Jack Fisher was new to the Mets in 1964 when he soon found himself with a song stuck stubbornly in his head.
No, not “Meet the Mets,” the team’s earworm-worthy theme jingle for more than 60 years now.
It was “It’s a Small World (After All),” the Disney-created song that debuted at the New York World’s Fair and that is the soundtrack of a popular theme park ride to this day.
“I kept humming that,” Fisher recalled recently in an interview with Newsday. “I will bet you for a month after that, that’s all I could hear.”
So it went for a match made in Baby Boomer heaven that spring, when the Mets opened Shea Stadium on April 17 — with Fisher throwing the first pitch — and the World’s Fair opened on the other side of the subway tracks on April 22.
One site was designed to last, and did, through 2008. The other was designed to be temporary and mostly was dismantled after two six-month runs in 1964 and ’65.
Shea Stadium during a Mets-Giants game on May 31, 1964. Credit: AP/John Lindsay
But when it all started, the modern new stadium and modern new fair site were inextricably linked.
The Mets were terrible that year, losing 109 games, but they were full of young players with young families who relished the perks of the job, notably one that included a dinosaur exhibit and cotton candy.
Fisher, now 85, had two young children, ages 6 and 4, at the time.
“We had an off day, and if we wanted to bring the family, we got in a kind of a jitney to go around to all the different places,” Fisher said. “There were long lines, and they brought us right up front and we got in to see anything practically that we wanted to see . . . The kids had a ball over there.”
Ed Kranepool, who grew up in the Bronx and was 19 years old that spring, said, “They took care of us. They opened the doors for us, and it was very nice.
“It was different. It was something you were not going to see before — or ever again. So you wanted to go, and we did.”
The scene at the IRT elevated line station as visitors headed for the fairgrounds with Shea Stadium in the background. Credit: AP/Anonymous
Visiting players got into the spirit, too.
When Jim Bunning pitched a perfect game for the Phillies in the first game of a doubleheader on Father’s Day, his wife, Mary, and daughter Barbara were there and planned to go to the fair afterward.
But the perfect game led to a wave of requests and attention during the second game, including a $3,000 offer to appear on Ed Sullivan’s Sunday night television show. The Bunnings postponed the fair until later in the summer.
When the Mets hosted an Old-Timers’ Day in July and honored alumni of the 1939 All-Star Game, many participants arrived early to check out the fair with their families, including Joe DiMaggio and Hank Greenberg.
The Mets had played their first two seasons at the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan. Shea was a gleaming palace in comparison. “It was beautiful,” Kranepool said.
That helped the Mets outdraw the Yankees, who were en route to their fifth consecutive American League pennant, by about 5,000 fans per game in 1964.
But the fair surely played a role, too, with visitors drawn by both attractions in Queens.
Fisher recalled sitting in the dugout during day games watching “hordes of people” arriving from the subway when the Mets were at home.
“I thought they were all coming to the game, but I guess some of them were going to the World’s Fair, too,” he said.
All available parking space is utilized as the Mets opened the 55,000 seat Shea Stadium against the Pittsburgh Pirates, April 17, 1964. Credit: AP
The downside was parking and traffic nightmares that were a fact of life for those two years. (The Jets also played at Shea, but most of their home games were after the fair was closed for the season.)
“People were all over the place, taking up the parking lots on the other side of the trains,” Kranepool said.
Most people took trains to Flushing, but it was not enough. Shea had about 5,500 parking spots at the time, and the fair about 20,000.
The busyness extended beyond baseball and the fair. New York also hosted the 1964 U.S. Olympic Trials that year, including boxing matches at the Singer Bowl on the grounds of the fair itself.
Shea was torn down after the 2008 season. Some elements of the fairgrounds remain, notably the Unisphere, but most are long gone.
“It’s a Small World” was reconstituted at Disneyland and Disney World.
“I found it unusual that they built all that stuff, then got rid of it all,” Kranepool said. “Everything else went to rot.”
While the Mets were an attendance hit that year, the World’s Fair did not meet its original expectations.
But for the generation that made the trip as children, it remains an indelible life memory — including that catchy “small world” song that played in the background even as fans still were meeting the Mets.
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.