The 1962 Mets- Baseball's Worst Team Ever

A Bad Club in the Big Apple

There is a consensus among baseball experts that the 1962 Mets were the worst team to ever step onto a baseball field. One look at their 40-120 record, which caused them to finish sixty and a half games out of first place that year, makes it obvious that the 1962 Mets were one bad ball club. Just what was it that made the 1962 Mets the poster boys for abject failure in the national pastime? Much of it was due to the fact that when the 1962 Mets were put together through an expansion draft, their management decided to stock the roster with castoffs and has-beens that had been former Giants, Dodgers, and Yankees, in an attempt to appeal to the public's sense of nostalgia. Not a good idea.

The Giants and Dodgers had headed west out of New York in the late Fifties, leaving the Big Apple with only one team when they had had three for over 50 years. This void was filled because of the plan by a New York attorney named William Shea. Shea was in the process of founding a new league, with the plan to put a team in New York and in seven other cities around the nation. Major League Baseball reached a compromise with the Continental League, allowing for the formation of four new teams; two in the American League and a pair in the National League. The Continental League then went away before it ever played a game. The 1962 Mets were born, as were the Houston Colt .45s, the team that would become the Astros by the end of the decade. In the American League, the California Angels and the Washington Senators were added in 1961; the original Senators had just relocated to Minnesota and had become the Twins.

The 1962 Mets did draft some players who were accomplished major leaguers. Richie Ashburn, the former Phillie who would gain entrance into baseball's Hall of Fame, was one of the 1962 Mets. So was Frank Thomas, a slugging outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Roger Craig, a former Brooklyn Dodger, became the ace of the staff for the 1962 Mets, but as you will see, his team leading victory total is not the first thing you notice when you look at his record.