Mr. Met by Jay Horwitz

Please note: I wrote this book review in March 2022 for a graduate school course at the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. For my PR Management & Leadership course, I was assigned to read and write a review of a book related to public relations. I chose to read Mr. Met, written by Jay Horwitz, the longtime media relations director for the New York Mets.

Written by longtime New York Mets media relations director Jay Horwitz and published by Triumph Books in 2020, Mr. Met features four distinct sections capturing the many stories and lessons associated with Horwitz’s professional and personal development.

Often presented with a friendly tone and through an anecdotal lense, the sections range from detailing how Horwitz developed excellent writing abilities early in his career while delivering fascinating human interest stories to the lessons Horwitz later learned as a public relations manager in the tumultuous, always-on New York sports media market.

Mr. Met offers many career lessons Horwitz learned during his various public relations managerial jobs such as sports information director (SID) at New York University, SID at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and director of media relations for the New York Mets. The book’s first section, titled “The Making of a Sports Nut”, details Horwitz’s upbringing in Clifton, New Jersey, as well as his initial public relations development as SID at NYU and FDU. Horwitz candidly shares the evolving approaches he took to earn media coverage for the collegiate teams and student-athletes he served at both institutions. With each moment Horwitz presents regarding the sports information duties which he fulfilled more than 50 years ago yet vividly recalls, Horwitz’s knack for understanding what constitutes a good story which a media outlet’s audience will resonate with is apparent.

Likewise, Mr. Met asserts Horwitz’s tenure as a reporter was brief yet important. Working in journalism, he developed an eye and an ear for recognizing outside-the-box story angles and how — from a reporter’s perspective — such stories evolve from inception to publication. Horwitz says his early-career experiences working with lower quality teams while getting to know their players and gain media coverage benefitted him when he ultimately worked for the Mets. Regarding the various roles he served, Horwitz writes, “The key was always to pay attention, to keep your eyes open at all times, and to keep in mind the ultimate reason you’re there: to help the players,” (Horwitz, 2020, p. xiii). Listening and creativity are undoubtedly important tenets of the public relations profession. This book illustrates both as two of the most important skills Horwitz constantly utilized to achieve success for the athletes and coaches he served during the managerial positions throughout his PR career.

Versatility of PR Practitioners

Furthermore, the fourth section of the book, “Lessons of a PR Man”, offers crucial insight into the many lessons Horwitz learned as media relations director for the Mets. The chapters demonstrate that Hortwiz often wore many hats during his career–something public relations practitioners within any sector will likely attest they have done in their careers. Horwitz’s actions exemplified his selfless belief that his job was about meeting expectations that were bigger than just himself.

Given Horwitz’s priority on supporting players however he could through all interactions, one of the ways he fulfilled this was willingly being on the receiving end of practical jokes orchestrated by the Mets players. On numerous occasions, Mr. Met shows he understood the trials and tribulations that come with the 162-game Major League Baseball regular season; if there was any way he could keep the team loose and the players’ spirits high, he would do it without question. More applicable to public relations management and counsel, Mr. Met captures many moments Horwitz guides Mets managers and players through questions and scenarios they would likely face during interviews and press conferences. He was proactive in his media relations efforts and set the Mets players and coaching staff up for success through steadfast preparation, honesty, and commitment to the team. The players respected Horwitz because his experience and rapport with other players suggested each of them stood to benefit if they confided in him and trusted him.

Unpredictability of PR (and Life)

With Horwitz’s career with the Mets spanning nearly four decades, Mr. Met captures a substantial moment any Mets fan let alone any American citizen remembers: the terrorist attacks of the Twin Towers on September 11, 2011. This chapter of Mr. Met demonstrates to a great extent how a public relations manager’s day-to-day experiences can vary and be unpredictable. The book shows that to Horwitz, working in public relations and for an organization as visible to the public as the New York Mets are, his job presented him circumstances and took him to places he could have never expected. Along with the Mets team ownership and a group of players, Horwitz was on site at Ground Zero after the attacks, where they assisted first responders in searching through the rubble for survivors. Horwitz recounts the numerous ways he saw firsthand how the Mets organization assumed a leading role in helping New York and the entire country recover from the horrific tragedy the terrorist attacks presented. Specifically, Horwitz assisted Mets manager Bobby Valentine in working long hours to support children who lost a parent during the attacks. Jay facilitated the children’s attendance of Mets games and made countless phone calls on behalf of the children while ensuring he provided Valentine the baseball-related information he required to manage the team and interact with the media at the time. Horwitz’s recollection of his work amid 9/11 shows he stepped back as a public relations practitioner, put baseball and life in perspective, and positively impacted millions of people through the tireless work he and his organization conducted. September 2001 called upon Horwitz to wear even more hats than before in his career, and this chapter shows that both Horwitz’s organization and its many publics ultimately benefitted because of his work.

