The Mets' 2017 MLB season has gotten off to a rough start. Through the first 50 games of the year, they’re actually in second place in the NL East, but they are just 23-28 thus far and are already almost 10 games behind the division-leading Nationals in the standings. And things got a little bit worse for the Mets on Wednesday night, thanks to their mascot Mr. Met of all people.
During a 7-1 loss to the Brewers at Citi Field, Mr. Met was caught flipping off a group of fans as he made his way off the field. It’s unclear what prompted Mr. Met to give the fans the middle finger, but one of them captured a video of the confrontation and posted it on social media, where it quickly went viral:
Many of those who saw the video were quick to point out that Mr. Met doesn’t have a middle finger since he only has four fingers on each of his hands, which means that he didn’t technically flip anyone off:
But Mr. Met—who has been the Mets’ mascot for more than 50 years now—was trending on Twitter for most of Wednesday night and is still trending as of Thursday morning. So the Mets were forced to address the situation and issue an apology on behalf of the entire organization for the rogue actions of Mr. Met:
A Mets official also spoke with the Associated Press and revealed that the person who was wearing the Mr. Met costume at the time of the incident will no longer be permitted to wear it. There are reportedly several people who wear the costume throughout the season and that particular person has been fired.
Isn’t this all just so, so, so Mets? It's also, oddly enough, not the first time the Mets have been in the news because of a middle finger in recent years. Matt Harvey took a photo with his middle finger up a few years ago and caught hell for it, too.
The Mets will return to the field to face the Brewers again on Wednesday afternoon. It’ll be interesting to see if Mr. Met shows up for it.
