Dan Reilly, the original Mr. Met, dies at age 83
Dan Reilly, the original Mr. Met mascot, shown here in the mid-2000s. Reilly died on Dec. 30, 2021, at age 83. Credit: Matthew MacCartney
Dan Reilly was a natural showman. So it seemed like a good idea in 1964 when the Mets ticket office employee was asked to put on an oversized baseball head as part of a costume to become the first live incarnation of the team’s iconic mascot.
On May 31, 1964, during a doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants at Shea Stadium, Mr. Met was born. Reilly donned the costume for four seasons.
"You think of what’s happened with this whole mascot thing," said former Mets outfielder Ron Swoboda, who once lived in the same house as Reilly in Whitestone, Queens. "He was at the inception of the idea. If you didn’t have a Dan Reilly, it probably wouldn’t have worked."
Reilly, a Manhattan resident, died on Dec. 30 of a heart attack. He was 83.
In 1987, in a documentary about the 25th anniversary of the franchise, Reilly appeared wearing a suit, tie and his Mr. Met head. He spoke about the early days of the mascot who has become an internationally known symbol of the Mets.
Until Reilly put on the costume head, Mr. Met had only been a cartoon. Reilly made him come to life.
"You needed a live one," Reilly said in the documentary. "I was selling tickets down in Grand Central [Terminal]. They decided that they would audition me for Mr. Met. So we came up with the papier-mache [head] and Mr. Met was born ... They gave me the ball and let me run with it. It just became a marriage right away."
Today, Mr. Met has a Twitter account with nearly 78,000 followers. But while entertaining fans, the mascot has never been allowed to speak, which must have been an interesting challenge for the gregarious Reilly.
"He had a real love for show tunes that he never minded singing for you," Swoboda said of his lifelong friend. "So he had a little showman in him. He was kind of perfect for the role that was just evolving then. I don’t think there were mascots back then. Dan was perfect for it. Of course, the suit was a combination of a regular Met uniform and this sort of amateurish, hand-painted, big baseball head. It was pretty crude when you look at it in comparison to what they do now. They were just beginning, and Dan was happy to fill the role."
Reilly, a Queens native, served in the Marines and also worked for Eastern Airlines, New York Waterways, the then-New York Nets and what was then called the Colonie Hill Golf Club in Hauppauge.
But he was happy to be remembered as the first live Mr. Met. In 2007, he self-published a book titled "The Original Mr. Met Remembers: When the Miracle Began." It is still available on Amazon.
"It constantly came up," said his son, Matthew MacCartney, a Jamestown, Rhode Island, resident. "It was part of his career and his identity because it was a wild part."
Reilly first started working for the Mets when they played at the Polo Grounds. It was during his time with the Mets that he met his future wife and MacCartney’s mother, Gloria, who was an employee of the Diamond Club restaurant at Shea Stadium.
The couple was married on Oct. 11, 1969 — the same day as Game 1 of the World Series. The Mets happened to be playing in their first World Series, against the Baltimore Orioles.
"That I heard my entire life," MacCartney said. " ‘Hey, the Mets finished in last place in 1968. There’s no way they’d be in the postseason in 1969. Let’s have the wedding on Oct. 11.’ And, boom, they got in the World Series. A few of the players were good friends and were invited. But they couldn’t come."
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
