Amazin’ Avenue’s favorite Mets memories from 2024

It was a quite a season, one that we won’t soon forget.

Linda Surovich

Having grown up with the ‘99 team, I have seen a lot of Mets and Braves rivalry games. I have seen moments of heroism like the grand slam single and Mike Piazza’s home run after 9/11, but most of the time it was Atlanta who ended all my dreams as a kid. I felt like manager Lou Brown from Major League when he says of the Yankees, “someday we’ll figure out how to beat those guys.” Someday all my heartbreak would be worth it. It turns out September 30, 2024, was that day.

After MLB’s mishandling of Hurricane Helene and the games that were scheduled to be played in Atlanta, the Mets had a chance to clinch a playoff spot during a rescheduled doubleheader while I was at work. Most of the game I sat in my office following along on Twitter and pouting since things were not going the Mets’ way against Spencer Schwellenbach.

Then the eighth inning happened.

As the Mets started to rally, my coworker—who is also a Mets fan—came into my office so we could have a collective anxiety attack. She was kneeling on the chair opposite my desk, and when she said her legs started to hurt I yelled “No! Don’t move!” I also had to follow along by reading the reactions by my fellow writers on our Amazin’ Avenue Slack channel since I did not have Gameday up. I was taking no chances and not changing a single thing while the rally was in progress.

Our own Vasilis Drimalitis’s feed was ahead of everyone else’s, so when the notification popped up I kept yelling to my coworker “VAS IS TYPING! VAS IS TYPING” and then we would both yell at my phone “VAS WHAT IS HAPPENING!” Finally, we celebrated in my office after Jose Iglesias tied it up and then screamed when we got the update that Brandon Nimmo not only blasted a home run but PIMPED a home run.

Stupidly, I put Gameday on in the bottom of the inning. What followed is entirely my fault. I thought the Mets had it and wanted to see it in real time and not rely on Vas. When Ozzie Albies cleared the bases, I angrily slammed my desk and was fuming that the top of the inning was now all for naught. I had been waiting to go to the bathroom until the game was over so instead I got up and sadly walked to the bathroom. When I got back to my desk all I see is on Slack, on Twitter, and texts of LINDOR LINDOR LINDOR! I yell to my coworker what happened, what did I miss??? She said a Lindor home run! Now I assumed that it was a solo shot so imagine my surprise when I sat back down at my desk and saw the Mets were winning.

On to the ninth, and Edwin Díaz is in trouble again. Just as Travis d’Arnaud comes up to bat my boss walks in my office because she genuinely needed my help with something. Trying to keep a straight face and trying not to die, I offered what help I could with my mind still desperately invested in the events unfolding in Atlanta. Once she left, I quickly logged back into Slack both in desperate need of an answer while equally afraid of what I would find. So what is the first thing I see? PUT IT IN THE BOOKS.

My coworker and I both legitimately did a happy dance in my office before I got the idea to run to the local produce store to buy playoff pumpkins. I had seen this tweet before the game and I said: “They’re in. We need pumpkins.”

I grabbed my coat and quickly ran to the store to buy one large pumpkin for the work desk and one small one for my desk.

With my mission complete and with the stress finally gone I collapsed on the floor of my office, saying, “I’m not gonna survive this.”

Little did I know what was to come and how many times I would collapse with happy tears streaming down my face on my little ottoman at home. Both Pete Alonso and Francisco Lindor would produce moments of greater joy but that game was the beginning. That was the return of the greatest drama we all want to experience every October. But what made this game a little extra sweet was finally being able to move on from watching Chipper Jones, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz, and Tom Glavine dominate my team. There have been a lot of epic battles between the two teams over the course of their history and this game came close to topping them all because this time it was the Mets who came out victorious.

That should have been our hint of what kind of ride we would be in for during the postseason. This team didn’t do easy. They craved drama. I died a thousand deaths that day and in the month that followed, but we get so few moments of pure elation that I cherish all of them. Let’s do it again in 2025.

Vasilis Drimalitis

Two immediate games come to mind when I think of my favorite moment(s) of the 2024 season:

1. June 28, 2024: The second of two June dates that, in many ways, forever altered the trajectory of the 2024 Mets. Sixteen days after Grimace threw the first pitch seen round the world, Jose Iglesias dropped “OMG”, which became the anthem to the team’s mid-season revival. My wife and I went to Citi Field that night and enjoyed a fairly stress-free 7-2 Mets win over the Astros, which included homers from Tyrone Taylor, Pete Alonso, and Jeff McNeil. But it was what happened after the game that elevated this one to the stratosphere of favorite memories from the 2024 season.

