Take Me Out to the Ballgame: How Mr. Met has Become and Remained a Successful Mascot for Over 50 Years
Author’s Note: I wrote this research paper for my writing 101 class. The assignment was to write a paper about anything related to sports, and having been a Mets fan my entire life, I thought it could be fun to look at Mr. Met. I can’t believe how much random stuff I found while researching!
Introduction
In the 1960s, the New York Mets introduced their mascot named “Mr. Met,” although the team reports that he was “born” during the Mets’s first game in 1962.[1] It was not long until the character with a human’s body and baseball head, originally a drawing on promotional materials, took form as a costume that Mets’s employees could put on during the games, becoming Major League Baseball’s first humanoid mascot. Although briefly discontinued in the 1970s, Mr. Met returned to the Mets team in the 1990s due to fan requests.[2] Since then, Mr. Met has been a mainstay both at CitiField and in the New York cultural imagination. His “wife” Mrs. Met, also known as Lady Met, and their children have achieved a similar iconic status, also appearing in advertisements for the Mets. Because of how the Mets have positioned Mr. and Mrs. Met as the representatives of the team, fans have formed parasocial, or strongly one-sided, relationships with the mascots. Thus, defining sports mascots as a tool for representing a team and engaging fans, this paper will explore the different ways in which Mr. Met has fulfilled the purpose of, and even excelled at being a sports team’s mascot.
Background
In 1903, two American professional baseball leagues–the National League and the American League–merged to create the National Baseball League, which joined the Canadian Baseball League to become Major League Baseball (MLB) in 2000.[3] The truce between the two leagues ended years of rivalry known as the “baseball wars.” By the 1950s, baseball had firmly established itself in New York City. There were three teams: The New York Yankees, the New York Giants, and the Brooklyn Dodgers. In the 1950s, these three teams entered a golden age of baseball, regularly making it to the World Series. However, in 1957, both the Giants and the Dodgers left the city, leaving a vacuum.[4] In 1959, New York Attorney Bill Shea proposed a new league, which he called the “Continental League.” However, backers abandoned the idea after the American and National Leagues promised the city two teams in 1960. The organization officially formed in 1961, using the name “Mets” because of its catchy sound, easiness to remember, and similarity to the name of the organization.[5]
Although the Mets say that Mr. Met was “born” during the team’s first official game on April 11th, 1962, Mr. Met’s first appearance was in 1963. The team introduced the physical mascot, complete with a costume consisting of a baseball uniform and large baseball-like head, in 1964.[6] Later that year, Mr. Met earned rookie-of-the-year honors. In addition to being the first live-action mascot, Mr. Met was also the first mascot to represent any MLB team internationally, traveling with the team as they played in Tokyo, Japan in 2000.[7] On September 14, 2007, Mr. Met was inducted into the Mascot Hall of Fame alongside the mascots for Western Kentucky University, The Ohio State University, the San Antonio Spurs, and the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, cementing his status as a notable figure in sports.[8] Today, Mr. Met appears in Met’s advertising, merchandise, and at the games, running events in between the tops and bottoms of innings and posing for pictures with fans.
Mr. Met as a Promotional Tool and Brand Representative
The design of Mr. Met is very important when examining him as a marketing tool. His head being a baseball itself, an integral part of the sport, reflects how Mr. Met was designed to be a physical embodiment of the team and the sport they play. Mr. Met’s hat, depicting the Mets’s logo with an overlapping “N” and “Y,” also tie Mr. Met to the state of New York, further promoting Mr. Met and the Mets as a whole as representatives that fans could relate to. Furthermore, the cartoonish look to Mr. Met, with his human-like hands that have four fingers instead of five and exaggerated features, implies his friendliness, much like other animated characters. The simplified costume and look of Mr. Met is also key for marketing and branding. Because of Mr. Met’s simple appearance, it is easier for designers to use the logo on a variety of different products without having to worry about small details not being able to fit. Last, Mr. Met’s humanoid nature and unchanging facial expressions (similar to many other team mascots) are key to maintaining his image. Unlike live mascots (including “Mettle the Mule” that replaced Mr. Met as the mascot in 1979), Mr. Met could be poised and controlled (although a controversial incident in 2017 challenged this perception).[9]
Mr. Met’s introduction reflects his original purpose as a promotional tool. The mascot originally appeared on the official Mets’s yearbook and scorecard, simply a superficial decoration.[10] Today, Mr. Met appears on a plethora of Mets products, including apparel, other merchandise, and even on player’s uniforms. Mr. Met’s clear promotional usage has not changed over the years–since his reintroduction in the 1990s, he has also appeared in various non-Mets promotional materials. In 2003 and 2009, “This is SportsCenter” ran two advertisements featuring the mascot. The first featured Mr. Met driving his family home in a traffic jam after leaving from taping the show.[11] The second showed Mr. Met chatting with a sportscaster and becoming angry with a baseball player who he believed had hit some of his relatives in the Home Run Derby the previous year.[12] In 2021, Mr. Met worked with the Metropolitan Transit Authority (the MTA), handing out masks to passengers with Mrs. Met. Through the partnership alone, the city was able to distribute more than 50,000 masks to transit riders. With this collaboration, the Mets used Mr. Met’s image to establish them as a supporter of regular New Yorkers who cared about the health and future of the city, especially during a deadly uptick in the pandemic.[13]
Mr. Met has also been on multiple television shows, including The Odd Couple and Madame Secretary.[14] All of these appearances in shows and advertisements reflect the purpose of Mr. Met to promote the team and ensure brand recognition as its representative. Mr. (and Mrs. Met) are also available for private and public events, showing their corporate viability.[15] These event appearances are also ways for the Mets to share their brand and market themselves. By being a prominent media figure, especially in sports-related and New York City-related media, the Mets have cemented Mr. Met as a comedic, recognizable embodiment of their brand. Further, they can also involve casual fans and non-fans by having Mr. Met appear in non-sports media, thus increasing brand recognition.
