Farewell to an Original Met: Jim Marshall (1931–2025)

The Mets family lost one of its elder statesmen yesterday, as Jim Marshall passed away at the age of 93. At the time of his death, Marshall held the distinction of being the oldest living Met—a title he carried with the same quiet dignity that marked his long baseball journey.

Marshall’s playing career was a winding baseball journey that could fill a Ken Burns episode. A left-handed hitter with power, he suited up for five different big-league clubs between 1958 and 1962, including a brief but memorable stop with the brand-new New York Mets. Purchased from the Giants on October 13, 1961, just months before the team’s inaugural season, he was there at the very beginning under Casey Stengel.

“In Opening Day at the Polo Grounds,” Marshall once recalled, “they were doing the player introductions, and when they got to me, they booed the hell out of me because Gil Hodges wasn’t playing. He was hurt, but they just buried me. Welcome to New York.”

In 17 games with the Mets, he hit .250 with a .338 on-base percentage and a .424 slugging percentage, contributing three home runs and four RBIs. In those first few weeks, he showed flashes of power, homering against the Pirates and Phillies, while also filling in at first base as the Mets searched for stability. His stay in Queens was short—he was dealt to Pittsburgh on May 7, 1962, for veteran pitcher Vinegar Bend Mizell—but it tied him forever to the birth of the franchise. As Stengel himself noted, Marshall would finally get a real chance in New York after being buried behind Willie McCovey and Orlando Cepeda in San Francisco.

More than six decades later, Marshall’s connection to that inaugural season endures. In May of this year, he was honored before a Mets game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field, recognized as the oldest living member of the original 1962 team.

Born Rufus James Marshall in Danville, Illinois, in 1931, Jim was practically raised on sports. His father had been a three-sport athlete, coach, and even an umpire, so the game was in his blood. Young Jim excelled not just in baseball but basketball too—John Wooden himself once tried to recruit him to UCLA. But baseball had the stronger pull, and by 1950 he was off to the Pacific Coast League with the Oakland Oaks, beginning a professional career that would eventually take him around the world.

Marshall was part of the early wave of Americans to play in Japan, where he slugged 78 home runs over three seasons with the Chunichi Dragons. He later joked that every year his personal goal was to out-homer Sadaharu Oh. He never quite managed it (few did), but his bat spoke plenty loudly in Nagoya.

After hanging up his spikes, Marshall turned to managing, climbing the ladder from the bus rides of A-ball to the dugouts of Wrigley Field and the Oakland Coliseum. He managed the Cubs in the mid-1970s and the A’s in 1979, earning a reputation as a steady, players manager who got the most out of the talent he was handed. Later, he became a baseball ambassador of sorts, working for the Arizona Diamondbacks and representing the club across the Pacific Rim.

What stands out most in looking back on Jim Marshall’s seven decades in professional baseball is his adaptability. He was a player, a manager, an international pioneer, and a teacher of the game. He was the kind of baseball lifer who reminds us that the sport is bigger than batting averages or box scores it’s about people who stick with it, shape it, and pass it along.

For Mets fans, he’ll always be remembered as part of those original 1962 Amazin’s, a ballplayer who helped launch a franchise and brought his bat to the Polo Grounds in those very first games. For the larger baseball world, he leaves behind a legacy of persistence, professionalism, and love for the game.

Jim Marshall is gone, but his story—spanning continents, decades, and generations—remains part of the rich tapestry of baseball history. And for that, we tip our caps.