The Heroes Behind the Grimace Mets

It wouldn’t be fair to claim that two New York Mets employees, social media manager Janey Murray and podcast manager Vito Calise, anticipated how their decision to invite Grimace to throw out the first pitch before the game of the Mets on June 12, 2024 against the Miami Marlins would change the course of the team’s season.

But the sequence of events that led to this moment that reverberated through the ballclub and the baseball world lasted a year, arguably more. And the vision that results from it? Accurate.

“I heard someone who works with us say, ‘Well, have you thought about July?’” Calise said Tuesday in a Zoom interview. “And Janey said, with a straight face, ‘Because June is her birthday month, Put on.’”

The evening itself – a triumph, greeted enthusiastically by fans, with a young girl who met Grimace in a Citi Field elevator, literally jumping into his arms upon seeing him as the doors opened – and the results since then have been indisputable. Before the first pitch, the Mets’ record was 28-37. Since Grimace? New York has won six straight games heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Texas Rangers in Arlington, outscoring their opponents 45-16 over that span.

The idea for the collaboration started about a year ago, when Murray and Calise noticed the social media furore over Grimace’s birthday month and her social media presence itself. For Calise, a veteran Grimace lover dating back to his 10th birthday party at an Astoria McDonald’s PlayPlace, and Murray, who grew to appreciate Grimace later in life, there was an immediate connection between people’s reaction to Grimace and the way they wanted people to consume Mets baseball.

“I feel like Grimace is so much fun and well-liked, and that’s what we’re looking to do here is bring that kind of fun to the stadium and make people excited to be here.” , Murray said. “I think it was a good combination of those things.”

The business coordinations essentially wrote themselves. McDonald’s was already a partner of the Mets: When the Mets score five or more at home, McDonald’s offers fans who shop at participating restaurants free fries with any purchase of $1 or more through the McDonald’s app. And while the color purple isn’t part of the team’s traditional orange and blue uniforms, it is featured prominently in the team’s City Connect jerseys. Grimace, naturally, asked for 55: the year McDonald’s was founded, 1955, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series in a borough.

While Murray and Calise worked tirelessly behind the scenes to finalize the details of Grimace’s arrival – final arrangements were not completed until just before Murray and the Mets left for London earlier this month for two games against the Phillies – the moment was more limited. fame to Murray, while Calise got a bird’s eye view of Grimace, managing to catch his first pitch.

I’m in the video, because I caught Grimace’s first pitch,” Calise said. “So people who normally would have no idea that I had anything to do with this were reaching out to me and saying, ‘This is crazy. Why are you throwing a first throw? How did it happen?'”

The Mets and McDonald’s had originally intended Grimace’s appearance to consist of two parts: the first pitch and the seventh inning, singing Lou Monte’s signature “Lazy Mary” with Mr. and Mrs. Met. But the enthusiasm of the fans, an audible level of excitement that Calise and Murray said they heard wherever they traveled with Grimace in the stadium, as well as Grimace’s willingness to do anything, made him a presence throughout the evening.

“Everyone was so happy,” Calise said. “From the second that purple head came through the tunnels, and people could see it? You just heard people screaming for him.

Everything worked perfectly. The opening behind home plate toward the field? Just wide enough for Grimace’s girth. No baseball glove designed for humans would fit Grimace? Don’t worry, Mr. Met had one that was just the right size – and Mr. Met and Grimace are both left-handed.

And what Calise saw from Grimace during their bullpen session along the first base line: “I don’t know if it was an underwater delivery, I don’t know if it was a slingshot, but he was really making a move there. » – carried over in his big first pitch moment.

“Everyone was impressed with how he managed to do it,” Calise said. “He shook me, like you saw on a pitch…I tried to give him the curve. He said no.’ He said he wanted to go straight. Yeah, four straight seams, but you gotta trust a vet like Grimace. It has existed since 1955.”

Since then, Murray and Calise have been basking in the Grimace Mets glow. Murray’s story was discussed during his weekly family Zoom call, particularly impressing his mother, a lifelong Grimace fan, while Calise was able to share her experience on her Mets-specific podcast, ” Meet At The Apple.

Even before the night was over, Calise and Murray knew they had unleashed something powerful, although as they say, six wins later, they didn’t really know how powerful it was. But it doesn’t look like this is the last time we’ll see Grimace at Citi Field, although Murray stressed that nothing has been finalized yet.

“It captures exactly what we want to do here, which is make the fan experience fun and make people excited to come to the stadium,” Murray said. “So totally open to future collaborations.”

And in the meantime? The Mets continue to channel Big Grimace Energy. They scored 14 runs against the Rangers on Monday night, their most hits in a game since 2019.

“Janey and I were texting last night at the end of the game,” Calise said. “We were saying it’s so hard to fall asleep after these wins because not only are we pumped up by the wins, but the memes only get better when the winning streak continues.”