Retiring Number 24: Mets Honor Willie Mays

By Richard Sternberg, M.D.

I am a NY Mets fan. I’ve been so since their beginning in 1962 when I was 9 years of age. I don’t know how that came to be, but I grew up in Queens and the new team in town fascinated me. My father was not a baseball fan but my mother showed an interest, maybe just because of me and my brother, or maybe she was a fan on her own. Anyway, through my mother’s serendipitous meeting with the wife of the president of the Mets and her development of a friendship with one of the club executives, we spent many happy days at the Polo Grounds, mostly in 1963. We sat frequently in the unused box of the president. To make some of you jealous, I saw Gil Hodges, Duke Snider, and Marvelous Marv Throneberry play. Eat your hearts out! My mom somehow also became friends with Choo-Choo Coleman. It was probably my best summer ever.