The Beginning.

In 1957 and 1958 New York lost two National League baseball teams to the West Coast. The Giants left for San Francisco in 1957 and the Dodgers for Los Angeles in 1958. That left the Yankees, who were on one of the grandest winning streaks in baseball history, but National League fans wanted a team of their own. In the National League expansion of 1962 they got their wish, the New York Mets. The majority owner was former Giants fan Joan Whitney Payson, one of the wealthiest women in the nation. Her pockets were deep, and a five-year, $6 million broadcast-rights deal with Rheingold brewery assured that the Mets were solvent.

Cost.

The team cost a total of $2.3 million — $500,000 induction fee to the league and $1.8 million in draft fees from a league-created draft pool of shockingly bad players. The Mets managers got to pick twenty players...