I already had my copy of Metropolitans pre-ordered when a representative of Astra House reached out asking if I would be interested in an advance review copy of the title. To say I was eagerly awaiting the release of this book was an understatement and I was absolutely thrilled about the prospect of getting an early peek.

Unlike Jeff Pearlman’s The Bad Guys Won, which chronicles the 1986 World Series Champions, or David Wright’s memoir The Captain, Metropolitans focuses not on one era or player, but the Franchise and its place within the history of New York City and its mercurial political landscape.

Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team awoke a pride for my team that I didn’t know I had. I write this silly newsletter, so obviously I bleed blue and orange. I have never once considered swapping allegiances even after the worst collapses and dumpster fire seasons. My fandom is a huge part of my identity and permeates through some of the most important relationships in my life. I’ve always valued my place in the Mets community, but until now, the civic value of the team had eluded me. Growing up in Stamford, CT, I was happy to be a suburbanite and adjacent member of New York City, but lacked the historical context I would have learned had I actually grown up in the city.

As a 6th grader living across the Whitestone, I experienced the events of September 11th. I saw a Bobby Valentine-led clubhouse do their damndest to restore any sense of normalcy to a city and country rocked by unimaginable tragedy. When Mike Piazza hit his legendary go-ahead home run in the first game after the attacks, I witnessed the power of baseball’s importance as a socially galvanizing institution. The pride I felt in that moment, it turns out, was just one chapter of Mets saga Gittlitz tells in Metropolitans.

In Metropolitans, A.M. Gittlitz deftly investigates the soul of the franchise, which often reflected the mood of the city. This book is incredibly complex, but don’t let that dissuade you from picking it up. I spent much of this book with Wikipedia open on my phone, not because the book did a poor job explaining political concepts or themes, but because it inspired my own further research. Each chapter felt like sorting through family photo albums, watching home movies, and mapping out my own family tree. The history of NYC is messy, much like our own family histories, and Metropolitans makes the massive story accessible because it is told through the lens of America’s Game played in The World’s Borough. It’s the place to learn about your Mets heritage, no DNA kit necessary.

Q: Give me a brief bio including your Mets fandom.

A:  I was born roughly nine months after the '86 World Series, so I've been a Mets fan my whole life (at least!).

My dad brought me to Shea for the first time before the strike in 1994, and my memory from the team around that time was heavily connected to the Nickelodeon theme park in the parking lot, and the antics of the recently-revived Mr. Met. As for the team itself, dad said they were terrible. I assumed that was how it always was and always would be, and didn't really care. As my fandom grew in the Valentine era, I started to connect the insurgent team in their black uniform to the anti-WTO rioters in Seattle, the righteous struggle against racist John Rocker, and the working-class hatred for the Yankees-loving Giuliani. This counter-cultural perspective on the team was helped by being one of very few Mets fans in my Westchester high school, where the most chauvinistic Yankees fans were also the biggest bullies. I believed then that a Subway Series victory for the Mets would profoundly turn the tables for me, if not all the world's underdogs.

Q: I grew up in Connecticut, about 40 minutes outside of New York City. Taking the train or driving in was a huge part of growing up for me. I’ve always felt such a strong cultural connection to the City, but I am significantly uneducated when it comes to the nuance of New York politics. Metropolitans made politics more accessible for me because it was viewed through the lens of my favorite baseball team.

Do you have any entry-level reading recommendations for people who are interested in the cross-section or New York culture and politics? How about leftist politics in general?

A: For the story until 1898 the gold standard is Wallace and Burrough's Gotham. It's a real tome, filled with so many fascinating little stories you could read it little by little for years and never get bored. Part of it explains the birth of baseball among Manhattan's emerging middle class, and why Tammany Hall funded clubs like the Mutuals, Metropolitans, and Giants.

Picking up shortly after is Robert Caro's similarly epic biography of Robert Moses The Power Broker, to which I'd suggest some essays from Marshall Berman's All That is Solid Melts into Air as a theoretical companion. Even though Moses didn't care about baseball, he was an equal founder of the Mets to Shea and Payson.

It is impossible to understand the sixties Mets without knowing a bit about New York's youth counterculture in the sixties. I really love Ed Sanders' barely-fictionalized novel about downtown bohemia Tales of Beatnik Glory, along with Emmett Grogan's deranged memoir Ringolevio, and Diane di Prima's more sober Recollections of My Life as a Woman. Martin Duberman's Stonewall is a rolicking history of the emerging gay rights movement during this period.

Moving to the sixties onwards, Jarrod Shanhan's history of Rikers Island Captives was a major inspiration to me for writing a single-subject book that provides essential insight into the totality of the city's history. Joshua B. Freeman's Working Class New York provides a more general approach to the same era.

Another inspiration was Jonathon Mahler's The Bronx is Burning, about the late seventies. When I got his 2025 follow-up about the late eighties, The Gods of New York, I wasn't sure if I should be relieved or disappointed that it failed to focus on the Mets like the former wonderfully did with the Yankees. 