Lessons of PR Management & Leadership

One of the key messages from Mr. Met that consistently resonated with me was Horwitz’s unwavering dedication to the players on the teams he worked to promote as a sports information director. This will stick with me beyond my time reading this book because it relates to a quote I was previously told in February 2021 by a sports information director-turned athletic director who I worked under while completing my own sports information internship. During one of our first conversations, he told me regardless of the managerial position someone holds within college athletics — whether it is sports information director or athletic director — they must remember their work must be student-driven and that they are there to contribute to the students’ success. This lesson enhanced my understanding of what working in a managerial and public relations position within collegiate athletics entails, and it certainly aligns with Horwitz’s main allegiance always being to the players.

Overall, I agree with many of the assertions expressed in this book about sports public relations and the demands of being the leader of a team’s publicity, media relations and sports information efforts. First and foremost, Mr. Met asserts that being a sports public relations manager can be challenging. While I certainly recognize working in sports public relations is much less serious than performing a life-saving surgery in an intensive care unit, I also know managing the many challenges the sports public relations field offers can be incredibly stressful in its own right. Practitioners may inevitably need to learn on the fly–which Mr. Met provides an example of in the “Fairleigh Dickinson SID” chapter. In Horwitz’s first game, FDU received a technical foul before the opening tip-off because of an error Horwitz committed. Since he was still learning the players, he recorded the incorrect jersey numbers in the scorebook, which caused his team’s penalty.

As a former sports information assistant myself who learned on the fly while working for an athletic department in its first year as a member of the NCAA, Horwitz’s mishap resonated with me because I could have potentially done the same thing. During my internship, I ensured I was always serving the department, coaches and student-athletes well, but I likely made mistakes. Although I wanted the box scores I was responsible for compiling to accurately reflect the performances of the players from both teams every game, I did not exactly know the players all too well either at first. During each game, I inputted stats into the athletic department’s computer using stat-recording software, but I could have attributed stats to the wrong player or caused additional issues such as sharing the false number of fouls on a player with the referees and coaches had I not been extremely attentive. Mr. Met captures Horwitz’s ability to learn from mistakes, which only benefitted him in the long run.

In all, Mr. Met is well-organized, well-written and enjoyable to read. As aforementioned, the story of Horwitz’s personal and career development is told with a friendly tone and through an anecdotal lense. For example, Horwitz shared the story of his interview with the Mets general manager, which involved Horwitz originally arriving at the wrong location, arriving late, providing a confusing answer to a question, and spilling orange juice onto the desk and clothes of the general manager while attempting to shake his hand. To the reader’s benefit, Horwitz tells this story transparently and humorously. Additionally, Mr. Met paints unorthodox yet easily understood literary pictures of many situations from Horwitz’s career. For example, Horwitz describes the Mets process of acquiring George Foster from the Cincinnati Reds by writing, “United Nations treaties were argued, formulated, signed, and sealed in less time than it took the Mets to complete negotiations for the power-hitting Foster” (Horwitz, 2020, p. 64).

While I am very passionate about baseball, I find Mr. Met to be an exhilarating and inspiring read for reasons that have little or even nothing to do with the sport. Right off the bat, Horwitz shares a quote I believe can empower just about anyone when he writes, “Just because you are born with a disability, doesn’t mean you can’t get ahead in life” (Horwitz, 2020, p. 5). Mr. Met presents lessons such as the importance of a team’s media relations director knowing the personalities of the players they work with–or for my classmates whose future careers may not delve into the sports media landscape–the importance of a public relations manager knowing a company’s dynamics and the personalities of its employees. All in all, Mr. Met presents many valuable lessons in public relations management, trust, relationship- building, and even crisis communication that I can utilize in my career.

Horwitz, J. (2020). Mr. Met: How a Sports-Mad Kid from Jersey Became Like Family to Generations of Big Leaguers. Triumph Books.