political struggle and class consciousness??? US history??? Let's gooooo
I love the framing of our political and social history through the framework of America's pastime - time to add baseball to the list of intersectionalities
July 28, 2026
Incredible encapsulation of the history of the Mets in context of world and united states history and how their history in New York is intertwined with the city’s history. This book was designed in a lab for me - thoughtfully written, common themes throughout (though mentions of the Mets working class roots dwindled throughout the book as it began to focus more on baseball in the present), and well progressed. One star docked for some long (and very unrelated) political diatribes.
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.
August 28, 2026
TL;DR version: this book is like a bullied highschooler with an ego as high as his popularity was low tried to create The People's History of America but ended up writing a book of character attacks with no editors to fact check him. The author's two other credited books are about third age Trotskyism and (I kid you not) "UFOs and Apocalypse Communism". Make of that what you will.
Long version: This is a book about the history of baseball in New York from the 1800s to the present day with a focus on the New York Mets. It's written from a communist perspective which is interesting enough. I actually agree with some of his sentiments on workers rights and found parts of the early history of baseball and workers collectivism in the sport fascinating. Despite this, I couldn't finish the book for three main reasons.
1. The most egregious reason I stopped was the first page of chapter 12 ("Atrociti Field"). The author includes a wholly inaccurate description of Christopher Nolan's batman film The Dark Knight including attributing the famous quote "you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" to the wrong character in the wrong part of the movie. Now, this might seem a petty reason to stop reading a book but it points to a much broader issue in that the author twists facts and narratives to fit his viewpoint. He makes a big deal out of rumors of Mike Piazza's potential homosexuality in the early 2000s and I don't remember that being an issue at all at the time. Those are just two examples but they cast doubt on any other claims or points the author made as I wasn't able to trust I was getting an objective or even factually correct analysis.
2. The author is not as intelligent as he thinks he is. I applaud him for taking the time and effort to write this book as it shows dedication to his passions. That said, he writes with an angry edge to most of his writings portraying certain characters (because of issue 1 I can't even be certain if these are real factual representations of the named people so I will call them characters) as idealistic and paragons of virtue while anyone he disagrees with is portrayed as idiots at best or evil manipulators at worst. And he might even be right about some of those characterizations, but the way it is presented is like listening to an angry teenager complain about the popular kids in school. He allows absolutely no room for subtleties or mixed motivations for the people involved. This caustic dismissal of any idea except his own reveals the author to have an extremely high and unflawed opinion of himself. I want to emphasize here that I even agreed with some of his points! Robert Moses was a racist whose decisions have affected the landscape of Long Island even to this day. It's also clear that the American worker has suffered tremendously in the last century due to the decreases in collective bargaining and unions. But the author puts these ideas forward with such caustic smugness with a black and white with us or against us viewpoint that it what started as irritating became increasingly insufferable as the book progressed.
3. The author puts too much of himself in the book. I understand that there's no such thing as a completely objective history. Every author is going to put some amount of themselves into their work, whether it be through their personal biases or telling relatable stories about themselves. It's interesting when the author talks about his first experiences with Shea Stadium and the Mets. But dude, I really don't care that you were bullied in Highschool and played Magic: The Gathering (which was considered so important it event got its own entry in the Index at the back of the book). Here is a direct quote: "The most chauvinistic Yankees supporters were the same bullies that hurled fries and slurs towards my friend's lunchtime Magic: The Gathering tournaments." The author then further mentioned he and his friends wore Hot Topic clothing and further jeering by Yankees fans. Does the author know that none of that makes him special? Every high school in the tri state area had bullies from both sides of the baseball divide. Hell, I was bullied by some Mets fans when I was a kid and it had nothing to do with a class divide between us.
Summary: I reset my long forgotten password to this account just so I could go on record about how unlikable the author of this book comes across. The fact that he was fine fabricating events in a movie shows the author cannot be factually trusted. I wanted to like this book and agree with many of the points the author makes but I have to give this 1 star due to my doubts about factual accuracy and the insufferable personality of the author.
Long version: This is a book about the history of baseball in New York from the 1800s to the present day with a focus on the New York Mets. It's written from a communist perspective which is interesting enough. I actually agree with some of his sentiments on workers rights and found parts of the early history of baseball and workers collectivism in the sport fascinating. Despite this, I couldn't finish the book for three main reasons.
1. The most egregious reason I stopped was the first page of chapter 12 ("Atrociti Field"). The author includes a wholly inaccurate description of Christopher Nolan's batman film The Dark Knight including attributing the famous quote "you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" to the wrong character in the wrong part of the movie. Now, this might seem a petty reason to stop reading a book but it points to a much broader issue in that the author twists facts and narratives to fit his viewpoint. He makes a big deal out of rumors of Mike Piazza's potential homosexuality in the early 2000s and I don't remember that being an issue at all at the time. Those are just two examples but they cast doubt on any other claims or points the author made as I wasn't able to trust I was getting an objective or even factually correct analysis.
