Steve Jacobson, Newsday's first Mets beat reporter, feted at Old-Timers' Day

It was about 3 p.m. and there was Steve Jacobson, standing in foul territory on the third-base side, engaged in an extended conversation with Mets Old-Timer Ron Swoboda.

In another time, Newsday’s first Mets beat reporter would have been gathering information for the following day’s newspaper.

At Citi Field on Saturday, though, Jacobson was catching up with the people he covered since the Mets’ inception in 1962 before joining the 65 former Mets players and managers who were honored at the franchise’s first Old-Timers’ Day since 1994.

“I’m glad to be here,” said Jacobson, who wore a Newsday cap and had his BBWAA card draped around his neck. “I still feel an attachment to the Mets.”

It’s only natural, given that he covered the Mets for years as a beat reporter and columnist before his retirement in 2004.

“I got to talk to people and know who they are,” he said. “It was wonderful.”

Jacobson said he joined the newspaper in 1960 after he got out of the Army. He began rewriting wire copy before covering the Yankees “for a couple years, and then the Mets came along.”

Covering baseball in New York, Jacobson said, was akin to getting a master’s degree.

“You learned a lot of things,” he said. “Find out what to look for, who’s worth talking to. Who’s smart and who [you] don’t waste your time on deadline [on].”