The Mets: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team

"Gittlitz really means it. Come the revolution, the team that represents us will be wearing… 'the hard-hat orange of the international working class, and our blue Earth' ... He makes a much better case than one might have thought possible." —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker In Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People's Team, A.M. Gittlitz offers a love letter that fans of the Mets, partisans of New York City, and everyone interested in the connection of sports to politics should enjoy. The book provides a history of the franchise as well as the game, reflecting on the contradiction of a middle-class game owned by billionaires, in which the players — like the spectators — hope to round the diamond while escaping its many dangers. Gittlitz shows that sports have long been a site of political struggle, rousing class consciousness, and animating fights for racial equality. And Metropolitans makes a deeply humane and convincing argument for the singularity of the Mets — why they are not just the team of the counterculture, the freaks, and the losers, but the beloved team of anyone with a beating heart. Dave Zirin, the sports editor at The Nation and author of eleven books on the politics of sports, joins in conversation.