Ballparks usually feel a certain way in the hours leading up to the elimination game of an unequal series. The “it ain’t over till it’s over” clichés are half-hearted. The air is void of its previous tension. No one admits that they just want the inevitable to happen already.
It wasn’t quite like that at Citi Field on Friday afternoon, even before The Temptations dazzled the crowd. A sense prevailed that the team remained loose, was still spending house money — and that, whatever happened, the future would remain bright. With sharp leadership in place, money to spend, and the fans buying in, this felt less like a funeral than a taste of success to come.
But let’s be real: the Dodgers seemed to have settled this National League Championship Series. Los Angeles had dominated so thoroughly in three of the four games that no rational Mets fan could arrive for this one expecting more than a bittersweet goodbye.
A further shift commenced during the anthem. Even if it hadn’t been The Temptations singing, with 82-year-old founding member Otis Williams joined by a younger lineup, this rendition would have stirred applause. The group’s layered harmonies signaled that they were no mere oldies act, but a collection of top-shelf singers mostly in their primes.
After that first song, Williams and company donned Mets jerseys. A recorded backing track kicked off the iconic “My Girl” riff that accompanied Francisco Lindor to the plate for most of the summer, and the group was off and running into the most iconic of their hits.
Many in the crowd were already singing when the giant scoreboard showed Lindor. He was jogging on the outfield grass, preparing his body for the game. The cheers grew louder. Lindor smiled and joined for a line or two.
It was a sweet moment, a chance for fans to say a final thank you to the author of one of the most dynamic seasons in franchise history. Lindor hit clutch home runs, grew into a leader in full, and led his team to the postseason with a back that ached so intensely that for a stretch in late September, he could barely walk.
Put more simply, the song made people happy. If there was any dread or bitterness in the air to begin with, it dissipated into a nice little sense of joy.
“It was an amazing moment,” Lindor said. “To be quite honest, I think most players pick walk-up songs just because that’s how they feel at the moment. But they also want the fans to vibe to a song. Whenever you feel the whole crowd into it, I think it’s pretty cool.”
It is hardly a secret that the Mets have stumbled at times while chasing internet virality this season, frustrating some of their more serious-minded baseball people with the distractions. But this was an anti-viral moment. It was rich, timeless and deep.
And it was further proof that the team has spent this year exorcizing many of the LOLMets vibes that had plagued them for decades.
Remember the Baha Men? Jim Duquette does. He was in the front office when the Mets invited the artists behind “Who Let the Dogs Out?” to sing on the field at Shea Stadium before Game 4 of the 2000 World Series. It was an instant disaster. The Yankees sang it in their clubhouse after sealing the win.
“The Baha Men threw a [bleeping] pall over the crowd,” Duquette said on Friday.
Twenty-four years later, he was at Citi Field as a broadcaster for Sirius/XM, and agreed that “My Girl” had been the inverse experience, an uplifting moment.
The Mets did not win Game 5 because of The Temptations. They won because Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty looked gassed, and manager Dave Roberts treated the contest like a midseason game, letting Flaherty wear it. He exhibited a lack of urgency almost unheard of in October, seemingly confident in his best pitchers to close out the series at home. The Mets responded with the type of grinding at-bats that motored them through the first two postseason rounds.
Did music also stir a shift in energy? That’s subjective. Is music capable of that? Of course.
The assignment ahead remains daunting. One still strains to imagine another game at this gem of the ballpark before next spring. But if the Mets fall short of a pennant, certain moments will stick forever anyway:
– Sunday Night Baseball, Sept. 22 versus the Phillies. Francisco Alvarez bounces a throw off third base. The ball bounces toward left field, where it would have gone nearly every year since 1962 — but this time, it stayed in the infield, and the Mets clung to a 2-1 win. The gods were now on the Mets’ side.
– Lindor’s home run to clinch a playoff berth in Atlanta.
– Pete Alonso’s three-run blast in Milwaukee, when the Mets were done. Like, finished. Then they were not.
– The locker room party afterward, when Brandon Nimmo unburdened himself with stories of his beloved grandmother, who had died that day.
– The division series slaughter of Philadelphia.
– And now, this performance of a lovely and enduring song, written in 1964 by Smokey Robinson and Ronald White.
You can store these memories for the winter, no matter how this season ends.
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