Meet the Mets’ Playoff Pumpkin, a Good-Luck Charm That Seems to Be Working
The New York Times
First baseman Pete Alonso picked up a cute and carvable souvenir on a recent trip to Milwaukee. Fans are pinning their postseason hopes on the lucky gourd.
Last week, the Washington Post sports reporter Chelsea Janes noticed a curious development in the Mets’ locker room. First baseman Pete Alonso had carried in a miniature pumpkin and placed it on the top shelf of his locker.
“I have never seen this before,” Ms. Janes wrote on X.
It would not be the last that Mets fans would hear of the pumpkin — the latest in a string of gleefully nonsensical lucky charms that have been embraced by the team amid its raucous run into the playoffs.
On Wednesday night, after the Mets defeated the Philadelphia Phillies to advance to the National League Championship Series, fans of the team rejoiced: The auspicious gourd had claimed another victim.
This season, Mets iconography has expanded to include Grimace, the purple McDonald’s mascot who now regularly graces the big screen at Citi Field, and “OMG,” a Latin pop anthem recorded by second baseman Jose Iglesias. (A remix featuring the rapper Pitbull is apparently on its way.)
The pumpkin motif — which one headline called the team’s “gourd luck charm” — was arguably born with the same crack of a bat that rescued the team’s postseason hopes.
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