2. The author is not as intelligent as he thinks he is. I applaud him for taking the time and effort to write this book as it shows dedication to his passions. That said, he writes with an angry edge to most of his writings portraying certain characters (because of issue 1 I can't even be certain if these are real factual representations of the named people so I will call them characters) as idealistic and paragons of virtue while anyone he disagrees with is portrayed as idiots at best or evil manipulators at worst. And he might even be right about some of those characterizations, but the way it is presented is like listening to an angry teenager complain about the popular kids in school. He allows absolutely no room for subtleties or mixed motivations for the people involved. This caustic dismissal of any idea except his own reveals the author to have an extremely high and unflawed opinion of himself. I want to emphasize here that I even agreed with some of his points! Robert Moses was a racist whose decisions have affected the landscape of Long Island even to this day. It's also clear that the American worker has suffered tremendously in the last century due to the decreases in collective bargaining and unions. But the author puts these ideas forward with such caustic smugness with a black and white with us or against us viewpoint that it what started as irritating became increasingly insufferable as the book progressed.
3. The author puts too much of himself in the book. I understand that there's no such thing as a completely objective history. Every author is going to put some amount of themselves into their work, whether it be through their personal biases or telling relatable stories about themselves. It's interesting when the author talks about his first experiences with Shea Stadium and the Mets. But dude, I really don't care that you were bullied in Highschool and played Magic: The Gathering (which was considered so important it event got its own entry in the Index at the back of the book). Here is a direct quote: "The most chauvinistic Yankees supporters were the same bullies that hurled fries and slurs towards my friend's lunchtime Magic: The Gathering tournaments." The author then further mentioned he and his friends wore Hot Topic clothing and further jeering by Yankees fans. Does the author know that none of that makes him special? Every high school in the tri state area had bullies from both sides of the baseball divide. Hell, I was bullied by some Mets fans when I was a kid and it had nothing to do with a class divide between us.
Summary: I reset my long forgotten password to this account just so I could go on record about how unlikable the author of this book comes across. The fact that he was fine fabricating events in a movie shows the author cannot be factually trusted. I wanted to like this book and agree with many of the points the author makes but I have to give this 1 star due to my doubts about factual accuracy and the insufferable personality of the author.
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.
July 14, 2026
“losing, with the narrow sliver of hope that they might one day beat the odds and win, had always made [the mets] relatable. this was and remains the dream of the vast majority of new york's population—to rise above their station, even for a moment, despite their deepest doubts that such a thing will ever happen.”
yankees fan until i die, but the mets are so damn scrappy (and bad) that i can’t help but to root for them sometimes. reading about the mets and baseball’s history and how it collides with social/class struggle was so interesting and has really given me a greater appreciation of the sport i love.
“as with all other legends of his supernatural powers, ruth dismissed the called-shot story as pure fantasy: ‘i never knew anybody could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball. when i get to be that kind of fool, they'll put me in the booby hatch.’ wall street and the american capitalist class, however, knew no such humility.”
“no matter their class sympathies, baseball fans' ultimate partisanship is only for their uninterrupted consumption…”
yankees fan until i die, but the mets are so damn scrappy (and bad) that i can’t help but to root for them sometimes. reading about the mets and baseball’s history and how it collides with social/class struggle was so interesting and has really given me a greater appreciation of the sport i love.
“as with all other legends of his supernatural powers, ruth dismissed the called-shot story as pure fantasy: ‘i never knew anybody could tell you ahead of time where he was going to hit a baseball. when i get to be that kind of fool, they'll put me in the booby hatch.’ wall street and the american capitalist class, however, knew no such humility.”
“no matter their class sympathies, baseball fans' ultimate partisanship is only for their uninterrupted consumption…”
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!
July 15, 2026
I can’t not give five stars to a book I’m quoted in, right? But in all seriousness if you are a person who is at all interested in how all sports are political, the history of the Mets (and New York baseball in general), labor issues in baseball, social justice issues in sports, or any combination of these, this is the book for you. It is of course designed in a lab for me, but I think any leftist sports fan, especially any leftist baseball fan, will enjoy 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.
July 9, 2026
Likely biased as I’m the primary audience for this book, both as a diehard Mets fan and leftist, Gittlitz does an excellent job weaving the fabric of Mets history with the political landscapes of each time period. Some new stories, some thoughtful consideration to the impact of the world on Mets, along with the Mets and the world—a thoroughly enjoyable read!
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_."
August 3, 2026
This is a curious book - part Mets history by an obsessive fan, part Masters thesis on labor relations and generational conflict in baseball by an obsessive Marxist.
On the one hand, we learn fascinating tidbits from Mets history, like the origins of the expansion in the Trojan Horse Continental League and the influence on other teams of the Mets’ modernist style and branding.
On the other hand, the modern Mets (not the 19th century ancestors) don't appear until page 110, and the account of their early years contains hardly any descriptions of an actual game. We do learn how Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, sitting on death row, felt about Bobby Thomson’s iconic home run in 1951. We learn that one of the Freedom Riders assassinated in Mississippi in 1964 was ID’ed by the Klan as the “Jewboy with the beard and the bright blue New York Mets baseball cap.”
