New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is now at the center of the Mets’ nightmare start to the season.
There are some fans out there who believe he may have been the catalyst for his beloved baseball team’s current 11-game losing streak, which has led to hizzoner’s new title, “Mayor Mambino,” courtesy of the New York Post.
“I’ll first say that there’s a lot of baseball left to be played and I am still keeping the faith, as I know that many Mets fans are across the city, though I will accept being addressed as Mayor Mambino for the day,” Mamdani said Tuesday. “I think that this is part and parcel of what it means to be the mayor. You take it in stride.”
Here’s what the ‘Mayor Mambino’ hubbub is all about
The mayor’s new moniker is, of course, a colorful play on “Curse of the Bambino,” a superstitious sports jinx associated with the Boston Red Sox that lasted 86 years due to their selling of Babe Ruth, aka “the Bambino,” to the Yankees after they won the World Series in 1918. As a result of the curse, it is alleged, the Red Sox didn’t win another championship until 2004.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani, center, meets Mrs. Met, left, and Mr. Met at Citi Field prior to the game against the Diamondbacks at Citi Field on April 9, 2026.
Photo by Caean Couto/Getty Images
Back on April 9, with the Mets coming off a loss but still sporting a 7-5 record, Mamdani met and hugged Mr. and Mrs. Met, the team’s mascots, before a game against the Arizona Diamondbacks at Citi Field. The former is, after all, a member of the Mascot Hall of Fame and was once listed as the greatest mascot in all of sports, and his wife has been a mainstay at Shea Stadium and later Citi Field for the last 50 years.
But none of that seemed to matter because the Mets went on to lose that game, 7-1, and haven’t sniffed a victory since.
“Ever since that hug, I don’t know what’s been happening lately, and Citi Field does not deserve what they’re getting right now,” one Mets fan told CBS News New York on Tuesday.
Just how bad the Mets have been — by the numbers
The current 11-game slide is the Mets’ longest since 2004 and seventh-longest in franchise history. Â
The Mets have been abysmal at the plate, scoring just 17 runs in the 10 games since Mamdani embraced Mr. and Mrs. Met, including being shut out three times.
Their current 7-15 record is the second-worst in baseball and they already find themselves 8 1/2 games behind the first-place Atlanta Braves in the NL East, which is not exactly what was expected from a team with the second-highest payroll in Major League Baseball coming into the season.
Hope springs eternal in Mamdaniland
Despite all the doom and gloom in Mets Nation right now, there are still 140 games left to play in the regular season, a point Mamdani emphasized on Tuesday.
“I wear my Mets hat from time to time and I’m going to send all the best wishes to the team,” Mamdani said. “You know, I will keep my fingers crossed as every Mets fan does.”
The Mets’ next chance to get back into the win column is on Tuesday night at home against the Minnesota Twins.
contributed to this report.
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