There's a Mr. Met In All of Us

In the annals of the professional athletic mascot, the New York Mets may claim the purest expression of the form. Mr. Met is—incorruptibly and unpretentiously—a man with a large baseball for a head. With a self-effacing, slacked-jaw grin, Mr. Met resembles an earnest and overeager batboy with a glandular problem. This, naturally, has made him one of sports' most beloved and inordinately pleasing mascots.

Considering he is the product of a city whose leading preoccupation is its unremitting change, Mr. Met's longevity is notable. While his visage has been polished—the circumference of his well-upholstered globe adding a few inches, his laugh lines gaining latitude over the years—Mr. Met has remained more or less unchanged since he sprung, fully formed, in 1962. His debut predated national popularization of the mascot concept, which is usually credited to the Phillies' deranged Phanatic, a Dr. Moreau orphan who can best be understood as a manifestation of its city's collective id.