Cynthia A. Kierner, professor of History at GMU, has written a book on Joan Whitney Payson, the first women to own a Major League Baseball club, overseeing the New York Mets during much of the 1960s and into the 1970s, including the magical 1969 season that saw the Mets capture the World Series. For their efforts, the underdog Mets were dubbed "The Miracle Mets." Titled Mother of the Mets: The Fabulously Wealthy Socialite Who Built the Most Beloved Team in Baseball, the book is published by Cornell University Press.
One endorsement notes: "Kierner is a lively, engaging writer who knows her baseball. She has dug deep, convincingly situating Joan Whitney Payson as a woman learning to make her way in the male-dominated, preliberation worlds of sports and business."