In our latest trip down memory lane between these two franchises, let us go back to the final season the New York Jets played at Shea Stadium.
In 1983, the Jets’ 20-year lease playing at the ballpark in Queens was expiring. For many reasons, Jets’ primary owner Leon Hess had grown very dissatisfied with the Stadium built at the same site the World’s Fair took place in 1964.
Hess chafed at the stadium’s condition and sightlines, at paying for the New York Mets‘ electricity during the football season, paying more than $200,000 to convert Shea to football after each baseball season and at what he repeatedly called his ”second-class” tenant’s status, according to Met and Jet management sources.