SI

Inflatable Grimace Takes Over Mets Game, and Keith Hernandez Hates It

'Wouldn't you just love to have an ice pick and pop it?'

Josh Wilson

An inflatable Grimace at a Mets game.
An inflatable Grimace at a Mets game. / @SNYtv
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You'd be hard-pressed to find anyone in the sphere of the New York Mets that would cross Grimace, the McDonald's mascot who has seemingly brought much good fortune to the streaking baseball team.

Keith Hernandez, SNY's color commentator, though, would love to pop the inflatable version of the Grimace costume.

When the SNY broadcast showed one of the inflatable versions of the costume that has popped up in light of the sudden rebirth of popularity for the mascot, Hernandez inexplicably said: "Wouldn't you just love to have an ice pick and pop it?"

"I would love to do it," Hernandez continued.

Now, maybe this had more to do with the inflatable nature of the costume and not that it was Grimace in particular, but still, just unprompted threats of mascot violence from one of the best hitters in the game's history. Keith, this icon may very well be why you get to call winning baseball all of a sudden!

For the uninitiated, Grimace has become a borderline idol in Queens because after he threw out a first pitch at a Mets game on June 12, the Mets proceeded to go 12-3. The Mets had a winning percentage of .431 before Grimace, and after Sunday's loss, sit at .500 after Grimace. They're 2.0 games back from a wild-card position.

It's made the vibes so good in Metsland that players are writing pop hits and performing them with firework backdrops after games.

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Josh Wilson
JOSH WILSON

Josh Wilson is the news director of the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. Before joining SI in 2024, he worked for FanSided in a variety of roles, most recently as senior managing editor of the brand’s flagship site. He has also served as a general manager of Sportscasting, the sports arm of a start-up sports media company, where he oversaw the site’s editorial and business strategy. Wilson has a bachelor’s degree in mass communications from SUNY Cortland and a master’s in accountancy from the Gies College of Business at the University of Illinois. He loves a good nonfiction book and enjoys learning and practicing Polish. Wilson lives in Chicago but was raised in upstate New York. He spent most of his life in the Northeast and briefly lived in Poland, where he ate an unhealthy amount of pastries for six months.

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