He seemed so kind and friendly, neither peer nor grown-up, but a being completely devoted to the happiness and success of the chosen people: Mets fans. It was like maintaining loyalty to a deposed, exiled monarch, or perhaps the charismatic leader of a cult. He was America and our dad and a fellow kid all at once; he was the crumminess of Shea and the glory of ’86 and the meeting of child and adult that is sports. The fact that he existed only in lore burnished this image.
Sadie Stein, “Mr. Met”, The New York Times Magazine (21 May 2017), 35.