As we waited for the post-game fireworks show, Iglesias treated us to an impromptu concert where he performed a special live performance of “OMG”. The entire team joined, and it was probably the most fun I’ve had at Citi Field in ages. Aside from just being a completely unique experience—I mean, seriously, when has a Mets player written and released a certified banger and then performed it in concert at a game?—it exemplified everything that was great about the Mets from June onward. Just seeing how much fun the players were having on the field for this moment, seeing them holding the OMG sign on the field, and seeing them let loose and have fun while rallying around their teammate, was so special. We had no idea at the time that the Mets would even re-enter the postseason race, let alone find themselves in the NLCS, but in many ways so much of that resurgence could be traced back to that night and the special bond that was forming with this team.

Between Pride Night, the homers, the fireworks, and the concert, it was such an immaculate vibes night at Citi Field.

2. September 6, 2024: I was very aggressive in voicing my doubts over Mark Vientos, and he spent the entire season making me look like a real idiot (it doesn’t take much to do that anyway). So it was only appropriate that I was at the game where he hit his second walk off homer of the season. I had missed a few other walk-off home runs in 2024 by a day or two, so it felt sweet to finally end up at one, and the game ended up helping the Mets draw closer to the playoffs.

Seeing a walk off home run in person is always a next-level experience, but this game was also special because my wife and I went with a friend of mine from my current MBA program and her husband. We had been talking about seeing a Mets game since we first entered the program and she found out I was a big fan, and we finally found a date that worked. When I bring friends who aren’t as die hard about baseball as I am to a game, I’m always slightly nervous because there is the chance it could be a dud—either because the Mets lose or because it’s just a particularly uneventful game.

So it was especially satisfying that we chose not only a good game but one with such a dramatic ending, one that had playoff implications, and one where the crowd was into it from the jump. A couple of times over the next week, they reached out to tell me how much fun they had at the game, so it felt like a huge success. And that pretty much encapsulated everything I want out of baseball season: Catching a good game with good company, introducing friends to my unhealthy obsession with baseball, and watching a Mets’ win!

Michael Drago

Most people’s favorite moments of the 2024 season will be from the post-Grimace world, at the points in the season when the Mets were, you know, good. However, my personal favorite moment came just before the big purple guy came in and changed all our lives—when it still looked like the Mets were in the midst of one of their worst seasons in recent memory. My favorite moment of 2024 was the two-game series in London against the Phillies, which I had the privilege of attending.

With the benefit of hindsight, we can point to that last game of the series—in addition to Grimace—as a turning point for the Mets’ 2024 season. Certainly, that makes the moment even better in retrospect. But even without that knowledge of how things would turn out, I think I’d still point to London as my personal high point of the season. Even when things were looking incredibly bleak for the Mets, being in a foreign country to watch my favorite team play was such a unique and exciting opportunity.

To me, it felt like all the fans in attendance—Mets and Phillies alike—were taking part in this great communal experience that transcended any particular details about how either team was doing in the standings at that particular point. Even in the moment, knowing how the Mets were doing in comparison to the Phillies at the time, it was a thrill to be there and see baseball play out on a global stage.

Making the moment even better was the fact that I attended the series as a part of my honeymoon with my wife—who I met on this very website. Getting to share that once in a lifetime experience with her served as a reminder for what makes our fandom meaningful beyond just the wins and losses.

Even if the Mets had continued to flounder for the rest of the year, the series would have remained a cherished moment for us both. The fact that the 2024 season became the magical journey it proved to be was just icing on the cake.

Allison McCague

Aside from the London Series experience Michael recounted above that I shared with him, there are so many magical moments and memories that made 2024 my favorite Mets season ever, but in the interest of brevity and not repeating what others have already wrote, I’ll narrow it down to just a handful, which I’ll review in chronological order. But note that this post could have truly gone on forever.

1. June 12, 2024 – Grimace throws out the first pitch at Citi Field: At the time, nobody thought this moment would be consequential in the grand scheme of the 2024 season.

But we couldn’t have been more wrong. Of course, it’s not the moment itself that is significant; it’s the turnaround of the season that Grimace came to embody. Grimace became the avatar of the humor, whimsy, and joy of the 2024 Mets. It is fitting that I recall this immediately below Michael’s recounting of the London Series because on a personal level, the Grimace mania of June will always be connected to the time we spent on our honeymoon. We spent a week in London before spending another week in Belgium and Munich. Because of the time difference, Mets games were happening in the wee hours of the morning as we slept. Every morning we would wake up to find the Mets had won again. The Grimace memes flowed onto my timeline all at once like the deluge of a firehose. It was pure, unadulterated joy and I’ll never forget it.

