New York Mets

The New York Mets are a professional baseball team based in the borough of Queens in New York City. They belong to Major League Baseball's National League East Division. One of baseball's first expansion teams, the Mets were founded in 1962 to replace New York's departed National League teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants. The Mets colors are composed of the Dodgers blue and Giants orange. During the 1962 and 1963 seasons, the Mets played their home games at the Polo Grounds. From 1964 to 2008, the Mets' home ballpark was Shea Stadium. In 2009, they moved into a new ballpark, Citi Field.

In their 1962 inaugural season, the Mets posted a record of 40–120, the worst regular season record since Major League Baseball went to a 162-game season (two games from their inaugural season were never made up). The team never finished better than second to last until the 1969 "Miracle Mets" beat the Baltimore Orioles in the 1969 World Series in what is considered one of the biggest upsets in World Series history. Since, they have played in three additional World Series, including a dramatic run in 1973 that ended in a Game Seven loss to the Oakland Athletics, a second championship in 1986 against the Boston Red Sox that was cited in the Curse of the Bambino, and a Subway Series against their cross-town rivals the New York Yankees in the 2000 World Series which they lost in five games.

In the previous decade the Mets made one playoff appearance after the 2000 season; it was in 2006 when they came within one game of the World Series, losing to the eventual World Champion St. Louis Cardinals in Game 7 of the 2006 National League Championship Series. The Mets missed the playoffs on the last day of the regular season in 2007 and 2008 and have finished with losing records every year since. In 2010, the Mets hired a new general manager, Sandy Alderson, and a new manager, Terry Collins.