It’s not that the New York Mets have needed any help from Zohran Mamdani to lose games. But for some fans, there was something fishy about the timing.
On April 9, the team’s mascots, Mr. and Mrs. Met, greeted Mayor Mamdani, a self-described casual fan, at Citi Field. The scene was cozy. Mr. and Mrs. Met jumped and waved their arms. She swooned, he placed an oversized cap on the mayor’s head, and Mr. Mamdani beamed so hard it looked like his cheeks might snap.
In the 12 days since, the Mets haven’t won a game. Torment has given way to blame. Some fans, particularly those already antagonistic to Mr. Mamdani, seized on his embrace of the mascots as signs of a curse.
After the Mets lost their 11th straight game on Monday, The New York Post declared on its front page that the Mets were suffering from “The Curse of the Mambino.” At a news conference Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani faced the question: Is there anything he can do to reverse the curse?
“I am still keeping the faith,” Mr. Mamdani said. “As I know many Mets fans are across the city.”
Baseball is made for heartbreak and superstition, a game of waiting and praying, in which fans are quick to pin losses not on injuries or poorly assembled rosters but instead on higher powers. Like God, or City Hall.
Mets fans have a particular penchant for grief. It’s the awful, decades-old condition of supporting the team, of keeping faith in the face of games designed to break it. Holding on, against all evidence, to moronically maniacal hope. There’s a reason it’s hard to say the words “Mets fan” without the modifier “long-suffering.”
Some die-hard fans argue that the stakes of a Mets victory are higher for the mayor than for his predecessors. Mr. Mamdani was catapulted into office by a wave of supporters who, some have argued, fit squarely in the demographic of the stereotypical Mets fan: laptop-toting professionals, transplants who set up shop in Brooklyn and needed a casual sports affiliation to prove their New York bona fides, naturally landing on the underdogs.
“If you go through the Commie Corridor, you’re going to see a lot of Mets hats,” said A.M. Gittlitz, author of “Metropolitans: New York Baseball, Class Struggle, and the People’s Team.”
“They represent Mamdani’s vibe,” said former Mayor Bill de Blasio. “The Yankees are like the global elite.” (Not to mention that the Yankees are the team of Rudolph W. Giuliani and President Trump, who visited their clubhouse last year.)
Mr. de Blasio is a Red Sox fan, but has some experience absorbing blame for the city’s woes, and was famously held responsible for a dead groundhog. “There’s a famous Ed Koch quote, ‘If a sparrow dies in Central Park, it’s the mayor’s fault.’”
Justin Brannan, a former New York City politician, agreed that there’s a spiritual alliance between the Mets and Mr. Mamdani’s base.
“Everyone doubted Zohran and now he’s the mayor — they should do the same thing with the Mets,” Mr. Brannan said. “Look, anyone who thinks 11 losses in a row is the lowest point obviously hasn’t been a Mets fan for every long.”
Of course, the Mets face very real on-the-field challenges. They’ve scored fewer than three runs in nine games. In five games, they’ve given up more than seven runs. Juan Soto, their star outfielder who was signed to a 15-year, $765 million contract in late 2024, is injured; Bo Bichette, who signed a three-year, $126 million contract this offseason, has underperformed.
And for what it’s worth, City Hall officials pointed out that the Mets’ losing streak started the day before the notorious hug.
Sid Rosenberg, the conservative radio host, is unpersuaded. He is so convinced that Mr. Mamdani doomed the Mets that he said he has flipped allegiance to the Yankees. “The hug is what started this curse,” he said. “It’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.”
Todd Shapiro, the spokesman for former Mayor Eric Adams and an ardent Mets fan, knows better than most how things can suddenly run bad. He suggested the new mayor should consider hugging the Yankees to transfer the curse, though he’s skeptical that the mayor’s embrace of Mr. Met was all that ruinous.
“There was the Tony Romo curse — every time Jessica Simpson would show up to a game, Tony Romo would lose,” Mr. Shapiro said, referring to a rumored curse suffered by the Dallas Cowboys quarterback nearly 20 years ago. “I’m telling you, the mayor is not Jessica Simpson.”
That remains to be seen.
Large cardboard cutouts of New York Knicks players were placed in the City Hall rotunda on Monday, to reflect Mr. Mamdani’s devotion to the team as it enters the playoffs. Hours later, the Knicks were upset in Game 2 in their series against the Atlanta Hawks.
Mr. de Blasio, a Celtics fan, remained unconcerned. He thought Mr. Mamdani might be able to help with a hug. “I think he could bring good luck to the Knicks,” Mr. de Blasio said.
Emma Goldberg is a Times reporter who writes about political subcultures and the way we live now.
The post Is a ‘Curse of the Mambino’ Plaguing the Mets? Mamdani, Say It Ain’t So. appeared first on New York Times.