When you distill it down, fandom is ultimately about communal experiences. And nothing represents the best of what fandom can be more than Grimace as a rallying cry—from the memes to the purple seat to riding the 7 train. What a fun, weird little piece of franchise lore the Grimace saga was. And the best part is that it all arose completely organically.

2. August 17, 2024 – Luis Severino’s complete game shutout: I included this among my favorite moments for one reason and for one reason only: I wanted Luis Severino to get his flowers. 2024 was chock full of so many amazin’ moments, there are some that can get overlooked. This one shouldn’t be among them. It is hard to understate how vital Severino’s bounce back season in 2024 was to the success of the team and his second career complete game is emblematic of that.

3. August 19-21, 2024 – The Mets hit two walk-off home runs against the Orioles: What a cool moment this was. And looking back, it’s incredible that the first of the two walk-offs—Francisco Alvarez’s blast on a 3-0 pitch from Seranthony Domínguez—occurred just two days after Severino’s complete game. What made these two walk-offs extra fun (in addition to the fact that walk-off wins are always fun) is that the home runs were so significant for each player. Francisco Alvarez was struggling and hadn’t hit a home run in three weeks. His emphatic bat flip, gestures to the Mets dugout, and pounding his chest were manifestations of pure catharsis.

Jesse Winker’s celebration two days later was just as emphatic as he slammed his helmet on the ground—which turned out to be a preview of another celebration in an even more pivotal moment against his former team.

It was Winker’s first home run as a Met and it was a huge one.

4. September 11, 2024 – Francisco Lindor breaks up a no-hitter in the 9th with a game-tying solo homer: This is one of many “I remember exactly where I was when this happened” moments in the 2024 season. I was on the DC Metro on the way to get a brain MRI (everything is fine). This resulted in me emitting an involuntary yelp in public.

Though the first game of the doubleheader on the final day of the regular season that sent the Mets into the postseason and his NLDS grand slam are more prominent examples, this is another entry in the “Lindor signature Mets moments” lexicon. And it is the origin of Gary Cohen’s now iconic “LINSANITY” call.

5. October 3, 2024 – Pete Alonso’s go-ahead three-run homer, Wild Card Game 3: You didn’t think we’d go through our favorite moments without mentioning this one, did you?

This home run, which as of this writing still may be Pete Alonso’s final act as a New York Met, will now rank among not just the greatest moments of 2024, but the greatest moments of franchise history. With the Mets on the brink of elimination, the Polar Bear allowed them to fight another day. I imagine I speak for a lot of Mets fans when I say that I think this is the loudest I have ever screamed while watching a Mets game. I think only Game 1 of the Braves doubleheader and this moment stand alone as far as the sense of unreality that overtook me as I experienced them. I think it is as close to an out-of-body experience as I have ever had. The sheer unprecedentedness of it in MLB postseason history combined with what it meant for Pete Alonso’s career and his Mets legacy are what set this moment apart and make it something that will appear in Mets highlight reels for generations.

6. October 18, 2024 – NLCS Game 5 at Citi Field: I included this game not because of any moment in particular, but because of the whole experience. It is, put simply, my favorite Mets game I’ve ever attended. And I’ve been to some good ones. But nothing matches the joy of this game, which was the only 2024 playoff game that I attended and the first one I had been to since Game 2 of the 2006 NLCS (let’s not speak of that game ever again; So Taguchi still gives me PTSD-style flashbacks). When talking about the 2024 Mets, I have often said that they exorcised a lot of demons. They shed themselves of the LOLMets specter that permeates much of the franchise’s history. NLCS Game 5 exorcised my personal demons.

The day began with the block party outside Citi Field, which has been another great addition in a long list of fantastic touches by the Cohen regime. Despite being faced with elimination, the mood was jubilant. I got the sense that everyone shared my sentiment of just being thankful to get the opportunity to show my gratitude in person for this team that brought me so many joyful memories that I will forever cherish. I bought an OMG shirt. We went inside and got the Playoff Pumpkin signature cocktail. We met up with some friends, including Amazin’ Avenue’s own Chris McShane. We waved our rally towels as the Mets bats exploded for double-digit runs. We attributed the Mets’ five-run third inning to the bucket of chocolate chip cookies (another 2024 postseason food special at Citi Field) that Michael had just acquired for us.