And so on, the Mets’ blue and orange swathed in Communist red. At times amusing, often illuminating, just as often frustrating, especially if you picked this up (as I did) expecting a light summer read about baseball. We learn more about the debut appearance of Mr. Met than we do about the game played that day - the longest in baseball history. In fact, we read about Gaylord Perry's lozenge preference in inning 13 but not the outcome of the marathon game 10 innings later
Gittlitz's account of the 1968 season - Gil Hodges’s first and the prequel to the 1969 Miracle - is wholly devoted to the political unrest sweeping the country and the Mets’ response to it (they boycotted games after MLK and RFK were assassinated). These were important developments, but it would have been nice to hear how Hodges affected team play, how Seaver performed, or how the team finished in the standings. On the actual baseball played in 1968, Gittlitz is almost silent.
The 1969 season is where I got off the train (specifically the 7 Line). Gittlitz devotes just 7 pages in a 470 page book to the 1969 post-season, with the league championship sweep of the Braves meriting one paragraph. Much of the account of the 1969 World Series is focused on Vietnam War politics (especially Tom Seaver’s quote and the 10/15 Moratorium Day). Here’s the description of JC Martin’s walk-off bunt to seal the remarkable 10-inning win by Seaver in Game 4: “The happening continued to the Mets’ side of the tenth, when Seaver’s pinch hitter, some unknown soldier on the major-league baseball team openly aligned with the international anti-imperialist struggle, ambushed the Orioles with a bunt that forced a walk-off error.”
And here’s Gittlitz’s description of Cleon Jones catching the final out of the Series: “He imagined himself alone, the other players vanished, the crowd and jet quieted, allowing him to think back further, ‘to my ancestors, those who came from Africa just before the Civil War, enslaved people stolen from their homes by greedy, Godless people—heartless people guided only by profit and gain with no regard for humanity and the basic rights of all people.’ This was for them, too.“
I need to own my bias here - 1969 was the year I started watching baseball, and the year I became a Mets fan. Part of why I picked this book up was to relive that year, and to put it in the fuller context of what came before, when I wasn’t yet a fan. This was, alas, not that book.
Nor is it a book for reliving 1986. The entire season - the last championship season for the Mets - merits just 6 pages. Half were devoted to the infamous Game 6 of the World Series, but then Gittlitz barely mentions game 7, calling it an “effortless” win. That's a strange adjective to describe an 8-5 contest where the Mets trailed from the second inning and only took the lead in the 7th.
If you want an occasionally fascinating Marxist history of New York told through the lens of its baseball teams, this may scratch your itch. If you’re looking for an absorbing book about baseball, look elsewhere. There’s surprisingly little baseball described in the first half of this book, and I didn’t make it to the second half.
On the one hand, we learn fascinating tidbits from Mets history, like the origins of the expansion in the Trojan Horse Continental League and the influence on other teams of the Mets’ modernist style and branding.
On the other hand, the modern Mets (not the 19th century ancestors) don't appear until page 110, and the account of their early years contains hardly any descriptions of an actual game. We do learn how Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, sitting on death row, felt about Bobby Thomson’s iconic home run in 1951. We learn that one of the Freedom Riders assassinated in Mississippi in 1964 was ID’ed by the Klan as the “Jewboy with the beard and the bright blue New York Mets baseball cap.”
And so on, the Mets’ blue and orange swathed in Communist red. At times amusing, often illuminating, just as often frustrating, especially if you picked this up (as I did) expecting a light summer read about baseball. We learn more about the debut appearance of Mr. Met than we do about the game played that day - the longest in baseball history. In fact, we read about Gaylord Perry's lozenge preference in inning 13 but not the outcome of the marathon game 10 innings later
Gittlitz's account of the 1968 season - Gil Hodges’s first and the prequel to the 1969 Miracle - is wholly devoted to the political unrest sweeping the country and the Mets’ response to it (they boycotted games after MLK and RFK were assassinated). These were important developments, but it would have been nice to hear how Hodges affected team play, how Seaver performed, or how the team finished in the standings. On the actual baseball played in 1968, Gittlitz is almost silent.
The 1969 season is where I got off the train (specifically the 7 Line). Gittlitz devotes just 7 pages in a 470 page book to the 1969 post-season, with the league championship sweep of the Braves meriting one paragraph. Much of the account of the 1969 World Series is focused on Vietnam War politics (especially Tom Seaver’s quote and the 10/15 Moratorium Day). Here’s the description of JC Martin’s walk-off bunt to seal the remarkable 10-inning win by Seaver in Game 4: “The happening continued to the Mets’ side of the tenth, when Seaver’s pinch hitter, some unknown soldier on the major-league baseball team openly aligned with the international anti-imperialist struggle, ambushed the Orioles with a bunt that forced a walk-off error.”
And here’s Gittlitz’s description of Cleon Jones catching the final out of the Series: “He imagined himself alone, the other players vanished, the crowd and jet quieted, allowing him to think back further, ‘to my ancestors, those who came from Africa just before the Civil War, enslaved people stolen from their homes by greedy, Godless people—heartless people guided only by profit and gain with no regard for humanity and the basic rights of all people.’ This was for them, too.“
I need to own my bias here - 1969 was the year I started watching baseball, and the year I became a Mets fan. Part of why I picked this book up was to relive that year, and to put it in the fuller context of what came before, when I wasn’t yet a fan. This was, alas, not that book.