Mr. Met as a Way to Market Baseball as a Family-friendly Pastime
Multiple Mets’s promotion materials have marketed Mr. Met as a “family man” to send the message to parents that baseball itself, including watching the Mets, is a family-friendly pastime in which they and their kids can participate. One way the Mets have marketed Mr. Met in this way, and thus showing parents that the Mets franchise is for both them and their children, is by giving him a family–his wife, Lady Met, (also known as Mrs. Met) and children, the little Mets. They all appeared in the 2003 SportsCenter video, in which Mr. Met carefully drives his family home.[16] Mrs. Met and the little Mets also sometimes appear at games, and having them at games, along with Mr. and Mrs. Met being at events, also reflects their corporate and family-friendly nature.[17] In fact, the Mets have been so successful at branding Mr. Met that in 2012 Forbes named him the most popular mascot specifically because of how “kid-friendly” he was.[18] By having Mr. Met’s (and by extension, the team’s) brand be a “family man” with a wide appeal, the Mets have reached a wider consumer audience.
Another way the Mets have made Mr. Met into a reflection baseball as a family-friendly pastime is the numerous children’s books that feature him as a character, including former player Rusty Staub’s 2006 picture book Hello, Mr. Met! and Aimee Aryal’s children’s book Mr. Met and his Journey Through the Big Apple, published in 2008. The first book follows Mr. Met as he travels to the Mets game and interacts with players and fans alike, including leading the crowd in a round of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” with a group of children.[19] Staub presents Mr. Met as a friendly figure who is integral to the success of the Mets, who win the game against an unnamed opposing team. Like with the advertising campaigns Mr. Met has starred in, the book presents Mr. Met as the embodiment of the spirit of the Mets and a cute, attractive, safe figure to entertain and connect children and parents alike to the team and baseball in general.
The latter book also features Mr. Met as the embodiment of the Mets and their family-friendly brand, but places a heavier emphasis on Mr. Met’s connection to New York City. In the book, he travels throughout the city, visiting iconic locations like the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Coney Island, and more.[20] Like Hello Mr. Met!, the book presents Mr. Met as the ultimate New Yorker, enjoying everything the city has to offer. The book’s version of Mr. Met is also family-friendly, whether he is clumsily ice skating in Rockefeller center or playing baseball with children in Central Park.[21] Again, by putting Mr. Met in different popular tourist destinations across the city, Mr. Met (and by extension, the team) are positioned as encapsulating the spirit of all of New York City.
Mr. Met and Parasocial Fan Relationships
Mr. Met’s constant interaction with fans, the team, and New York City have all served to make him a figure that supporters can have a parasocial relationship with. Dr. Rebecca Rubin and Michael McHugh defined parasocial relationships as “one-sided interpersonal relationship[s] that television viewers establish with media characters…a bond of intimacy is developed with media personalities through shared experiences existing only through viewing of the personality or persona over time.”[22] After seeing a figure in the media for a prolonged period of time, watchers can feel like they “know” this person or this character and can develop a feeling of trust with the figure, much like they would with people they know in real life. The multitude of fan-related content demonstrates the parasocial relationship, including one article debating whether or not the current Mr. Met is the original Mr. Met.
