Happy Anniversary, First Mets Win

[G-Fafif]

The Mets won their first game ever on this date in 1962, 9-1. The Daily News commemorated the occasion by flashing back to Dick Young's coverage here. He has Jack Lamabe's hometown wrong (it's Farmingdale, not Farmington) and I'm pretty sure he meant to refer to "Beegee Smith," not "Geegee Smith," when he was noting Bobby Gene Smith hitting the first triple in Mets history, but he was on deadline, had no Baseball-Reference and was writing up something that had never happened before.

It also hadn't happened that a Mets game (there'd been only nine to date) hadn't been televised, but this one, the inaugural triumph, was radio-only. Dick wasn't pleased: "Somebody goofed."

"Break up the Mets!" Joe Ginsberg exclaimed in the clubhouse. George Weiss listened, releasing the backup catcher about a week later.

The Mets got the back page, and a triumphant Casey was the front page picture, but the wood, as it were, was EXPECT ROCKET TO HIT MOON. Anything was possible if the Mets could win. On that same day, the Ranger IV Atlas-Agena rocket took off from Cape Canaveral, headed for the dark side of the moon three days later. President Kennedy had already challenged the nation to get a man in such a rocket and get him to the moon before the decade was out, adding, in September of '62, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." Both NASA and the Mets were on the clock for 1969.

The Mets have won an additional 4,298 games since. Next win is No. 4,300. And the Mets are still in orbit.

Edited April 23, 2018 by Guest

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'll have to check the archives to see how this cover did in the 1962 Tabloid Cover Derby:

[G-Fafif]

Meadow Dressen fans must have felt slighted.

[Guest cooby]

So they must have started around mid April that year?

[G-Fafif]

cooby wrote: So they must have started around mid April that year?

First Mets game ever scheduled: April 10, 1962.

First Mets game ever rained out: April 10, 1962.

First Mets game ever played: April 11, 1962.

First Mets game ever lost: April 11, 1962.

First Mets game ever won: April 23, 1962.