
Mr. Met:
How a Sports-Mad Kid from Jersey Became Like Family to Generations of Big Leaguers
The author:
Jay Horwitz
The publishing info:
Triumph Books
$28
272 pages
Released May, 2020
The links:
At the publisher’s website
At Amazon.com
At BarnesAndNoble.com
At Powells.com
At Indiebound.org
The review in 90 feet or less
A few years back, Jeff Pearlman wrote a profile on New York Mets public relations man Jay Horwitz for the Wall Street Journal — this is spring training, 2011 — that began poetically:
Mets vice-president of media relations Jay Horwitz is, self admittedly, ‘a little bit of a schlump.’ He’s wrinkled, he’s baggy, he’s disheveled. His glasses are slightly crooked. His head is a little bit large for his shoulders. He talks with a thick New York accent. He’s lost or broken at least 10 Blackberries over the last few years, including two that plopped into the toilet.
A piece in the New York Post in 2009, when Horwitz was celebrating his 30th season, included this from writer Filip Bondi:
He is 63, a lovable, frazzled soul among young millionaires from very different cultures. He could be the father to these players, and talks like their proud, protective grandpa. … Everybody is a saint, or at least a mensch. … The stories he can tell . . . and the ones he must censor just a bit, because after all that is his business.
Another piece on Horwitz in the New York Post in 2018, includes these quotes from then-Mets captain David Wright: “You naturally think of players or managers when you think of Mets history, but in my opinion he’s right up there on that Mount Rushmore of the organization.” Team co-GM Omar Minaya adds: “I don’t want to say he’s Mr. Met, but he’s as close to Mr. Met as possible.”
In 40 years as the New York Mets’ PR man, Horwitz served a purpose. He could have revived the rules of Dodgeball — Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge — by adding Damage Control and Divert Attention. Even when the team was winning World Series titles in 1986 or NL pennants in 2000 and 2015.
Public relations, after all, is about relationships. He knew the process, the deadlines, the marketing side to how everything was interrelated.