The lengthy article, which Shannon Shark wrote in 2021, draws on the different appearances of Mrs. Met and the name change from “Lady Met” to argue that the current Mr. Met is the original Mr. Met’s son. In the article, entitled “MAJOR: Mets confirm Mr. Met is Mr. Met’s son!! Did Mr. Met Sr. divorce Mrs. Met? EVIDENCE!!!,” Shark uses a 2021 holiday video from the Mets to prove a point she writes she espoused since 2013.[23] In particular, she looks at how Mr. Met’s batting stance as Mrs. Met pitches to him (batting right-handed instead of left-handed) and the different hair colors of Mr. Met’s counterpart (the color of the original Lady Met’s hair was red before it became blonde in 1970’s; today, her hair is brunette).[24] Also using a family tree she created in 2013, Shark argues that at some point in the 1970s, the original Mr. Met separated from Lady Met and eventually married Mrs. Met.[25] She also writes that the current Mr. Met is the original Mr. Met’s son, who the team contacted after the failure of Mettle the Mule.[26]
The amount of detail in the article and the intense tone Shark uses in her writing reflects how Mr. Met has become a parasocial figure. The length of time Shark has been invested in her theory–eight years passed between the publications of the two articles–also shows how Mets fans have become bonded with the Mascot. The discomfort that Shark feels at seeing different colored-haired Mrs. Mets demonstrates the “intimacy” that Rubin and McHugh discuss in their paper; the sense of betrayal that Shark’s writing implies reflects how Mr. Met has become more than a character that a sports team created to sell their product and their brand. Instead, he has become a figurehead with which fans can form a parasocial relationship. This relationship is key to keeping fans engaged–especially because the Mets have performed inconsistently since their 2015 season in which they almost won the World Series, it is important to have a character that fans can latch onto and stay invested in even if the team itself is performing poorly.
A 2018 fanfiction/screenplay by Mike Del Vecchio also exemplifies the power of Mr. Met’s ability to engage fans.[27] In it, Mr. Met appears as a God-like figure in a dream sequence, strumming a guitar in the clouds with Mookie Wilson, a legendary Mets player who helped the team win their 1986 World Series. He speaks to Michael Kay, an American broadcaster, after he is fired from his job as a New York Yankees broadcaster, telling him “Welcome home. You’re one of us now. You’re a Met.”[28] Again, the existence of a thought-out screenplay from a Mets fan proves the effectiveness and icon status of Mr. Met as a mascot. In the screenplay, Mr. Met appears as the figurehead of the team, working alongside other famous players. The existence of such a work and the role of Mr. Met in it demonstrates the mascot’s success: not only does he clearly have a relationship and high status in the minds of the fans, but also embodies the team (because he is able to grant membership to others).
A key part of parasocial relationships is the “brand” of the figure, whose constancy becomes something a fan or watcher can come to rely on. As Rubin and McHugh further explain, “As time goes on, predictability about the character is increased. The character is reliable. The fan is loyal.”[29] This predictability about a character is key to forming the parasocial relationship. Thus, when the figure or personality acts “out of character” it often causes intense backlash. One example of such backlash occurred in 2017, when Tony de Lucia, who went by the username “tonyt3535” on Twitter (the account has since been deleted), posted a video of Mr. Met “flipping off” fans after a Mets’s loss to the Milwaukee Brewers on Twitter, where it quickly went viral.[30]
The Mets immediately fired the employee who had been wearing the costume and issued an official statement. However, fan backlash was swift, with hundreds of angry responses flooding the comments section of the tweet. Other fans and news organizations were more concerned over whether Mr. Met, who has four fingers, could even “give the middle finger” in the first place.[31] Some fans, however, came to Mr. Met’s defense. One fan said “The fans were…saying derogatory things about Mr. Met’s mom . . . which led to the gesture because of a personal matter with his mom…It triggered something that recently happened. It was his breaking point.”[32] It is key to note how the fan, although acknowledging that the cause of the incident might have been individual to the employee wearing the Mr. Met costume that night, still uses the name “Mr. Met,” showing how Mr. Met has become his own entity with which fans have a relationship. Another fan, Leslie Perez-Bennie, was less forgiving, saying that the incident was “really disappointing because Mr. Met is there for the kids…Our son loves Mr. Met. [The mascot] has to remember he’s a kids’ character.”[33] The uproar at Mr. Met “flipping off” fans not only comes from the fact that the gesture is unprofessional, but because Mr. Met, beyond being a representation of the team, has also become a figure to which all fans, children and adults alike, can form a relationship with. Furthermore, Ms. Perez-Bennie’s emphasis on her child seeing the gesture demonstrates how the Mets have effectively made Mr. Met a character for children and marketed him as a way to connect families to baseball.
