A native of New York City, heiress Joan Whitney Payson was a true titan among men. But as one-time Mets second baseman Ron Hunt said of her, “She was just a nice lady.”
She was also a huge baseball fan, and grew to be known in diamond lure as the game’s queen mother.
Mrs. Whitney Payson made her first capital venture into the male dominated world of baseball during the early 1950s, purchasing one share of New York Giants Baseball Club stock from her friend, stockbroker M. Donald Grant. She would shortly thereafter come to own near ten percent of the club.