OMG! Guess who is going to the National League Championship Series.
With their playoff pumpkin, the purple Grimace seat, and a catchy pop song by infielder Jose Iglesias, the cheerful New York Mets are riding a wave of good-luck charms and strong team spirit to achieve unexpected success in October.
“Through all the craziness, madness, and ups and downs, this game is, at the end of the day, it’s supposed to be fun,” first baseman Pete Alonso said. “What’s the point if you’re not having fun? That’s a part of the culture here.
“We’re not afraid to embrace the fun part of the game. It’s not just business. The game is a lot more than just trying to win or lose. You’re trying to enjoy the ride with the group that you’re with.”
Alonso joined in the fun in late September when he and his wife picked up a small “playoff pumpkin” while visiting a farm in Wisconsin when the Mets were playing the Brewers.
This lucky pumpkin was shown off during a wild celebration in the clubhouse in Milwaukee last week after Alonso hit a go-ahead homer in the ninth inning, which helped save New York’s season in the Wild Card Series.
Next, the wild-card Mets defeated their rivals, the Philadelphia Phillies, in the Division Series to reach the NLCS for the first time in nine years. This brought tears and strong emotions on Wednesday night from longtime outfielder Brandon Nimmo, rookie manager Carlos Mendoza, and other team members as they got emotional talking about it.
They will face the San Diego Padres or the Los Angeles Dodgers in a best-of-seven series starting Sunday on the West Coast.
This is quite a surprise for a New York team that started the season 22-33 in what was supposed to be a transition year under Mendoza and first-year president of baseball operations David Stearns, who grew up a Mets fan in Manhattan.
But it’s not just Alonso enjoying all this fun.
After hitting home runs, smiling Mets players gather in the dugout for group photos while holding a blue and orange “OMG” sign, which matches their team colors, as Iglesias’ hit song plays over the Citi Field sound system.
“Right now the Mets are playing really good baseball. They’re hot,” Phillies outfielder Nick Castellanos said. “From watching them play in the beginning of the year, in April and May, and watching Jose Iglesias be able to, I don’t know, unify them, and get the city to buy into something bigger, is nothing short of incredible.”
In a similar spirit, the starting pitchers have started wearing eye black when they are not pitching, writing the uniform number of that day’s starter on it to show support.
“Just another good-luck charm, I guess,” Sean Manaea said Monday before he pitched well against the Phillies the next day. “I don’t know. It just started last week in Atlanta. The last week has been crazy, so we’ve just been sticking with it.”
When a starting pitcher finishes a solid game, the team gathers in a rugby huddle on the bench, jumping up and down with their arms around each other.
“We’re just feeding off each other and just having a fun time doing it,” Manaea said.
Props for celebrating home runs, like rubber swords or funny hats, have become popular in MLB over the past few seasons. However, it’s clear that the Mets lead the league in silly antics and inside jokes. Center fielder Harrison Bader recently called the team a “traveling circus.”
This circus even has a cartoonish mascot.
Fans went wild when Grimace, the kid-friendly McDonald’s character, threw a funny-looking first pitch — as best he could with his furry fingers and short arms in his purple costume, with a baseball glove on backward — before New York played the Miami Marlins at Citi Field on June 12.
That victory marked the beginning of a seven-game winning streak, and Grimace, the Mets’ good-luck charm, quickly became popular, gaining a life of its own.
Since then, the team has gone all out, with Grimace riding the subway to Game 3 against the Phillies, just a few weeks after a special purple seat was added at Citi Field to celebrate “his special connection to Mets fans.”
“The reason why we have all this stuff like, whether it be Grimace, the pumpkin, not just us in the clubhouse — the fans have embraced it as well. Fans have had a lot of fun, from what it seems like,” Alonso said.
“When you have that connection between the guys in the clubhouse and people watching, like, it’s electric.”
But does it really help the team win? “Listen, the team that sticks together the most and the team that is the most connected,” Bader said, “those are the teams that tend to go the farthest.”
Importantly, none of the fun activities have distracted the Mets during the final stretch of the season or in the intense postseason.
“I think it’s hard to explain. We’ve got a lot going on. But we’ve got to keep the main thing the main thing, which is you’ve got to go out there and play baseball,” Mendoza said. “You’ve got to go out there and execute. You’ve got to prepare. If they continue to find ways to keep it loose, to keep it fun in the locker room, I’m all for it.”
