All aboard!

Welcome to Willets Pen, a newsletter and podcast in support of an ebook by the same name about the New York Mets, to be written and released this summer if we reach our fundraising goal. In the meantime, we’ll be writing and talking about the Mets, but also, sometimes not the Mets.

That’s because this will be a space for us to do stuff that we wouldn’t do at our day jobs. Willets Pen will be an ebook about the Mets, by an All-Star team of writers who just don’t happen to be Mets Writers.

Who are we? Glad you asked.

This is our starting 9. (Update: Yes, it’s now more than nine. And this will continue to be updated.)

Ellen Adair is primarily an actor, with recurring roles on The Sinner, Homeland, and Bull, among many others. They also enjoy playing the role of baseball analyst, appearing numerous times on MLB Network, plus podcasts on Pitcher List, Fangraphs, CBS, the Athletic, Baseball Prospectus, SABR, and their own podcast, Take Me In to the Ballgame. They are also the author of Curtain Speech, a book of poems about the theater, and write for FanBuzz. They’ll be illustrating the Willets Pen ebook.  

Addy Baird is a political reporter and union organizer who made a quasi-religious conversion — after never once caring about sports before in her life — to die-hard Mets fandom in 2015. It was, yes, bandwagoning. She has spent the last seven years learning her lesson, and the last five in enemy territory, rooting for the Mets from our nation's capital. She currently works for BuzzFeed News, and previously worked for ThinkProgress and Politico New York. Most importantly, though, she is an enthusiastic (if not particularly talented) left-handed catcher for the One Hitters, a slow pitch softball team sponsored by a local medical marijuana dispensary. Noah Syndergaard once blocked her on Twitter.

Michele Catalano is a Long Island writer and full time employee of the New York court system. She's been a Yankees fan since birth and bleeds Islanders blue. She writes a newsletter a couple of times a week, and mostly just hangs out with her dog, MC Ren. She has written for Forbes and Fangraphs.

Roger Cormier is the author of Meditations in Panic City, a fictional memoir from a Mets fan. His work has appeared in Baseball Prospectus, Fangraphs, and Mental Floss. He resides in Brooklyn with his cat, Scooter.

Steph Driver is the Senior Hockey Editorial Manager for SB Nation and a long suffering Philadelphia Flyers “fan,” in that she hates them but also wants them to win more than anything. She lives in Marietta, Ga., which makes Truist Park her natural enemy, because the traffic keeps her from her twin nephews. She writes for Broad Street Hockey and hosts their flagship podcast, and is proud of being perpetually On Line.

Rob Gunther is a writer and audio journalist who has worked in daily news radio and podcast production at WNYC and Apple News. When he was a one-year-old baby, he bit his dad in the arm so hard it broke skin at the exact moment the Mets won the World Series in 1986.

Bill Hanstock is a screenwriter, author and Emmy Award winner. You might have read his work at SB Nation, Polygon, The Athletic, or elsewhere. You can read his book, We Promised You A Great Main Event: An Unauthorized WWE History, out now on HarperCollins. He lives in Los Angeles and is a lifelong San Francisco Giants fan, but try not to hold either of those things against him.

Brittany Huber is a Florida-born and California-raised writer, marketer, and erstwhile opera singer. She is a Giants fan by geography and a Yankees fan because of an insatiable thirst for trophies and knuckle curves. (They’ve so far been better at giving her one of these than the other.) She believes strongly that billionaires are a policy failure, the DH is fine actually, and the world would be a better place if we all had a personal catcher.

Ryan Kelly is a senior producer at NFL Films, and has been overreacting to the Mets since the Tim Teufel era. He collects game-used Mets jerseys more for the designs than who wore them (Bob Myrick! Craig Swan! Jim Frey! Ellis Valentine!), but made an exception for Omir Santos. He has compiled an extensive collection of 1980s Mets telecast outro music, carefully Shazammed from full game broadcasts found on YouTube.

Thornton McEnery is… let’s say “a financial columnist,” but more importantly a lifelong Brooklynite whose first live baseball game was Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Since then, he has experienced a lot of pain as a Mets fan and a season ticket holder in the final years of Shea. He has had some jobs at MarketWatch, The New York Post, Dealbreaker.com and Crain’s New York Business. At the Post, he somehow ended up covering the sale of the Mets to Steve Cohen and caused a ruckus, which taught him what it felt like to be a mediocre white guy hated by Mets fans, i.e. Jason Bay. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two sons and dog…like a true media stereotype.

P.E. Moskowitz runs the newsletter Mental Hellth and is the author of the forthcoming book Rabbit Hole, a druggy journey to mental liberation (Atria/Bloomsbury). They grew up in New York City and have a tattoo of Mr. Met holding a gun on their left arm.

Chrystal O’Keefe hails from Indianapolis and frequents Chicago more than the L Train, writing for South Side Sox, Pitcher List, and occasionally Say It Again Network. Chrystal also used to write for Overtime Heroics and was featured in Sports Illustrated. She co-hosts two podcasts: Estrogen Power Hour and Soxy Chicks. If she’s not watching professional baseball, she’s usually at the little league ballpark watching her two kids play, catching up on true crime podcasts, or smashing the patriarchy any way she can. She’s also the author of her own true crime short story.

Rich O'Malley is an author, editor and communications specialist living in Manhattan with his pooch, Alfie, and kit-kat, Mr. Boo. After departing the New York Daily News as Executive Editor in 2016, he published his first book, One Lucky Fan: From Bleachers to Box Seats, Chasing the Ultimate Sports Dream to Visit All 123 MLB, NBA, NFL & NHL Teams in 2019. He grew up a diehard Yankees fan, but the Mets’ constant "Metsing about" amuses him to no end. He does not care for Boston or Atlanta though. Like, in any way. Adopt, don't shop.

Allison Robicelli is a James Beard-nominated food/humor writer, a Publisher's Weekly starred author, and the mind behind the NSFW food-centric erotic Substack soap opera The Edible Erotic Adventures of Esmerelda Poppingcorn. She's written about urinals for Bon Appetit and Hot Pockets for The Takeout, done sacreligious things to bagels for Serious Eats, and made a chocolate cream pie you'd gladly stick your dick in for The Washington Post. When she's not writing recipes or pornography, she's laughing at her die hard Mets fan husband and his futile World Series dreams, and living the dream in beautiful, sunny Baltimore. 

Jesse Spector was not paying attention in kindergarten when they said that these marble notebooks were for writing, and amazed his teacher when he filled his up in a couple of days… with drawings of the Mets. He has since become a writer, covering baseball and hockey for the New York Daily News and Sporting News, and a smorgasbord at Deadspin. He is the father of two Mets fans, despite having warned them about how that goes. He’s also an amateur photographer, going pro at Triboro Photo.

Colleen Sullivan is good at many things, but writing bios isn’t one of them. She is a Chicago-native Mets fan, who followed Robin Ventura from the White Sox to the Mets. She co-hosts the Estrogen Power Hour podcast and contributes to South Side Sox. She frequently tells people that no choices the White Sox make can hurt her because she is a Mets fan, and makes it a point to see the Mets when they are within driving distance, even if it does mean going to Wrigley.

Linda Surovich is a full-time librarian and beleaguered Mets fan. She is one of the co-hosts for the all-female podcast A Pod of Their Own and writes for Amazin' Avenue and Just Mets. She can usually be found at Citi Field as the Mets drive her crazy.

Today was supposed to be opening day. We wish it could’ve been, too, but we’ll have a season to talk about in a week, and plenty to talk about here, all summer long and beyond.