It finally happened in the bottom of the eighth inning in Queens on Wednesday, when Francisco Lindor stepped up to bat and the baseball crowd turned into a karaoke party.
Lindor sensed the energy as the crowd began singing along to his entrance song, “My Girl,” and called a timeout before his turn at bat.
After a brief pause in the game, the crowd of about 26,270 broke out into song, singing along to the lyrics in unison, making for a fun-filled evening for Mets fans watching their team celebrate its seventh straight win.
After a slow start in an attempt to fill the ballpark and an overall drop in attendance this season, amid a string of solid play and plenty of endearingly quirky productions (think “OMG” and “Grimace”), the crowd at Citi Field has grown.
The organization hopes that these will lead to more interesting storylines and a better experience for fans.
The Mets will play the remaining 10 regular-season games in Flushing, starting with a game against the Reds on Friday, with a shot at a playoff spot.
They expect the cheers and sweet sing-alongs from the crowd to get even louder.
“We, [30,000s]especially the final two games against the Phillies, are likely to be sold out. [two weekends from now]”…we have a very sophisticated forecasting model and all indications are that we're going to have the largest attendance for this September series, probably in decades, so we're very excited about that,” Jake Bye, Mets senior vice president of ticketing, said by phone Thursday.
Recent turnout numbers have been encouraging for the club.
The total attendance for the games in which the Mets beat the Red Sox for their third straight victory was announced as 97,340, but Baye said this was only the second time since the stadium opened in 2009 that the Mets had averaged more than 30,000 fans per game during a weekday series in September.
A number of factors contributed to that figure, including attendance by Boston fans and a large Labor Day gathering, but the Mets are hopeful that the excitement being expressed on the field will be reflected in attendance numbers at the end of the season, which will be much different than they were at the start of the year.
Overall, the Mets' 2024 attendance is down by about 3,500 fans per game, from an average of 31,772 last season to 28,116 this season, dropping them from eighth to 10th in the National League attendance rankings.
Citi Field has been empty much of the year after drawing an average of 24,071 fans for the first 24 games of the season, perhaps due to the colder than normal weather in April.
Perhaps that's because expectations have plummeted after a more subdued offseason than the previous one.
Bayh pointed to the four home games that were rained out before the start of June.
“We definitely struggled at the beginning,” Bye said, adding that any team would have a hard time filling stands during the colder months when school is in session. “When the season started, it was an uphill climb. We worked through it and got all the creativity we could get into it, and luckily something viral just happened naturally and we jumped on it. And we have owners who are allowing us to get creative and ensure that the people who come here have a world-class time and experience.”
The creativity to attract customers has taken many forms. A $5 promotion on Tuesdays, when many concession stands have lower prices, has been a “huge hit,” Bye said. Marketing teams have tried to cash in on the team's easily meme-able ad campaigns, from Seymour Weiner to songs by McDonald's mascot Jose Iglesias. The Queens Crew is a team newly formed this year that wants to provide entertainment off the field.
The Mets didn't provide specific data, but Baye cited a “ton” of first-time stadium buyers as evidence of hope that the team is attracting a larger and more diverse crowd to the ballpark.
“We want to have an experience that doesn't rely on playing good baseball,” Bye said. “We're playing great baseball right now, which is great, but we believe people can come here, have a great experience, have a good time and be able to afford it. And that's kind of the icing on the cake for our team.”
With 10 home games remaining, this team is certainly a star for the team as they compete with the Braves, Diamondbacks and Padres for a playoff spot.
“We've got to keep putting on a good show for them,” Lindor said this week.
