Mets fans: It's time to be loud and proud about your team
Mets’ Brandon Nimmo, Pete Alonso, Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor celebrate their 3-0 win against the St. Louis Cardinals of an MLB baseball game at Citi Field on Saturday, April 19, 2025. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
There’s a scene in the 1987 film “Broadcast News” in which William Hurt’s TV anchor character Tom Grunick asks, “What do you do when your real life exceeds your dreams?”
“Keep it to yourself,” Albert Brooks’ TV reporter character Aaron Altman responds.
Good advice, perhaps, in that made-up world.
In the real world — or at least the surreal one that exists right now at rockin’ Citi Field — we say “Fuggedaboudit!”
If you’re a Mets fan, shout it from the top of the Empire State Building if you want to:
“Let’s Go Mets!”
Don’t keep it to yourself. This is a great time to be a Mets fan.
The Mets (14-7) won their third in a row on Saturday, beating the Cardinals, 3-0, before a sellout crowd of 42,339 on Mr. Met Empire State Building bobblehead day.
It was a near-perfect day in Flushing. Eighty-three degrees when Kodai Senga threw the first pitch, a strike to Lars Nootbaar. Still 81 when Edwin Diaz threw the last pitch, a fastball that Yohel Pozo grounded to short.
What more could a Mets fan want? A full house. A gorgeous day. Senga throwing 5 2⁄3 shutout innings to lower his ERA to 0.79. Juan Soto and Pete Alonso with back-to-back two-out RBI hits in the third. A 443-foot home run by Alonso in the eighth. Two strikeouts by Diaz in a perfect ninth. “My Girl” singalongs. “Happy birthday” sung to a mascot.
Yes, the Mets billed it as Mr. Met’s birthday, even though the official bio on Mets.com lists the giant-headed one with a “birthdate” of April 9, 1963, and a “major-league debut” of April 17, 1964.
What calendar-denying chicanery is this? We’d ask Mr. Met himself, but the mascot hasn’t uttered a word since he emerged as a cartoon character in Mets publications in 1963, their second year of existence.
Still, a good time was had by all, with perhaps the exception of the 15,001st fan to enter the stadium (we’ll explain later).
As Buck Showalter used to say, “When we have a full house, I want the hot dogs to be hot. I want the beer to be cold. I want the parking not to be a problem. I want them to leave here and go, ‘Boy, that was worth it, and I want to come again.’ ”
The parking probably was not the most pleasant aspect of the day. Nor were the lines to get into the stadium, which snaked around the perimeter as if it were a postseason game.
Blame the allure of the bobbleheads, which went to the first 15,000 fans to enter. (So you see why it would have stunk to have been fan No. 15,001.)
I personally witnessed a man who, after waiting on one of those long lines, was given his bobblehead. He immediately, and wordlessly, exited the building despite a warning from a security guard that he would not be allowed to re-enter.
The man was either a fan of only Mr. Met and the Empire State Building, or (more likely) a bobblehead entrepreneur. During the game, the bobbleheads were being listed for upwards of $135 on eBay. It’s not unheard of: snag a cheap ticket, collect your bobblehead and make a quick buck.
Anyway, that man missed a day inside the ballpark that went as well as the Mets could hope, with the exception of Mark Vientos having to leave the game in the fifth with groin discomfort (he’s day-to-day).
Of the crowd, manager Carlos Mendoza said: “Feels amazing. And that’s a good feeling, knowing that the ballpark is going to be packed and the fan base is going to be right behind you. Not only we’re feeling it, the other team is feeling [it]. That’s what you want. It’s great, and that’s why they’re the best fans.”
Even Vientos’ injury had a silver lining. It immediately led to one of the defensive plays of the game when his replacement, Brett Baty, threw out Thomas Saggese at the plate for the second out of the fifth inning with the Mets leading 2-0.
Francisco Lindor, who hit a walk-off home run on Friday night, provided the most important defensive gem on Saturday when he ranged behind second, spun and threw to first to rob Alec Burleson of a potential tying two-run single for the final out of the eighth.
“If that ball gets through, it’s probably a tied game,” Mendoza said, “and who knows what happens after that.”
On the morning after Lindor’s homer heroics, Mets owner Steve Cohen posted on X: “Citifield was rocking last night. Big crowd and a Lindor walk off. Come on out everybody and join the fun!”
You can tell Cohen loves owning the Mets. It probably hasn’t exceeded his dreams — that will come if the team wins a World Series — but Cohen is giving Mets fans the news to broadcast all around the city: When things are going this well, definitely do not keep it to yourself.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
