High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Metropolitan Club (the New York Metropolitans or the Mets) was a 19th century professional baseball team that played in New York City from 1880 to 1887. Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York was the name originally chosen in 1960 for the current day New York Mets franchise, although the legal name has changed since then. The Metropolitans were founded in 1880 as an independent professional team by business entrepreneur John B. Day and baseball manager Jim Mutrie. Initially the team played its games in Brooklyn and in Hoboken, New Jersey as the other New York area clubs did at the time. However, by September, Day had arranged the use of a polo field just north of Central Park bounded by 5th & 6th Avenues and 110th & 112th Streets in Manhattan that became known as the Polo Grounds, the first professional baseball park on Manhattan.