The Heroes Behind The Grimace Mets

It would not be fair to claim that two New York Mets employees, Manager of Social Media Janey Murray and Head of Podcasts Vito Calise, anticipated the way their decision to invite Grimace to throw out the first pitch before the June 12, 2024 Mets game against the Miami Marlins would change the course of the team’s season.

But the sequence of events that led to the moment that has reverberated around the ballclub and the baseball world was a year in the making, arguably more. And the vision for it? Precise.

“I heard someone who works with us say, ‘Well, did you consider July?’”, Calise said Tuesday in a Zoom interview. “And Janey said, with a straight face, ‘Because June is his birthday month, Don.’”

Both the night itself — a triumph, embraced enthusiastically by the fans, with one young girl who encountered Grimace in a Citi Field elevator literally leaping into his arms upon seeing him as the doors opened — and the results since have been inarguable. Prior to the first pitch, the Mets’ record stood at 28-37. Since Grimace? New York has won six straight games entering Tuesday night’s matchup with the Texas Rangers in Arlington, outscoring their opponents 45-16 over that span.

The collaboration idea began around a year ago, when both Murray and Calise noticed the social media furor over Grimace’s birthday month and his 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 came to appreciate Grimace later in life, there was an immediate connection between the reaction people had experiencing Grimace and the way they wanted people to consume Mets baseball.

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

The business coordinations basically wrote themselves. McDonald’s was already a partner of the Mets — when the Mets score five runs or more at home, McDonald’s provides fans who shop at participating restaurants free fries with a 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 prominently featured in the team’s City Connect jerseys. Grimace, naturally, asked for 55: McDonald’s founding year of 1955, the year the Brooklyn Dodgers won the World Series one borough over.

While Murray and Calise worked tirelessly behind the scenes to finalize the details of Grimace’s arrival — the final arrangements not complete until just before Murray and the Mets left for London earlier this month for a pair of games against the Phillies — the moment has brought more limited fame to Murray, while Calise experienced a catcher’s-eye view of Grimace, getting to catch his first pitch.

I’m in the video, because I caught the first pitch from Grimace,” Calise said. “So people that normally would not have any idea that I had anything to do with this were reaching out to me to be like, ‘This is crazy. Why are you catching a first pitch? How did that happen?’”

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

“Everybody was just so happy,” Calise said. “From the second that purple head went through the tunnels, and people could see a glimpse of him? You just heard people screaming for him.”

Everything worked perfectly. The opening behind home plate to the field? Just wide enough for Grimace’s circumference. No baseball glove built for humans would fit Grimace? Not to worry, Mr. Met had one just the right size — and both Mr. Met and Grimace are lefties.

And the stuff Calise saw from Grimace in their bullpen session along the first base line — “I don’t know if it was a submarine delivery, I don’t know if it was a slingshot, but he was really getting movement out there” — carried over into his big first pitch moment.

“Everybody was impressed by just how he was able to do it,” Calise said. “He shook me off, as you saw on one pitch… I tried to give him the curve. He said, ‘No.’ He said he wanted to go straight. Yeah, straight four-seamer, but you got to trust a vet like Grimace. He’s been around since 1955.”

Both Murray and Calise have been basking in the glow of the Grimace Mets since. Murray’s story was the talk of her weekly family Zoom call, particularly impressing her mom, a lifelong Grimace fan, while Calise got to share his experience on his Mets-specific podcast, “Meet At The Apple”.

Even before the night was over, Calise and Murray understood they’d unleashed something powerful, though even they say, six wins later, they didn’t know fully how powerful. But it doesn’t sound like this is the last time we’ll see Grimace at Citi Field, though Murray stressed nothing had been finalized yet.

“This is capturing exactly what we want to do here, which is making the fan experience fun and making people excited to come to the ballpark,” Murray said. “So totally open to future collabs.”

And in the meantime? The Mets keep on channeling Big Grimace Energy. They scored 14 runs against the Rangers Monday night, their most hits in any game since 2019.

“Me and Janey were actually texting last night when the game ended,” Calise said. “We were saying, it’s so hard to go to sleep after these wins, because not only were pumped up from the wins, but the memes only get better when the win streak’s going.”