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Editor’s note: This story was published Aug. 16, well before the Mets reached the postseason and have re-embraced Grimace as the team’s unofficial talisman. Before Game 3 of the NLDS Tuesday, the Mets had Grimace riding the 7 train to Citi Field.
The Mets hosted Haliey Welch, the “Hawk Tuah Girl” of viral social media fame, to throw out the ceremonial first pitch Thursday afternoon. The harmless stunt was triggering to some fans and pundits, including podcaster Mike Francesa and radio host Sal Licata of New York’s WFAN.
But the Mets have been doing this all season, and if you ask the team’s president of business operations Scott Havens, embracing social media memes has achieved real success in “mobilizing the fan base.” (Havens originally comes from media: He was an executive at Bloomberg, Time Inc., Condand Atlantic Media before joining the Mets.)
In June, after Grimace, the giant purple McDonald’s mascot, threw out a first pitch, the Mets went on a winning streak and the team parlayed the pitch into a full-on campaign with McDonald’s.
As the Mets have progressed to the National League Division Series, Grimace re-entered the picture, riding the 7 Train to Citi Field ahead of Game 3 against the Phillies.
More examples abound. The team has embraced infielder Jose Iglesias’s song “OMG” as an anthem. When 97-year-old veteran Seymour Weiner was honored at a game and went viral for his name, the team didn’t shy away. It had Weiner promote Dollar Dog night. Another breakout sensation has been Max Wiener, the “Rally Pimp.”
Havens, in a chat with me onstage at our FOS Huddle in the Hamptons on Aug. 2 (before Welch’s visit to Citi Field), told me: “By the way, this would never have happened in the Bronx. Never, ever have happened in the Bronx, because 27 world titles, ‘we’re the Yankees.’ … When things pop up that can be loosely correlated to a winning streak, Mets fans jump on this. … With the social media team that we’re investing in, we jumped on it very quickly. We most certainly didn’t start the fire, but we put gasoline on it.”
As for the fans and pundits ripping the team for inviting Haliey Welch, she tweeted Friday morning in response, “I guess some of the baseball community wasn’t too happy to see me yesterday.. The main reason I went to the game was to spread awareness and donate to America’s vet dogs which pairs dogs with war veterans for a forever home.”
Watch our full conversation with Havens below, which also covered recent changes to the game, sports gambling, MLB’s lack of nationally famous star players, and whether the Mets will go for Juan Soto.
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