Q: I really enjoyed the section of the book that covers Robert Moses, the 1964 World’s Fair, and Flushing Meadows–Corona Park. Here we are, a few decades later, and the plans for Metropolitan Park have been greenlit. Is there a worry that we are repeating history here? How might this play out for the Mets franchise and the community at large? As Mets fans, how do we reckon with the excitement of something big, new, and shiny, while also being aware of what this will cost on a human level?

A: This was something I asked Mets fans a lot about for the more ethnographic passages late in the book. While a few recognized casinos are overwhelmingly depressing, overpriced, and predatory businesses that should never be subsidized with public park land, most were excited to have something to do before or after games. As a poker player who spent a lot of time writing this book in Atlantic City, I have to admit some sympathy to this. I'm also glad that the Coney Island Casino wasn't chosen, as Willets Point is at least cordoned-off by highways. Mainly, I hope that in the years it will take to build the Hard Rock, the balance of class power will change so dramatically in the city that all sinister billionaire projects like these will be stopped before completion.

Q: If you could give a copy of Metropolitans to any figure in Mets history, who would it be and why would you give it to them?

A: Chapter 13 is largely about Dominic Smith's 2020 walkout following the shooting in Kenosha, which was the moment I felt proudest to be a Mets fan. I would love to hear his thoughts on my analysis of that action, and the central theme of African-American exclusion/inclusion in baseball throughout the book. Likewise, Cleon Jones' Coming Home was a fantastic read--including a story of the Mets' minor-league Buffalo Bisons staging an SNCC-inspired sit-in at a segregated Florida restaurant in 1964. I'm also hoping his teammates Ron Swoboda and Art Shamsky, who supported his call to boycott games scheduled before Martin Luther King Jr.'s funeral, get their hands on it.

Q: What is your stance on the wave at the ballpark?

A: I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. Going to a baseball game should be fun and communal, and the wave absolutely accomplishes that. I do polemicize it in the conclusion, however, because what draws me to see live sports is the unique type of catharsis that you can find in a theater or rowdy demonstration. I love to see strangers from different walks of life and generations sing and chant together, interact, trade memories, theories, good-natured heckles, and hug and high-five after big plays. 

Then there's the connection between the fans and the teams, which is amorphous and mystical, but really exists. In the epilogue, for example, I pay close attention to a moment in the final game of the 2024 NLDS when it looked like Díaz was going to blow the save. All around me, people started cursing him out, cursing Carlos Mendoza for leaving him in, cursing themselves for being Mets fans. Pulling out their hair, rending their garments, etc. Slowly, a tepid chant started: Let’s go Díaz. He disengaged for as it got louder and louder, changing the entire energy of the moment. He struck out the next three batters, clinching the series by blowing a 101-mph fastball past Kyle Schwarber. There was no doubt in my mind he heard it. During their on-field victory celebration, Nimmo was shown on Citi Vision scanning the crowd, crying in awe. Sure, proscribed activities like the wave or Noise Meter can be fun, but that's the sort of communion we're really after.

Q: Should the Phillie Phanatic be tried for his various crimes against humanity? What sentence would you give him?

A: Maybe there are some crimes I'm not aware of, but it seems to me hatred of the Phanatic may be misplaced. While it does bother me to hear the universal acclaim that he is "the best mascot in sports," I must admit his trolling put him among the all-time great mascots, and respect the bravery of his clowning. Dave Raymond's Phanatic was beaten up by drunken Mets fans in 1984, and by Tommy Lasorda in 1988. A.J. Mass, who played a similarly-hostile version of Mr. Met between 1994-1997, cites Raymond as a mentor in his excellent memoir Yes, It's Hot in Here. It's the rest of Philly's sports fans we should really be worried about...

Q: What are your predictions for the team this season?

A: Stearns has assembled a really interesting team. We're going to see Bichette make a Wright-inspired transition to third, Polanco to first, and Benge, a prospective rookie-of-the-year alongside McLean, try to earn a starting spot. Peralta is chasing an extension. Minter will be back at some point. There's the potential of veterans like Robert Jr., Semian, and Hudson returning to form. This is a team that can easily battle deep into October if it gels.

On that note, it's rumored that last year's humiliating collapse was partially the result of clubhouse discord related to political differences. I'm hoping Semien, renowned as a positive clubhouse force and union leader, can help revive some of the magic we saw in 2024 when the "Gay Grimace Mets" loved and fought for one another.

My book also theorizes that the alchemic recipe for Mets success is the unification of fans and team behind a common mission legible with deep politics. That is to say, they win when they are fighting for something bigger than just a trophy. Perhaps this will have something to do with our new mayor. In a time of a Washington consensus backing genocidal war, ICE terror, hysterical crackdowns on the freedom of trans and queer people, and crushing austerity, it was a bold move to elect someone who promised to fight back. I know some Mets support Zohran, too, and I hope to see them become more confident to speak as these crises puncture the daily lives of working-class sports fans.

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