Baseball's version of Armageddon occurred at the end of the 1957 season when both the Dodgers and Giants left the city for points west.  For the next 4 seasons, New York was left with a single team, the Yankees, and no representation in the National League where there had been two teams since the 1880s. The attempted launch of the Continental League as a new Major League, which had led to the creation of the Houston Colt .45s in 1962, also resulted in the NL awarding a expansion franchise to New York as a way of settling accounts with the would-be Continentals' backers.

Principal owner Joan Payson and chairman M. Donald Grant secured the services of former Yankee executive George Weiss as president and de facto general manager and Casey Stengel, the 'Old Perfesser' himself, as field manager.  In the expansion draft the Mets bet heavily on old, familiar names and the result of a debut season for the ages - a historically terrible finish of 40-120, a full 60 1/2 games behind the pennant-winning Giants, capped by 20 losses by Al Jackson and 24 from Roger Craig, and more than half of the starting line-up hitting below .250.  But at least National League ball was back in NYC.

Similar seasons followed until out of nowhere, the they climbed from 9th place in 1968 to 1st in 1969 behind blooming youngsters like Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman, Cleon Jones, Ken Boswell and Gary Gentry.  These "Miracle Mets" swept the Braves in the first ever NLCS and upset the heavily-favored Orioles 4-1 in the World Series.  Some decline followed, but there was enough magic left to grab another pennant in 1973 (a 7-game loss to the A's in the Series followed), but soon thereafter the wheels fell off, capped by the trade of Tom Seaver to Cincinnati during the 1977 season.  The team was largely forgettable until young stars like Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Len Dykstra came along in the early 80s, and rocketed the team back to first in 1986. Down by 2, with 2 out and 2 strikes on the batter in the bottom of the 9th in game 6 of the 1986 World Series to Boston, they managed to come back and win in 7.  Largely mediocre years have followed since, marked by a surprising pennant in 2000 and another in 2015.          

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The main purpose of this page is to illustrate those players, managers and coaches who have been the most prominent in the franchise's history.  Links below will take you to galleries highlighting each, by position.  Generally, an individual is included if he spent at least 2 full seasons (consecutive or cumulative) as a starter, relief pitcher, closer or manager. For coaches, I've generally used 5 years of service as the bar.  None of this is scientific, though, so there are exceptions.  Where possible and practical, I used pictures of actual baseball cards because that it is the medium through which I, and I suppose many others, first discovered the game. Where necessary, I designed my own images.  Images of actual baseball cards were obtained at the Card Cyber Museum, and for my own designs I used photos found at host of different sites, but none moreso than the wonderful forum at Out of the Park Developments.  

I claim no rights to, or ownership of, any of the photographic images I've used on these pages.   You are welcome to use them yourself.  All I ask is that that if you use any of my personal creations, you give credit to this site.