Nor is it a book for reliving 1986. The entire season - the last championship season for the Mets - merits just 6 pages. Half were devoted to the infamous Game 6 of the World Series, but then Gittlitz barely mentions game 7, calling it an “effortless” win. That's a strange adjective to describe an 8-5 contest where the Mets trailed from the second inning and only took the lead in the 7th.
If you want an occasionally fascinating Marxist history of New York told through the lens of its baseball teams, this may scratch your itch. If you’re looking for an absorbing book about baseball, look elsewhere. There’s surprisingly little baseball described in the first half of this book, and I didn’t make it to the second half.
July 14, 2026
I believe there is little argument that CLR James’ Beyond a Boundary is the best book about the social meaning of sport. Gittliz’ Metropolitans shares a similar ambition. Where James’ asked ‘What do do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?, changes that from ‘cricket’ to one of ‘baseball’, ‘baseball in New York City’ and ‘the Mets’, depending on how one wants to view his perspective. ‘Baseball’ might seem a little too broad a canvas, but only the most facile reading would conclude ‘this is a book about the Mets and leftist politics’. It is about the Mets, but only in the way that the history of the Mets reflects a broader theme. It is about leftist politics, but only as a tool used by Gittlitz to break down the American experience using the history of baseball in New York City.
Having read the book front to back, I would recommend a different strategy. Start with the Introduction (which mentions James) and then go to the Postscript. (I think there’s an argument also to read Chapter 1 before the Postscript as well, but the reader might then want to carry on with the fascinating story of the beginnings of baseball in Tammany Hall’s New York City, which I think genuinely is equal to Beyond a Boundary.) The Postscript does explicitly make a couple of ke points that Gittliz prefers to illustrate in action in the intervening chapters. The narrative falls a little short of compelling, but it does carry you along gently towards a concluding chronology of the 2024 Mets’ season which overlaps with the drama of the presidential election of that year. In between we touch on all the Mets’ ‘greatest hits’, whether World Series appearances, or that kind of comic futility that is associated with the team’s earliest years but does reappear every now and then.
Gittlitz ‘thesis’, if I may use the voice of the academy for a moment, is that the Mets’ success coincides with the significance of certain politically leftist causes gaining prominence in American society. This is aligned with the concept of a raucously populist ‘People’s Team’ in contrast to more genteel bourgeois rival, first used as a promotional gimmick in the nineteenth century. Later, the Dodgers and Giants in different ways would be the popular alternative to the bourgeois Yankees. I wouldn’t say Gittlitz proves his point conclusively. There is a ‘populist’ aspect to the Yankees, and Gittlitz does eventually admit it ungrudgingly; and it does undermine his thesis slightly. But overall his represents one of those theses that demands further discussion before anyone can wave it away.
Part of me worries that I’ve underegged this score, and it really merits five stars. Another part of me, though, feels like I rounded it up from 3 ½ stars. It’s definitely not like your usual sports history. Conceptually I think Gittlitz, like James, has written what should be the archetype of sports history. However, as a writer, he owes more to a book like Mike Davis’ City of Quartz, than to the genuine literary qualities of James’ work. I would imagine more than a few people would find Davis’ style grating. Davis and Gittlitz both write as though certain ideological stances go without saying. Of course, this writing strategy is intended to make readers think about their own ideological position, and hopefully to question it. But because we’re used to thinking from one perspective, to read something written from the opposite can seem condescending. It wouldn’t be fair to Gittlitz, which is partly why I suggest reading the Postscript ahead of the rest. Personally, I don’t have any trouble coping with Gittlitz’ style nor with his politics. YMMV.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
Having read the book front to back, I would recommend a different strategy. Start with the Introduction (which mentions James) and then go to the Postscript. (I think there’s an argument also to read Chapter 1 before the Postscript as well, but the reader might then want to carry on with the fascinating story of the beginnings of baseball in Tammany Hall’s New York City, which I think genuinely is equal to Beyond a Boundary.) The Postscript does explicitly make a couple of ke points that Gittliz prefers to illustrate in action in the intervening chapters. The narrative falls a little short of compelling, but it does carry you along gently towards a concluding chronology of the 2024 Mets’ season which overlaps with the drama of the presidential election of that year. In between we touch on all the Mets’ ‘greatest hits’, whether World Series appearances, or that kind of comic futility that is associated with the team’s earliest years but does reappear every now and then.
Gittlitz ‘thesis’, if I may use the voice of the academy for a moment, is that the Mets’ success coincides with the significance of certain politically leftist causes gaining prominence in American society. This is aligned with the concept of a raucously populist ‘People’s Team’ in contrast to more genteel bourgeois rival, first used as a promotional gimmick in the nineteenth century. Later, the Dodgers and Giants in different ways would be the popular alternative to the bourgeois Yankees. I wouldn’t say Gittlitz proves his point conclusively. There is a ‘populist’ aspect to the Yankees, and Gittlitz does eventually admit it ungrudgingly; and it does undermine his thesis slightly. But overall his represents one of those theses that demands further discussion before anyone can wave it away.
