This magic spell is about the 25 guys in Mets uniforms
Mets centerfielder Harrison Bader, leftfielder Brandon Nimmo and rightfielder Tyrone Taylor celebrate their 7-0 win against the Nationals in an MLB game at Citi Field on Thursday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
What are we up to now? The hot dog-eating dog?
The All-Star break still is a few days away, and the Mets already have compiled a veritable superteam of quirky icons. There was Seymour Weiner, the veteran who was honored on Opening Day and who subsequently became the face of a Citi Field dollar hot dog night; the fur-clad superfan, Grimace (obviously), Jose Iglesias’ “OMG” song and, most recently, a chain-bedecked Italian greyhound named Iggy who was spotted wearing sunglasses and chomping on a hot dog during their July 9 win over the Nationals.
During Friday night’s 7-6 win over the Rockies, worlds collided: Iggy was on hand wearing a Grimace hat, and when Iglesias hit two homers, they surprised him by playing the infielder’s new music video on the giant scoreboard.
It’s a ragtag amalgamation of mascots — something akin to the Cardinals’ 2011 Rally Squirrel or the Angels’ Rally Monkey — but in typical Mets fashion, it somehow is five times more ridiculous, and not in a bad way.
After all, no one actually believes Grimace fixed the Mets (right?!). But all these little things — this search for signs that this team is special — speaks to a far less ridiculous sentiment that has overtaken this fan base and, to a certain extent, the Mets as a whole.
It is, at its core, an “us versus them” mentality and a pressing desire to find the magical in the mundane.
“The fans are connected, we’re competing 27 outs, every single day,” Iglesias said. “Their energy. It’s just going well for us.”
For all of the talk of this team being “competitive” in 2024, at the beginning of the year, there was a distinct sense that this was going to be a “bridge’’ season to 2025. It would be a time for the Mets to lick their wounds from being the worst team money could buy, develop young talent and evaluate the players they already have. All that stuff is necessary, sure, but it certainly isn’t exciting.
But front office executives make plans, and the baseball season has a tendency to laugh them out of the park. And the result is a team that’s three games over .500, in line for a wild-card spot and with a little bit of a chip on its shoulder.
Francisco Lindor says he wants to move on from not being named an All-Star, but if you were fourth among all National League players in fWAR at 3.7, wouldn’t you be a little annoyed that, out of the four NL shortstops chosen, only one had more wins above replacement than you?
Brandon Nimmo has spoken plainly about his disappointment, and rightfully so. His stats, too, are in line with the outfielders chosen, yet Nimmo, who has 62 RBIs, has never been selected as an All-Star.
Nimmo also has been vocal about wanting this team to be buyers at the deadline. All of it points to a leader who very much wants others to believe in him and his teammates as much as he believes in them.
“We’ve got a lot of game, a lot of runway left to continue to prove” ourselves, Harrison Bader said. “We’re going to stay on that energy and go from there.”
There’s that idea again, that they have something to prove. It’s been a common refrain since that fateful May team meeting.
“No one is thinking anything about the Mets,” J.D. Martinez said last month. “Everyone kind of has us written off, so no pressure. Let’s just go out there and have fun. If we win, we win. If we lose, we lose.”
Some fans will look at that quote and think it indicates a losing mentality. You can hear it already: What does he mean they don’t care if they win? That’s not what he meant at all, and the team’s efforts belie that. The Mets have shown that winning matters to them, with Martinez at the top of the list of Guys Who Care a Lot.
“If we win, we win” is about putting the work in and trusting the process. It’s about not catastrophizing setbacks, which appeared to be a problem early in the season. And it’s about creating an environment in which outside negative perception doesn’t dictate reality.
When I asked Carlos Mendoza about this mentality — the idea that teams don’t expect much from the Mets — he, like Bader, pushed back.
“I just know that we’re a good team,” he said. “I’ve been saying that since Day 1. We believe that. Even though it was hard for us, we knew at some point that we were going to come out of it.
“Thankfully, we put ourselves in a better position, but when teams look at our lineup, when teams look at our roster, I don’t know that anybody will be surprised. We see it as, we’ve got a good team and we’ve got to continue to play well.”
So no, their success hasn’t been about Grimace or the Rally Pimp or Glizzy Iggy. Not when they’ve simply just performed better. But it’s OK to appreciate what these mascots embody and what it means to the Mets’ identity: They’re a little unexpected, a little strange and, if they somehow can keep winning, a little magical.
After all, who doesn’t love a good underdog story? Especially if the dog is eating a hot dog.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.