Fans Say McDonald’s Mascot and Pride Month Ignited Team’s Seven Consecutive Wins
After McDonald’s Grimace threw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Mets game, many of the team’s fans gave him credit for kicking off a sizzling streak of seven consecutive victories during June. At that contest, the pudgy, purple fast-food mascot was introduced as the “ultimate baseball fan, all the way from McDonaldland,” according to NBC’s Today Show.
The Grimace Effect
The winning streak, which started with Grimace’s June 12 birthday toss before a game against the Miami Marlins, has been dubbed the “Grimace Era,” Forbes noted in an article. The team hailed it as the “Grimace effect” with an Instagram post that showed the fast-food mascot hoisting a placard that read, “I’m still watching. 5-0!” after game five of the upswing.
Grimace’s victory lap even stirred buzz across the Atlantic. An article in The Guardian, a London-based newspaper, mentioned that team owner Steve Cohen had tweeted pre-streak (the post has since been deleted) that the club’s sad season would probably result in a sell-off of players near Major League Baseball’s July 30 trade deadline.
Although the Mets still seem unlikely to morph into World Series winners, The Guardian did report that their odds of making the playoffs have increased from a dismal 1-in-10 to a modest 3-in-10 after seven straight triumphs. The Flushing, Queens, team lagged the National League East-leading Phillies by 13.5 games on Thursday, June 20, but slightly less than halfway through the 162-game season, they are contending for a wild-card spot in this fall’s playoffs.
McDonald’s and Fans’ Reactions
Not one to pass up an opportunity for advantageous public relations, McDonald’s embraced Grimace’s role in the Mets’ winning streak, which the Texas Rangers stopped at seven on Wednesday night. The megabrand changed its X/Twitter profile image and cover picture to show photographs of the pop-eyed purple fuzzmeister wearing a Mets cap. The fast-food mascot himself posted on McDonald’s account that he’s “flattered” by the “Grimace effect.”
Several Mets fans have worn Grimace shirts in the stands, and they’ve added to online chatter by featuring the fast-food mascot and talking up the team’s new winning ways. Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo is on board, quipping: “I don’t know about coincidences, but he definitely correlates with us going on this run. And if that’s what you want to attribute it to, then I’m all for it. Whatever it is, let’s keep it going,” in video footage from SNY, which covers New York sports.
So how much did Grimace turn up the temperature during the hot streak? The Mets had won only eight of their previous 20 games before he threw the ceremonial baseball from the mound to home plate. And the pear-shaped fast-food mascot didn’t exactly make an auspicious toss – Fox News reported that it barely reached the plate and was quite a bit off-line.
And a Hat-Tip to Pride Month
Perhaps, then, the Mets’ change of fortune isn’t 100% due to Grimace’s pitch. Some fans have speculated that the Mets’ support for Pride Month fueled the team’s surge, Forbes said. June marks a national month of support for LGBTQ citizens, with many organizations flying the rainbow flag, selling rainbow-themed merchandise or showing their inclusive, pro-LGBTQ feelings in other ways. In early June, for instance, the International Franchise Association’s Pride Council hosted a webinar about the importance of “allyship” with the LGBTQIA+ community.
Anyway, Mets fans remarked that the Texas Rangers, whom the Mets defeated on June 17 and 18 at the end of their seven-game streak, were the only Major League club NOT to host a Pride celebration this year, nor did they have one in 2023. By contrast, the Mets’ social media accounts have shown a Pride logo all month, according to Forbes. Some fans have even gone so far as to call the team the “Gay Grimace Mets.” Men’s Journal piled onto the Pride Month link, quoting Queerty as saying, “The ‘Gay Mets’ are the hottest team in baseball.” (Queerty is an online publication that covers LGBTQ-oriented news and entertainment.)
Star Billing for Grimace
This is hardly Grimace’s first turn in the spotlight. Just last year he was a TikTok sensation when McDonald’s celebrated his 52nd birthday with a limited-time purple Grimace Shake. (He was born in 1971 as “Evil Grimace,” People magazine states.)
Viral TikTok videos showed people drinking the shake and hamming it up with faux-fatal after-effects. For the record, Guillaume Huin, senior marketing director for McDonald’s, insists the company did nothing to instigate the avalanche of Grimace Shake videos. Regardless, the Mets’ Grimace mania and his viral videos delivered more PR mojo for McDonald’s, which frequently encores its mascots – such as Hamburglar returning to publicize changes to the brand’s burgers in April 2023.
But Grimace is all the talk now, and Mets fans would certainly vote him into the Fast-Food Mascot Hall of Fame – if there were one – alongside Colonel Sanders, Wendy, the Chick-fil-A cow and Jack (outside the box) … as well as several other high-profile characters.
Cover photo credit: Mr. & Mrs. Met/Twitter