Part of me worries that I’ve underegged this score, and it really merits five stars. Another part of me, though, feels like I rounded it up from 3 ½ stars. It’s definitely not like your usual sports history. Conceptually I think Gittlitz, like James, has written what should be the archetype of sports history. However, as a writer, he owes more to a book like Mike Davis’ City of Quartz, than to the genuine literary qualities of James’ work. I would imagine more than a few people would find Davis’ style grating. Davis and Gittlitz both write as though certain ideological stances go without saying. Of course, this writing strategy is intended to make readers think about their own ideological position, and hopefully to question it. But because we’re used to thinking from one perspective, to read something written from the opposite can seem condescending. It wouldn’t be fair to Gittlitz, which is partly why I suggest reading the Postscript ahead of the rest. Personally, I don’t have any trouble coping with Gittlitz’ style nor with his politics. YMMV.
© 2026 Paul Brewer
April 9, 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.
August 21, 2026
This is an unusual, provocative book which is marred with a huge number of basic errors, hyperbolic writing and half-truths. I'd recommend it only if you have a high tolerance for Village Voice-style rock review writing and are genuinely interested in left-wing American history. As the author states in his introduction, it's as much a book for the non-fan as it is for a baseball junkie.
The book is built on a series of overblown claims about the importance of baseball to the national history and culture and its forerunner status on many economic and political trends. Baseball is a reflection of other forces, not the force itself. One example is that the author claims baseball "laid the tracks" for a series of investment manias in the 1890s when upstart leagues challenged the strongest professional league of the day, the National League. Other leagues started, stole players from the National League with higher pay and better working conditions, and then folded in a couple of years when they couldn't sustain the challenge financially. The author says the exact same thing happened in oil, railroads, and so on. It did, though in very different form. And there's nothing in baseball that "laid the tracks," ie., provided inspiration or strategy, for fighting Rockefeller's oil monopoly.
The thesis overall is that baseball has supported the nation's power hierarchy and that any time ballplayers (and, occasionally, fans) sought to challenge it, they were beaten back and/or bribed and distracted. The early fandom of the NY Mets in the 1960s was one of the biggest manifestations of how these cultural conflicts played out. And that's an interesting tale, if it's true. And that's the problem with this book: it's sort of true, sort of not true. You can use the words dialectical and hegemonic all you want, but it ain't necessarily so.
On the one hand, some of the author's flights of fancy are fun. He describes baseball as a metaphor for release from the strictures of industrial production and prison. He says the defense and basepaths are like an assembly line that imprisons workers in a strict routine. But if the hitter-runner can go around the bases to safety, he is "home." Interesting interpretation, but you're stretching the point if you say this is why people began to watch baseball games in the midst of the industrial revolution.
The book makes all sorts of blanket statements that are memorable but aren't fully true. They are one half of the story or one version. Here's a trivial example. The author states that the word "fan" derives from the word "fancies," which was a derisive term to reference early bourgeoise baseball players in big cities. Those men had the means and the free time to play and watch baseball, and they were derided occasionally for play instead of hard work. But the more accepted source of the word "fan" is "fanatic," as in people who were fanatically supportive of their local team. Fanatic makes more sense, and this author simply ignores it.
When he does so on something like "fan," it's not a big deal. But what about when he's doing it to reference the behind-the-scenes manipulations and motivations of Branch Rickey? We get a few Rickey quotes, but The Mahatma changed his tale over and over, and this author is using selective quotes to make his point.
Add in sloppy errors, and you begin to wonder what's true and what is. Errors, you say? How about the author dating the attack on Pearl Harbor to 1942? Or calling the Mets bumblers after their 1986 World Series win, when they actually won 92, 100, 91 and 87 games in the next four years, and were actually the WS favorites heading into the 1988 playoffs. Or using the word "phased" on page 274 when he meant "fazed."
Gittlitz's revolution isn't going to happen if he can't get the basics right.
The book is built on a series of overblown claims about the importance of baseball to the national history and culture and its forerunner status on many economic and political trends. Baseball is a reflection of other forces, not the force itself. One example is that the author claims baseball "laid the tracks" for a series of investment manias in the 1890s when upstart leagues challenged the strongest professional league of the day, the National League. Other leagues started, stole players from the National League with higher pay and better working conditions, and then folded in a couple of years when they couldn't sustain the challenge financially. The author says the exact same thing happened in oil, railroads, and so on. It did, though in very different form. And there's nothing in baseball that "laid the tracks," ie., provided inspiration or strategy, for fighting Rockefeller's oil monopoly.
The thesis overall is that baseball has supported the nation's power hierarchy and that any time ballplayers (and, occasionally, fans) sought to challenge it, they were beaten back and/or bribed and distracted. The early fandom of the NY Mets in the 1960s was one of the biggest manifestations of how these cultural conflicts played out. And that's an interesting tale, if it's true. And that's the problem with this book: it's sort of true, sort of not true. You can use the words dialectical and hegemonic all you want, but it ain't necessarily so.
