City Hall Statement Insists Mayor Is Not Cursed, Mets Fans Disagree Loudly
QUEENS, NEW YORK —
What began as a friendly 100-day-in-office photo op at Citi Field has metastasized into what New York Mets fans now call the Curse of the Mambino, as the city’s flagship baseball franchise has lost twelve consecutive games since Mayor Zohran Mamdani posed with Mr. and Mrs. Met on April 9.
The team, which entered the season with a luxury-tax payroll estimated at $381 million — roughly $507 million once penalties are included — has gone from 7-4 to a historic tailspin no postseason team has ever recovered from. City Hall has insisted that the mayor is “not cursed.” Mets fans have responded by creating a tribute subreddit titled r/GetHimOutOfHere.
The Evidence
Further complications emerged when cardboard cutouts of New York Knicks players, placed in the City Hall rotunda to celebrate their playoff run, were followed within hours by a Knicks Game 2 loss to the Atlanta Hawks. The pattern is difficult to ignore. “You don’t need a statistician for this,” one bleacher creature at Citi Field told reporters. “You just need eyes.”
The mayor, a self-described casual fan, has accepted the ribbing with mixed success. At a Tuesday press conference, he offered to be addressed as “Mayor Mambino for the day” — a phrase that City Hall communications staff later confirmed was “supposed to go in one direction” and “absolutely did not.”
The Stadium Ban
In an emergency memo issued Wednesday, all five boroughs’ professional sports teams have formally requested that Mayor Mamdani remain at least 200 meters from any ticketed event. The request was signed by representatives of the Mets, Yankees, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, Islanders, Giants, and Jets — the latter two of whom technically play in New Jersey but, as one spokesperson put it, “wanted to be safe.”
Editors at Bohiney Magazine have noted that Mayor Mamdani’s office technically pointed out, for the record, that the Mets’ losing streak actually began the day before the infamous mascot hug. This defense, described by one anonymous staffer as “aggressively factual,” has had no discernible effect on public sentiment.
A columnist at The London Prat observed dryly that British politicians have been known to avoid football matches for the same reason, citing former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s seven-week premiership as evidence that “some people simply should not be near sport.”
Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, asked for comment, suggested that perhaps Mamdani’s touch might still prove “a blessing” for the Knicks. Knicks fans have declined to take the chance.
At press time, the Mets were trailing a Washington Nationals team whose combined payroll is roughly equivalent to the Mets’ team dentist budget. For further coverage of athletic curses, see The Onion.
SOURCE: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2026/apr/22/mets-fans-blame-curse-mambino-mamdanis-mascot-hug-precedes-12-game/