April 2004

When you think of groups of Mets fans, you generally assume that they would congregate at Shea Stadium or other locations in the New York metropolitan area. However, one of the most devoted Mets fan clubs is located in Port St. Lucie, Florida - the Mets' spring training site as well as the home of the Florida State League St. Lucie Mets.

The New York/St. Lucie Mets Booster Club was established in 1987, and was in operation the following spring when the Mets moved their winter home from St. Petersburg to Port St. Lucie. This club is very active, in a variety of ways. Primarily, the Mets Booster Club was designed to help out organizations in the Port St. Lucie area. For example, it arranges for season ticket holders who cannot use their tickets for particular games to give those tickets to the Booster Club and, in turn, the club distributes those tickets to local agencies that provide services for underprivileged or abused children so that the agencies can bring the kids to ballgames. To complete the experience, the Booster Club donates the proceeds of its Loose Change Fund to buy those children hot dogs and sodas during the games. The Booster Club gets a lot of satisfaction in giving deserving kids an evening away from the hardships they deal with most days -- as membership chairman and newsletter editor Joan Dunleavy says, "To see their faces smiling is just precious." In addition to taking kids out to the ballgame, the Booster Club helps out the community by making donations to several local charities, such as helping out with Thanksgiving food baskets or groups that distribute Christmas presents to needy families.

In addition to helping the community, the Booster Club helps the St. Lucie Mets. This season, Saturday night will be "Feed the St. Lucie Mets Night" for the Booster -- after each Saturday home game, a different member of the Booster Club will prepare dishes such as baked ziti or sausage and peppers for the team's after-game meal spread. There is also the "Adopt a Met" program, where a Booster Club member will invite a St. Lucie Met home to dinner every couple of weeks, to give the player the experience of a home-cooked meal. Some Booster Club members will rent rooms to ballplayers who can't afford to live in a hotel during Spring Training. Additionally, the Booster Club has helped St. Lucie players financially during emergencies, like when a player had to go home and help his family when their house burned down, or when a player's wife locked her keys in the car and then had the burden of paying the locksmith's bill.

But all work and no play would make for a very dull fan club. Fortunately, this is not the case in St. Lucie. The Booster Club has monthly meetings at a local restaurant, where everyone has the chance to plan upcoming events as well as to socialize. There are regularly scheduled "Meet the St. Lucie Mets" nights, organized by the Booster Club but open to the public, where fans get the chance to mingle with the Mets of tomorrow. The Booster Club organizes several tailgate parties during the season, to which St. Lucie players and coaches are invited. And then there are the bus trips. Twice a season, when the Mets are in Florida to play the Marlins, the Booster Club purchases a group of tickets and arranges bus transportation so that members can see the Major League Mets in action. Additionally, they run a bus trip to the Legends Game in February, which is a charity game featuring former Major League players. Booster Club members in the Port St. Lucie area have ample opportunities to attend events with like-minded fans.

Booster Club members receive one further benefit -- the monthly newsletter. Ms. Dunleavy, who works in the St. Lucie Mets' ticket office, spends hours each month compiling notes on current and previous New York Mets and St. Lucie Mets, and the resulting Baseball News section of the newsletter is comprehensive. Joan's husband, Frank Dunleavy, who is the Booster Club treasurer and also a St. Lucie Mets employee, tells Inside Pitch about a conversation that he had with Mets bullpen coach Rick Waits last spring. Waits was telling Mr. Dunleavy how much he appreciates the informative nature of the newsletter that he receives each month from St. Lucie, and asked, "Why can't the Mets do that?" As if Ms. Dunleavy doesn't have enough on her hands with compiling the newsletter, she also does a superlative job in keeping the mailing list current, despite the need for constant updates to accommodate members who have summer and winter residences, or ballplayers' temporary spring training addresses.

The Booster Club boasts approximately 300 members, although some are more active than others. There is a core group of roughly 40 members who attend the monthly meetings and activities throughout the year. There are the snowbirds who participate in the winter activities, and others who come to Florida just during Spring Training. And then there are those who don't get down to Florida, but who figure that $10 a year is a reasonable contribution for a newsletter and to support a group that does a lot of good for the Mets and for the community.

Those who have been active in the Booster Club have found their experiences rewarding. Past president Susan Maloney enjoyed "working with the general manager in coordinating events, and it's been fun working with the players." She has even developed lasting relationships with some players -- for example, one former player came back to Florida to attend Maloney's daughter's high school graduation, and Benny Agbayani recently sent Maloney pictures of his young daughter.

Jim Fertitta, who serves as the St. Lucie Mets team photographer, has been the Booster Club president for five years. Maloney describes Fertitta as, "a great president -- he is definitely Mr. Met." If you think that she's exaggerating, go to Fertitta's personal website, http://www.metshome.com/, which features photographs of Fertitta's home, his car, the Fox Sports Net commercial in which he and his wife appeared, and even Fertitta dressed up and wearing a Mr. Met mask! But the most enjoyable thing for Fertitta is sharing his love of the Mets with other people. He maintains an e-mail newsletter (to which one can subscribe at the http://www.metsboosterclub.com/ website), and he gets a lot of personal satisfaction out of helping people who come to Port St. Lucie to see games. "Anything I can do to make life good for a Mets fan is good for me."

Mr. Met himself couldn't have said it better!

For more information on being a part of the New York/St. Lucie Mets Booster Club, visit http://www.metsboosterclub.com/ or contact Membership Chairperson Joan Dunleavy at stjoan1018@aol.com or at (772) 878-8505.