On the one hand, some of the author's flights of fancy are fun. He describes baseball as a metaphor for release from the strictures of industrial production and prison. He says the defense and basepaths are like an assembly line that imprisons workers in a strict routine. But if the hitter-runner can go around the bases to safety, he is "home." Interesting interpretation, but you're stretching the point if you say this is why people began to watch baseball games in the midst of the industrial revolution.
The book makes all sorts of blanket statements that are memorable but aren't fully true. They are one half of the story or one version. Here's a trivial example. The author states that the word "fan" derives from the word "fancies," which was a derisive term to reference early bourgeoise baseball players in big cities. Those men had the means and the free time to play and watch baseball, and they were derided occasionally for play instead of hard work. But the more accepted source of the word "fan" is "fanatic," as in people who were fanatically supportive of their local team. Fanatic makes more sense, and this author simply ignores it.
When he does so on something like "fan," it's not a big deal. But what about when he's doing it to reference the behind-the-scenes manipulations and motivations of Branch Rickey? We get a few Rickey quotes, but The Mahatma changed his tale over and over, and this author is using selective quotes to make his point.
Add in sloppy errors, and you begin to wonder what's true and what is. Errors, you say? How about the author dating the attack on Pearl Harbor to 1942? Or calling the Mets bumblers after their 1986 World Series win, when they actually won 92, 100, 91 and 87 games in the next four years, and were actually the WS favorites heading into the 1988 playoffs. Or using the word "phased" on page 274 when he meant "fazed."
Gittlitz's revolution isn't going to happen if he can't get the basics right.
August 17, 2026
I don't often write these, but I am so annoyed at this book that I cannot contain my thoughts. I have never been more relieved to have borrowed a book from the library instead of buying my own copy.
The premise of the book is that fans of the New York Mets are better than all other baseball fans. While the mindless drones at Yankee Stadium applaud their fascist sluggers, the proletariat Mets fan watches with a keen eye, with one hand on their weed vape and the other on their union card. Mets fans are the greatest anti-fascists since the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy.
Beyond the extremely biased lens through which Mets fandom is viewed, no doubt a result of the author having been bullied by the Yankee fans at his middle school (a fact the author admits to several times,) it's a book that spirals out of control from the very beginning. The supposed progressiveness of the Mets is not supported with any sort of evidence that differentiates them from other teams. It's good that Tom Seaver spoke out against Vietnam. But it's not so good that it defines the nature of the ball club. As a Jays fan, I'm happy that Carlos Delgado's God Bless America protest was mentioned in this book, but I'm not stupid enough to think that this makes me an agent of social good. And I'm certainly not stupid enough to try and write a book attempting to convince people of that fact! (And if I were, I certainly would not confuse pitcher Ranger Suarez and slugger Eugenio Suarez when discussing a game I apparently spent $200 to attend.)
To be clear, I am a leftist and am sympathetic to stories where the magic of baseball is allowed to persist. I'm not dumping on this book because I'm unwilling to entertain the idea that some sort of off-spreadsheet magic exists in certain areas of the game. I am dumping on it because while the evil Yankees play foil to the hero Mets for much of this book, the two franchises are now exactly alike. They play in new-age recreations of their classic former homes. They are owned by rich, conservative, big spending owners. The Yankees abandoned their facial hair policy and the Mets signed Juan Soto. The only thing that remains between them is the lack of a Yankees City Connect jersey.
It's fun to be part of a fanbase, and it's fun to talk about why your team is better than all the others. But in the closing pages of the book, the author tries to make the case that this is actually true in the case of the Mets. Does he think that fans of other teams don't enjoy the absurdity of the game?
Only in New York can you get a breakfast sandwich at a convenience store. Only in New York can you watch baseball with the smartest fans in the entire world. And only in New York can you write a book where you confuse the date of Pearl Harbor and still get it published.
The premise of the book is that fans of the New York Mets are better than all other baseball fans. While the mindless drones at Yankee Stadium applaud their fascist sluggers, the proletariat Mets fan watches with a keen eye, with one hand on their weed vape and the other on their union card. Mets fans are the greatest anti-fascists since the soldiers who stormed the beaches of Normandy.
Beyond the extremely biased lens through which Mets fandom is viewed, no doubt a result of the author having been bullied by the Yankee fans at his middle school (a fact the author admits to several times,) it's a book that spirals out of control from the very beginning. The supposed progressiveness of the Mets is not supported with any sort of evidence that differentiates them from other teams. It's good that Tom Seaver spoke out against Vietnam. But it's not so good that it defines the nature of the ball club. As a Jays fan, I'm happy that Carlos Delgado's God Bless America protest was mentioned in this book, but I'm not stupid enough to think that this makes me an agent of social good. And I'm certainly not stupid enough to try and write a book attempting to convince people of that fact! (And if I were, I certainly would not confuse pitcher Ranger Suarez and slugger Eugenio Suarez when discussing a game I apparently spent $200 to attend.)