Conclusion
Using a variety of promotional tools, the Mets have made their mascot, Mr. Met, into a figure that represents the team and their professional brand. Through costuming, television appearances, during-game engagement with the audience, partnerships with the private and public sectors, children’s books, and more, the Mets have fashioned their mascot into a family-friendly figure that has successfully represented their brand. Mr. Met has portrayed the Mets as “New York’s team” and a good-natured activity to which parents can bring their children, ensuring the franchise’s continuation. The success of these marketing efforts to the Mets fan base is apparent in the enormous amount of detailed fan-created work that exists online. Their brand, and by extension, the parasocial relationships fans have with the mascot, is also so strong that whenever Mr. Met breaks the conventions that previous Mr. Mets have set, there is massive fan backlash, such as the 2017 “middle finger” incident. However, this backlash, although negative, demonstrates the success of Mr. Met as a mascot. Since, as defined in the introduction, the purpose of a mascot is to represent a team and engage fan, the feeling of disloyalty that many fans have had whenever Mr. Met acts outside of the bounds of what he is supposed to do as a mascot demonstrates how fans and reporters alike see Mr. Met as a representative of the Mets who has the responsibility to be kind (instead of hostile) to fans.
Looking at Mr. Met is important when thinking about the way we interact with sports teams and sports marketing. Although the way that team mascots interact with their fans has changed with the advent of social media and changing societal norms (such as the enthusiasm with which Philadelphia Flyers fans have embraced their raunchier mascot Gritty), the purpose of a mascot has not changed. Therefore, examining Mr. Met and analyzing the team’s marketing and awareness campaigns, which were still profitable when the team was not performing well, is helpful for other teams who want to improve their brand image and relationship with their fans. Other teams can then use Mr. Met and the Mets’s profitable marketing campaigns as an example for promoting their own mascots and improving relationships with their fans.
On July 9th, 1973, Mets pitcher Tug McGraw yelled the phrase “ya gotta believe!” at the end of a pregame team meeting. The phrase successfully rallied the team, who went on to win 24 of their last 33 games and reach the World Series.[34] Since then, “ya gotta believe” has become a rallying cry for the Mets through one disappointing season after another. However, it also embodies why Mr. Met has been so successful since his inception in the 1960s: he has become a symbol of New Yorkers’ resilience and fighting spirit, a figure in which any fan of any age could always believe in, no matter what happened on the field.
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[1] “The Story of Mr. Met,” Major League Baseball: The New York Metropolitans, https://www.mlb.com/mets/fans/the-story-of-mr-met.
[2] Wallace Matthews, “Back for More! Mr. Met Returns to the Scene, and Mets Lose Again,” The New York Times, published June 1, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/sports/baseball/mr-met-returns-obscene-gesture-brewers.html.
[3]The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Happy Chandler,” Encylopaedia Britannica, last modified July 10, 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Happy-Chandler.
[4] Perry Arnold, “New York City in the Golden Age of Baseball,” Bleacher Report, published February 27, 2010, https://bleacherreport.com/articles/353586-new-york-city-in-the-golden-age-of-baseball.
[5] Adam Augustyn, “New York Mets,” Encylopaedia Britannica, last modified March 30, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-York-Mets.
[6]Dan Reilly, The original Mr. Met remembers : when the miracle began, (New York : iUniverse, Inc., 2007), vii.; Chris Creamer, “New York Mets Make Changes to Uniforms,” SportsLogos.net, published January 23, 2017,
https://news.sportslogos.net/2017/01/23/new-york-mets-make-changes-to-uniforms/baseball/
[7] “The Story of Mr. Met”
[8] “Meet the Hall of Famers,” Mascot Hall of Fame, https://mascothalloffame.com/mascots/current-mascot-inductees/.
[9] Ken Belson, “When the Mets Had Mettle,” The New York Times, published February 26, 2010, https://archive.nytimes.com/bats.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/26/when-the-mets-had-mettle/.
[10] “The Story of Mr. Met.”
[11] “This Is SportsCenter: Mr. Met,” Entertainment and Sports Programming Network video, 0:18, uploaded June 4, 2019, https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/17339569.
[12] “This Is SportsCenter: Josh Hamilton — Enemies,” Entertainment and Sports Programming Network video, 0:15, uploaded June 16, 2019, https://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/17268580.
[13]Erik Bascome, “MTA teams up with Mr. & Mrs. Met to distribute over 50k masks,” Staten Island Live, last modified April 24, 2021, https://www.silive.com/coronavirus/2021/04/mta-teams-up-with-mr-mrs-met-to-distribute-over-50k-masks.html.
