Hall of More, Please

A more consistently robust, perhaps less finicky team Hall of Fame — the kind of institution that steps to the forefront with some regularity before mysteriously fading from view between releasing its intermittent puffs of orange and blue smoke — would have already included the three members the Mets recently announced as their 2026 inductees. Lee Mazzilli last played for the club in 1989, Bobby Valentine managed it in 2002, and Carlos Beltran most recently took the field for the home folks in Flushing in 2011. There was probably a stray Saturday on a random homestand that could have been dedicated to honoring any one or all three prior to whichever date is circled for next season, but as a fan who will always toast this franchise celebrating every nook and cranny of its history usually winds up concluding, when it comes to the New York Mets Hall of Fame, the important thing is they’re in now.

Per usual, the reveal for this Mets Hall class fell out of the sky without warning, hewing to no established pattern. Still when it showed up in the second week of November, it landed as pleasingly as it did surprisingly. Bobby V was the most accomplished Met manager not already in the Hall. Beltran, who may be kept busy at more than one such ceremony this summer, is cited every Hot Stove season as the most impactful long-term player the Mets ever engaged through free agency, maybe the most all-around talented in-his-prime position player they’ve ever had. (That description might have fit Vladimir Guerrero, but that’s a different story I’d recommend reading.) And Mazzilli? If you were in love with the Mets when they were at their least, Mazz was simply the most.

My heart is most warmed by the selection of Bobby Valentine, who elevated a moribund on-field product shortly after he took over as skipper and kept it aloft via a dizzying juggling act for a half-decade. My head is totally on board with Carlos Beltran, who did it all when healthy and did as much as he could when something short of 100%. My extremities tingle at the notion that Lee Mazzilli is a part of all this, because Lee Mazzilli, in his first term, was close to all we had, with his second term serving as a rare Recidivist victory lap, not just for him, but the greater Met good.

I like that there are connections to be divined inside this triangle. Valentine and Mazzilli were Met teammates (the 1977 Mets, who lost 98 games, can now claim eight Mets Hall of Famers among their forty players used). Mazzilli and Beltran were All-Star Met center fielders three decades apart. Beltran and Valentine were Met managers, though Carlos B’s counting stats never got a chance to match Bobby V’s. Mazzilli won a World Series as a Met. Valentine managed the Mets into the World Series. Beltran…so close, but Game Seven of the NLCS is no also-ran destination. Carlos was the top player on arguably the top team the Mets have fielded since the era Mazzilli came home. Bobby V steered the ship as close to the shores of the promised land as anybody since Davey Johnson brought us into port, and according to proprietary Personality Above Replacement analytics, he never failed to fascinate.

When these three Mets become Mets Hall of Famers, membership within the Mets Hall of Fame — which in September passed its 44th anniversary — will rise to 38. Collecting ballots from my heart, head, and extremities, I’m confident I could increase that total legitimately by half without clicking once on Baseball-Reference. It’s a team Hall of Fame. It’s our team Hall of Fame. We understand what our team is and what has made it our team for going on 65 seasons. A Hall of Fame representing our team oughta be fulsomely populated with individuals who have left indelible marks in our hearts and heads and along our extremities. I truly believe that between 1962 and the present, we’ve had far more than 38 of those. There’s a bar to be set that stays true to studied selectivity, yet recognizes even implied exclusivity can benefit from occasional touches of generosity and malleability.

A little less pickiness to the process isn’t going to devalue any of the plaques currently hung at the top of the Rotunda stairs, and I doubt “Lazy Mary” will be sat out in mass protest if it’s decided “a great Met” encompasses multiple meanings. For this class, the picking worked quite well. Welcome to the certifiably upper echelon, Bobby, Carlos, and Lee.