To be clear, I am a leftist and am sympathetic to stories where the magic of baseball is allowed to persist. I'm not dumping on this book because I'm unwilling to entertain the idea that some sort of off-spreadsheet magic exists in certain areas of the game. I am dumping on it because while the evil Yankees play foil to the hero Mets for much of this book, the two franchises are now exactly alike. They play in new-age recreations of their classic former homes. They are owned by rich, conservative, big spending owners. The Yankees abandoned their facial hair policy and the Mets signed Juan Soto. The only thing that remains between them is the lack of a Yankees City Connect jersey.
It's fun to be part of a fanbase, and it's fun to talk about why your team is better than all the others. But in the closing pages of the book, the author tries to make the case that this is actually true in the case of the Mets. Does he think that fans of other teams don't enjoy the absurdity of the game?
Only in New York can you get a breakfast sandwich at a convenience store. Only in New York can you watch baseball with the smartest fans in the entire world. And only in New York can you write a book where you confuse the date of Pearl Harbor and still get it published.
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.
July 22, 2026
Anyone who’s known me for more than a day knows that I am a Mets fan. A huge Mets fan. Even in times like these, I can’t tear myself away from the games. They’re just the type of team that can come along and make something special happen even in the midst of a down year. Their fans are used to suffering. As Gittlitz describes in the book, we are all Charlie Browns believing that this time Lucy will not pull the football away. Actually, we know Lucy will probably pull the football away, but we try anyway.
Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and The People’s Team seemed like the perfect book for me, and in many ways it was. If I put my own biases aside, though, there were things I took issue with.
Gittlitz goes back to the very first Metropolitans team, back in the 19th century when baseball was a fledgling organization. It seems like they evolved into the team that became known as the New York Giants. This was a time when New York City had three baseball teams: the Giants, Dodgers, and Yankees. Hard to believe that the city could support three teams, but this began at a time when entertainment wasn’t on a screen. You had to go somewhere to experience entertainment. If not the theatre, then maybe one of these new movie things that were springing up everywhere, or take in a sports event.
Even then, the teams were largely supported by different social classes. The Yankees were considered the moneyed elite, and not much has changed in over 100 years. Both the Giants and Dodgers attracted a more working-class crowd, particularly the Dodgers out in Brooklyn. When the teams left New York for the West Coast, they left behind fans who could not embrace the Yankees. Indeed, during the time between when the Dodgers and Giants left and the Mets came to be, attendance at Yankee Stadium actually went down. New York had some hard-core National League fans who wanted their own team.
Gittlitz does a great job detailing all of this history and presenting it as a backdrop to why fans of the two New York teams now seem so divided by class. As he begins detailing the development of the new New York National League team, I found it more interesting. There were a lot of machinations behind the scenes that led to New York getting one of the first expansion teams in the league.
To read my complete review, please go to Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and The People’s Team by A.M. Gittlitz – Exploring Class Divides in Mets History
Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and The People’s Team seemed like the perfect book for me, and in many ways it was. If I put my own biases aside, though, there were things I took issue with.
Gittlitz goes back to the very first Metropolitans team, back in the 19th century when baseball was a fledgling organization. It seems like they evolved into the team that became known as the New York Giants. This was a time when New York City had three baseball teams: the Giants, Dodgers, and Yankees. Hard to believe that the city could support three teams, but this began at a time when entertainment wasn’t on a screen. You had to go somewhere to experience entertainment. If not the theatre, then maybe one of these new movie things that were springing up everywhere, or take in a sports event.
Even then, the teams were largely supported by different social classes. The Yankees were considered the moneyed elite, and not much has changed in over 100 years. Both the Giants and Dodgers attracted a more working-class crowd, particularly the Dodgers out in Brooklyn. When the teams left New York for the West Coast, they left behind fans who could not embrace the Yankees. Indeed, during the time between when the Dodgers and Giants left and the Mets came to be, attendance at Yankee Stadium actually went down. New York had some hard-core National League fans who wanted their own team.
Gittlitz does a great job detailing all of this history and presenting it as a backdrop to why fans of the two New York teams now seem so divided by class. As he begins detailing the development of the new New York National League team, I found it more interesting. There were a lot of machinations behind the scenes that led to New York getting one of the first expansion teams in the league.
To read my complete review, please go to Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and The People’s Team by A.M. Gittlitz – Exploring Class Divides in Mets History
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.
August 30, 2026
I hate to leave a bad review for a book that marries my love for the Mets with my belief in lefty politics, but this book is full of errors that never should have made it through the editing process.
On page 322, Gittlitz writes, "and Jacob deGrom, a self-branded 'simple man' drafted in the 272nd round as a shortstop."
There were only 50 rounds in the 2010 draft and deGrom was selected in the 9th round, 272nd overall. While he did play some shortstop in college, he was drafted as a pitcher.
On page 351, Gittlitz writes, "...Nathan Felder captured the soul of every Mets fan as he stared in unflinching despair at his frazzled image projected for a curiously long span on Cohen's comically oversized center-field video board, the largest in professional sports."
The famous Nathan Felder video board incident happened during the 2022 Wild Card Series. The Mets did not install their oversized center-field video board until the beginning of the 2023 season. It's as simple as watching the Felder clip to realize it wasn't on the new video board.
