Dan Reilly, the Original Mr. Met, Is Dead at 83

“They had told me to play it straight, just walk out there and wave, but the kids started swarming down to meet me in the stands,” Mr. Reilly told The Amazing Shea Stadium Autograph Project, a blog. “I shook hands, posed for pictures, signed autographs. After that, I got cocky and started dancing. It was an instant hit.”

It was a better day for Mr. Reilly than it was for the Mets, who were swept by the Giants (the second game required 23 innings; the Giants won, 8-6) — a typical day for the perennially losing team then in its third season as an expansion franchise.

Later that year, Mr. Met appeared in a Mets event at the World’s Fair in Flushing, near Shea Stadium. Mr. Reilly sat at the edge of the Unisphere, the giant globe that was the centerpiece of the fair, getting splattered by its water display and signing “Mr. Met” for a procession of children.

“Who would know Dan Reilly?” he observed to The Daily News that day.

The Mets sidelined Mr. Met, but not Mr. Reilly, in 1967, and waited a dozen years to bring in another mascot species: Mettle, a mule (a real one), who strode up and down the foul lines before games during the miserable 1979 season, when the Mets won 63 games and lost 99. Mr. Met was revived in 1994 (with a man named A.J. Mass soloing under the colossal noggin until 1997) and has appeared ever since, even showing up in ESPN ads and commercials for various products.

“From Dan Reilly until today, Mr. Met has been a symbol of the Mets who is really valued by the team and its fans,” Dave Raymond, the first person to portray the Phillie Phanatic, the mischievous mascot of the Philadelphia Phillies, said in an interview. “He reflects the passion, angst, affection and frustrations of Mets fans.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/07/sports/baseball/dan-reilly-dead.html