But really the events of the game itself are almost a footnote. The best part of that day was getting to experience it all with my family. If there is a single moment that will last in my memory, it’s a moment that happened after we had already left Citi Field. We were driving down the Jersey Turnpike, still high from the victory, with the windows rolled down (on top of everything else, the weather was beautiful that day) and “Alive” by Pearl Jam came on the radio. We belted the chorus at the top of our lungs as the warm wind blew against my face and it was one of the happiest moments of my life. Even though we all knew the material reality that the Mets coming back to take the series was unlikely, in that moment, they were still alive. And we were grateful that we got to send them off back to Los Angeles still fighting, as the 2024 Mets had the entire season.

Brian Salvatore

October 9, 2024 – I’ve been privileged to witness a great many spectacular baseball moments in person. While I’ve never seen a no-hitter, I have seen Opening Days, walk-offs, historic performances, playoff wins, “Harvey’s Better” chants, and final games for superstars. But until NLDS Game 4, I had never seen a team clinch anything at home. And all of that was possible due to a grand slam by Francisco Lindor.

Others here have waxed philosophic about the amazin’ atmosphere at Citi in the playoffs, and it cannot be overstated. The place was electric, supportive, fun, and infectious. But up to that point, Game 4 was not very exciting. There were a number of missed opportunities that, under different circumstances, would’ve sucked the energy right out of the crowd. In the first and second, the Mets left the bases loaded without scoring, and they fell behind 1-0 on a fielder’s choice off Alec Bohm’s bat.

But the stadium didn’t lose a single iota of energy. In the bottom of the sixth, Jeff Hoffman allowed a lead-off single to J.D. Martinez and then lost control. A wild pitch, a walk, another wild pitch, and a hit by pitch loaded the bases. A ground ball from Francisco Alvarez led to Martinez being thrown out at home, but brought Francisco Lindor to the plate. On the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Lindor laced a ball to deep center, and one the ball cleared the infield, the atmosphere at Citi surged. From where I was seated in the upper deck, it was tough to tell if it had enough juice to get out, but either other folks had a better vantage points or everyone just believed more than I did.

Once it cleared the wall, Citi erupted like I’ve never felt before. It didn’t quite sway and shake the way Shea did, but it was damn close. Aside from the two surly Phillies fans behind me, the entire section went crazy, high-fives and hugs, screams and fist bumps, hands raised in the air and prayers of gratitude were swirling. In addition to putting the Mets ahead and leading to their eventually NLCS birth, the moment signified something else.

This felt like the first moment where the Mets lived up to all the promise of the last four years. Yes, things have been turning around for a bit, but this seemed different. That was the moment where the Mets truly shook off the shackles of the Wilpon ownership, the LOLMets, and every indignity of the past 25 years. That is overstating it, obviously, but in that moment, it felt like the yoke of being a joke was gone. It is the rare moment that still echoes today and, likely, will echo for the next few years, if not further.

Carlos Beltrán famously called the 2005 squad the New Mets, but Lindor’s grand slam was as potent and emphatic decree as you’re likely to get that things just aren’t the same in Queens, and may never be again.

Chris McShane

I had attended nearly every postseason or near-postseason Mets elimination game since 2006: Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS, the final game of the 2007 season, the final game of the 2008 season, Game 5 of the 2015 World Series, and the 2016 Wild Card game. If not for a close friend’s wedding, I very well might have been at the third game of the 2022 Wild Card series, too, but I was at Citi Field for Max Scherzer’s dreadful start in Game 1 of that series, which should probably count for partial credit.

But when the Mets were staring down elimination in Game 5 of the NLCS this year, that didn’t stop me from showing up in Queens again, this time with a small sign that I had printed on my way into the city for the game: “What do we say to the god of death? Not today.”

The N in “not” was the Mets’ NY logo, and other Mets fans who got the Game of Thrones reference responded with overwhelming enthusiasm. The Mets won the game, keeping their season alive and sending it back to Los Angeles. The atmosphere that night was better than it was at almost any point of the home games of the 2015 World Series, which somehow occurred nearly a decade ago.

That night and Game 4 of the NLDS, which I attended with Brian, whose words above about it are perfect, were the only two Mets games I attended this year. After all of the heartbreaking experiences of the past, well, I’m pretty damn glad that they were the two games that I got to see in person.