[14] The Odd Couple, season 6, episode 2, “The Strike Zone,” directed by Félix Enríquez Alcalá, written by Joy Gregory, aired October 13, 2019, on CBS, https://www.imdb.com/video/vi2453191961/?ref_=tt_vi_i_2.; Madame Secretary, season 2, episode 4, “Madison & Son,” directed by Mark Cendrowski, written by Bob Daily, aired April 28, 2016, on American Broadcasting Company, https://www.netflix.com/watch/81287027?trackId=255824129&tctx=0%2C0%2CNAPA%40%40%7C9dbf2b19-5952-4f44-885a-4bd15773aff2-79658186_titles%2F1%2F%2Fmadame%2F0%2F0%2CNAPA%40%40%7C9dbf2b19-5952-4f44-885a-4bd15773aff2-79658186_titles%2F1%2F%2Fmadame%2F0%2F0%2Cunknown%2C%2C9dbf2b19-5952-4f44-885a-4bd15773aff2-79658186%7C1%2CtitlesResults%2C80024232%2CVideo%3A80024232%2CdetailsPageEpisodePlayButton..
[15] “The Story of Mr. Met”
[16] “This Is SportsCenter: Mr. Met,” Entertainment and Sports Programming Network video.
[17] “The Story of Mr. Met”
[18] “Most Popular Sports Mascots,” Forbes, published April 30, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/pictures/eddf45glmh/no-1-mr-met/?sh=2a775a8b2430.
[19] Rusty Staub, Hello, Mr. Met!, (Chantilly: Mascot Books, 2006), 17–18.
[20] Aimee Aryal, Mr. Met and his journey through the Big Apple (Chantilly: Mascot Books, 2008), 5–10.
[21] Aryal, Mr. Met and his journey through the Big Apple, 13–16.
[22] Rebecca B. Rubin, Michael P. McHugh, “Development of Parasocial Interaction Relationships,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 31, no. 3 (Summer 1987): 280.
[23] Shannon Shark, “MAJOR: Mets confirm Mr. Met is Mr. Met’s son!! Did Mr. Met Sr. divorce Mrs. Met? EVIDENCE!!!” The Mets Police, published December 16, 2021, https://metspolice.com/2021/12/16/major-mets-confirm-mr-met-is-mr-mets-son-did-mr-met-sr-divorce-mrs-met-evidence/.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Shannon Shark, “Proof that Mr. Met is Mr. Met’s second son,” The Mets Police, published July 23, 2013, https://metspolice.com/2013/07/23/proof-that-mr-met-is-mr-mets-second-son/.
[26] Shark, “MAJOR: Mets confirm Mr. Met is Mr. Met’s son!!.”
[27] Mike Del Vecchio, “Bad News Mets,” Fanfiction.net, published May 24, 2018, https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12946893/1/Bad-News-Mets
[28] Ibid.
[29] Rubin, McHugh, “Development of Parasocial Interaction Relationships,” 280.
[30] Julia Reinstein, “The Mets Mascot Gave A Fan The Middle Finger After Losing A Game,” Buzzfeed News, published June 1, 2017, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/juliareinstein/free-mr-met. ; “Employee fired as Mr. Met after flashing ‘middle’ finger at fan,” National Broadcasting Company Sports, published June 1, 2017, https://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/philadelphia-phillies/employee-fired-mr-met-after-flashing-middle-finger-fan
[31] Scott Simon, “Mr. Met Flips Off Fans. But Does He Even Have A Middle Finger?” National Public Radio, podcast audio, June 3, 2017, https://www.npr.org/2017/06/03/531347285/mr-met-flips-off-fans-but-does-he-even-have-a-middle-finger ; NJ.com, “Fans: Mr. Met cannot technically give the middle finger,” YouTube Video, 0:42, June 1, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jkdn4hniTJI.
[32] Tom Lutz, “Mr Met gave fans the finger after ‘derogatory things about his mom,’” The Guardian, published June 1, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jun/01/mr-met-fired-obscene-gesture-new-york-mets.
[33] Zach Braziller, Gabrielle Fonrouge, and Max Jaeger, “Fan says Mr. Met showered with profane heckles before bird-flip,’” The New York Post, published June 1, 2017, https://nypost.com/2017/06/01/fan-says-mr-met-showered-with-profane-heckles-before-bird-flip/.
[34] Jay Horwitz, “Ya Gotta Believe,” Mets Insider Blog per Medium, published July 9, 2020, https://metsinsider.mlblogs.com/ya-gotta-believe-7b16425c57ea.
