Fans ready to bet on future of the Mets

The New York Mets opened their season in Queens on Friday, April 4. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye

By Jacob Kaye

A lot can change in a year.

Citi Field was buzzing with optimism on Friday before the New York Mets took to the field for their first game in Queens in 2025.

Last year, the Mets entered into the season with middling expectations. Coming off a losing season in 2023, the 2024 team was expected to compete in the regular season. But the playoffs? Don’t get your hopes up, Mets owner Steve Cohen warned.

They started the year 0-5.

Then came “OMG,” Grimace and win, after win, after win. The Mets made it all the way to the National League Championship series, where they lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers. By any measure, it was a successful season that reignited the team’s fanbase and appeared to briefly turn New York City from Yankees town to a Mets one.

After the exciting season – and after the team made a splash in the offseason by signing Juan Soto, a once-in-a-generation hitter, to a 15-year contract – expectations for the 2025 team couldn’t be higher.

“They’ve got a good vibe going on right now,” said Gabe Solorzano, a former Miami Marlins fan who said the fun of last year’s team finally convinced him to join his wife and her family in rooting for the Mets.

There was a party outside the stadium on Friday. Beyond the usual pre-game tailgating, the Mets threw a “block party” for the home opener, replete with food trucks, carnival games, a DJ, the Mets’ dance team – known as the “Queens Crew” – and McGruff the Crime Dog.

The celebration appeared to echo the amusement park-like atmosphere created by the team last year.

Jordan Simpson, a Mets fan from Long Island, was taking in the scene a couple of hours before the game. In 2023, Simpson, a professional musician, began re-writing popular songs with lyrics recapping the day’s Mets game and posting the songs and an accompanying video to social media. After initially going viral for recreating the Mets’ broadcast theme music, Simpson became a fixture in Mets fandom last year as the team fought their way into the playoffs.

“Its fun for me,” Simpson told the Eagle.

Jordan Simpson, a musician who went viral for putting his daily Mets’ recaps to music, takes in the Queens team’s home opener on Friday, April 4. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye

Expectations haven’t only been raised for the team on the field. They’ve also changed for the team’s ownership.

A year ago, Cohen’s dream of bringing an $8 billion casino to Citi Field’s parking lot was hazy. As the season began, the richest owner in baseball was awaiting a decision from local State Senator Jessica Ramos over whether or not the lawmaker would introduce a bill in the Senate that would allow Cohen to build on the lot, which is owned by the city and technically designated as parkland.

Without being granted the crucial permission, Cohen would likely be taken out of the running for winning one of the three downstate casino licenses expected to be handed out by the state’s Gaming Commission at the end of 2025.

Two months after the baseball season began, Ramos, who is now a candidate for mayor, said she wouldn't introduce the legislation on Cohen’s behalf, putting his project into limbo.

That all changed last week, when Cohen entered into an agreement with Ramos’ Senate neighbor John Liu, who said he’d introduce the bill in Albany in exchange for Cohen’s promise to either build a longshot pedestrian bridge from Willets Point to Downtown Flushing or donate $100 million to Flushing Meadows Corona Park.

After receiving earlier this year the city’s approval to make a number of zoning changes to the 50-acre site, Cohen’s proposal appears to have become a top contender to win one of the casino licenses.

Fans at Citi Field on Friday, some of whom were enjoying their pre-game festivities in the area Cohen hopes to build the casino, told the Eagle that they were excited by the prospect.

Nick Haas, who was tailgating in the parking lot with his friends, said he’s put all his trust in Cohen, including in his casino dreams.

“If there was a casino here, we would have been here last night,” Haas said. “Whatever [Cohen] wants, I’m in.”

But the gaming and entertainment complex dubbed Metropolitan Park hasn’t been without its opposition. That was true at the home opener, as well,

Though Gabriella Schonhaut of Ridgewood was all in on the Mets’ future, she was a little wary about the future Cohen wants for the corner of North Queens.

“Growing up around here, seeing everything already start to pop up [in Willets Point] was kind of crazy,” she said. “The casino itself is kind of a little bit more controversial. I don't know. I kind of have to see how it pans out.”