Jay Horwitz

Jay Edward Horwitz (born August 14, 1945) is an American professional baseball executive for the New York Mets of Major League Baseball. He was their media relations director for nearly four decades, and is the team's current historian and vice president of alumni relations. He was formerly a sportswriter, and a sports information director for New York University and Fairleigh Dickinson University.

Early years and personal life Horwitz was born on V-J Day (Victory over Japan Day) in 1945 in the Fordham Road section of the Bronx in New York City, and is Jewish. His father Milton Horwitz was a general manager for a coat factory, and his mother Gertrude was a homemaker and subsequently a stenographer and a bookkeeper; both of his parents were children of Russian Jewish immigrants. Horwitz was as a result born with glaucoma, and consequently was blind in his right eye, which was a different color than his left eye. Out of embarrassment he never revealed until 2020 that he had one glass eye, but said in an interview "anybody who looked at me knew I wasn't perfect". Horwitz also obtained a master's degree in political science from NYU's Graduate School of Arts & Science, which he earned in 1969. Spencer said: Jay was our public relations guy for Team Israel during the WBC... And it just kind of blew up. A lot of people still come up to me and say, 'Hey, I know your grandfather really well.' Then everyone is a little disappointed when I tell them that (it's not true). Jay's a great guy and just knowing him during that brief stint that I did was awesome.

He was also a sportswriter for the Herald News of Passaic, New Jersey, where Horwitz covered high school sports and the New York Jets for three years, beginning in the fall of 1969. His span of time with the Mets as the team's media relations director lasted until 2018.

After the Mets won the 1986 World Series, the team gave $4,000 bonuses to department heads, but the players took the unusual step of voting Horwitz a full share of $93,000 (equivalent to $ today), which was the same amount that its players received. He was hesitant to accept it, though players insisted. In 2019, the New York Chapter of the Baseball Writers' Association of America gave him the "William J. Slocum/Jack Lang Award for 'Long & Meritorious Service'".

In May 2020 Horwitz published his memoir, Mr. Met: How a Sports-Mad Kid From Jersey Became Like Family to Generations of Big Leaguers (Triumph Books), with a foreword by pitcher Jacob deGrom.