On page 352, Gittlitz writes, "Forty-one-year-old Verlander likewise missed the early season with an achy elbow."
Verlander's injury that spring was a teres major strain, near his shoulder, not his elbow. Verlander talked extensively about the injury coming out of spring training that season. It was a simple Google search away.
On page 385, Gittlitz writes, in reference to Pete Alonso's Wild Card Series home run off Devin Williams, "He waited for the 3-1 fastball and poked it over the right-field wall."
The pitch was famously a changeup from Devin Williams. Both Williams and Alonso talked extensively after the game about the pitch selection and how Alonso was able to stay back on what is regarded as one of the best changeups in the sport. If you lived through any of the 2024 Mets season, I don't know how you make this mistake.
I'm sure there are more mistakes than I've listed here and this really is the problem. I found myself wondering how many facts I was learning for the first time were actually incorrect.
On page 322, Gittlitz writes, "and Jacob deGrom, a self-branded 'simple man' drafted in the 272nd round as a shortstop."
There were only 50 rounds in the 2010 draft and deGrom was selected in the 9th round, 272nd overall. While he did play some shortstop in college, he was drafted as a pitcher.
On page 351, Gittlitz writes, "...Nathan Felder captured the soul of every Mets fan as he stared in unflinching despair at his frazzled image projected for a curiously long span on Cohen's comically oversized center-field video board, the largest in professional sports."
The famous Nathan Felder video board incident happened during the 2022 Wild Card Series. The Mets did not install their oversized center-field video board until the beginning of the 2023 season. It's as simple as watching the Felder clip to realize it wasn't on the new video board.
On page 352, Gittlitz writes, "Forty-one-year-old Verlander likewise missed the early season with an achy elbow."
Verlander's injury that spring was a teres major strain, near his shoulder, not his elbow. Verlander talked extensively about the injury coming out of spring training that season. It was a simple Google search away.
On page 385, Gittlitz writes, in reference to Pete Alonso's Wild Card Series home run off Devin Williams, "He waited for the 3-1 fastball and poked it over the right-field wall."
The pitch was famously a changeup from Devin Williams. Both Williams and Alonso talked extensively after the game about the pitch selection and how Alonso was able to stay back on what is regarded as one of the best changeups in the sport. If you lived through any of the 2024 Mets season, I don't know how you make this mistake.
I'm sure there are more mistakes than I've listed here and this really is the problem. I found myself wondering how many facts I was learning for the first time were actually incorrect.
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.
August 21, 2026
I prefer baseball books that take place outside of the foul lines and tack left-of-center. I'm also a lifelong Mets fan who hates, loathes, detests, the current Steve Cohen/Chris Christie/the cheater Carlos Beltran club. This is the perfect notion for a book that merges all my various interests. Not a baseball history per se -- there is an at-times uneasy mix of personal history with its hard-leftist politics -- but I like Gittlitz's closing statement: "For my own part, I am a writer and a Mets fan, and this book's task has been to rewire readers' brains to enjoy baseball in a more radical way".
"Metropolitans" is told in four parts: a history of baseball in NYC before the Mets were founded; a history of the fall, rise, and fall, of the Mets' first 33 seasons; a history of the Mets after the season-ending 1994 player strike; and a novella-length epilogue on the author's affinity for the 2024 Mets (a season of which I watched maybe 20 pitches on TV all year long). This last bit is social and political history from a democratic-socialist standpoint, the author tracking not only the 2024 Mets but also the presidential election, and the author hates the Democratic Party at least as much as he hates Trump. Some of the insights are novel and searing. Others are sophomoric and non-balanced. There are nearly 700 footnotes, but some are misplaced and do not match the linked texts, and a few others say the opposite of the author's point they annotate.
Love it or hate it, though, this is not a book to be ignored. The way Gittlitz ties everything back to a leftist view of economics and history, and of baseball's labor movement, is tremendously entertaining and creative. The Mets, however, are currently owned by a Trump donor, and as much of the current Mets' roster is registered to vote in Florida so you can readily see which political party they belong to, at least some of the authors' conclusions are... fanciful.
"Metropolitans" is told in four parts: a history of baseball in NYC before the Mets were founded; a history of the fall, rise, and fall, of the Mets' first 33 seasons; a history of the Mets after the season-ending 1994 player strike; and a novella-length epilogue on the author's affinity for the 2024 Mets (a season of which I watched maybe 20 pitches on TV all year long). This last bit is social and political history from a democratic-socialist standpoint, the author tracking not only the 2024 Mets but also the presidential election, and the author hates the Democratic Party at least as much as he hates Trump. Some of the insights are novel and searing. Others are sophomoric and non-balanced. There are nearly 700 footnotes, but some are misplaced and do not match the linked texts, and a few others say the opposite of the author's point they annotate.
Love it or hate it, though, this is not a book to be ignored. The way Gittlitz ties everything back to a leftist view of economics and history, and of baseball's labor movement, is tremendously entertaining and creative. The Mets, however, are currently owned by a Trump donor, and as much of the current Mets' roster is registered to vote in Florida so you can readily see which political party they belong to, at least some of the authors' conclusions are... fanciful.
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.
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