We survive because of simple kindnesses in these uncertain days. A neighbor offering to buy groceries. Friends gathering on Zoom, lifting salutary beers to one another, yearning for a chance to actually clink glasses again. Estranged friends reaching out, exchanging telephone calls, wishing each other safe passage day to day.
We really do see the best of each other in these times. A simple thing, like Robbie Robertson and Ringo Starr doing a video of “The Weight” with musicians joining in virtually from all parts of the globe, becomes a viral sensation. Folks make a point to order take-out from their favorite restaurants to keep them humming.
Athletes? Kevin Love was the first to write a check, covering a few weeks’ salary for the workers at Cavaliers games. Others followed. Drew Brees gave $5 million to help out New Orleans. Steph Curry interviewed Dr. Anthony Fauci on Instagram and 50,000 people watched live, with a hundred thousand more later on YouTube. We have seen the very best of them, too.
And then there is Pete Alonso, the Mets’ first baseman. He may not be the only athlete who has lately exhibited an awareness of the world that extends beyond the bubble of fame and adulation. But he certainly seems intent on doing as much as he can, for as many as he can.
“Absolutely I do,” Alonso said in an email conversation. “You never know who you can leave a positive impact on. I want to treat everyone with respect and show my appreciation for all the game of baseball has given me.”
What baseball has given Alonso is a platform to touch people in ways only athletes can. And this is something he seemed to understand naturally, even before a global pandemic upended life as we know it. Hitting 53 home runs and driving in 120 runs as a rookie is going to draw a lot of eyeballs. But Alonso managed to make his debut year about so much more than that.
When he won the Home Run Derby, he donated a portion of his winnings to both the Wounded Warriors Project and the Towers to Tunnels Foundation. When MLB did its annually inexplicable and tone-deaf rejection of the Mets wearing NYPD and FDNY hats on the anniversary of 9/11, he took it upon himself to outfit his teammates in custom-designed cleats, and donated his pair to the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
And even a youthful goof became extraordinarily popular, a tweet he posted last July 31 in which he thanked Mets fans for their patience (they won a sixth game in a row that day but were still just 52-55) and then tried to pump them up. The note began innocently enough: “#LGM,” abbreviating “Let’s go, Mets,” the chant that has accompanied the Mets since 1962.
The note ended with a variance of that: “#LFGM.” Maybe it’s hard to explain the extra letter to your grandmother, but it reflected a distinct youthful enthusiasm that was infectious. Soon, it was everywhere. And by coincidence or not, the Mets played .618 ball the rest of the way.
“I didn’t really think #LFGM would stick,” Alonso says. “I was just writing a message to the fans during an important time in our season last year. I think of myself as a normal guy and wanted to show some emphasis and passion behind the message. The way that fans have responded has been incredible. I am so thankful for their unwavering support!”
It has been in the past few weeks that Alonso’s impact — and, better, his understanding of that impact — has hit home. Most every day has been spent trying to do his part. Not everything has been made public. That which has? First, there was a video message he sent to an 82-year-old Brooklyn resident named Kathleen Selig, a lifelong Mets fan suffering from small-cell cancer.
A week later, he sent a personalized video to an array of doctors and nurses, and the video of their reactions underlined how deeply these heroes of the pandemic appreciated that.
“Thank you on behalf of everybody because you’re part of a bigger picture and trying to help prevent this disease,” Alonso said in the video. “Thank you for keeping everybody safe and providing protection for everybody if you’re on the front line. Thank you and as always, let’s go Mets!”
It’s the small kindnesses that sustain us.
“I have an awesome platform to do something great,” Alonso says. “I want to be known as a great ball player and a great guy. I want to help as many people as I can. I am in the position to help so many people, it would be a shame if I didn’t use my platform for good.”
About 10 years ago, I walked off the field at spring training with David Wright — who’d spent the previous 45 minutes signing every baseball, program, hat and glossy photograph shoved in his face, all the while keeping a running dialogue with the fans.
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“Honestly, it’s not exactly a hardship,” he said. “If you can give someone a few moments of your time when you know how much that’s going to mean to them, why shouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you?”
Alonso never shared the Mets’ clubhouse for even a day with Wright. But he has clearly inherited his outlook, one that allows him to understand what fans crave most in their heroes: a dash of humanity, an ounce of empathy and the inherent understanding of what will resonate. And the 9/11 cleats — that seemed to take everything to the next level.
“Originally, I wanted to wear first responder hats during the game, like Piazza and the ’01 Mets did, and we were denied a request,” he says. “Hats are cool, but the cleats were works of art. They provided tribute to all first responders and had such a tremendous positive impact. I wanted to do something different and out of the box to show respect to not just the victims, but the whole city of New York.
“Also, gifting those cleats to my teammates was to show my appreciation for all of them. I will always remember my first big league team. They will always hold a special place in my memory. So many of my teammates helped me throughout the whole season. They pushed me to get better and helped me grow as a player. Getting custom cleats for them was the least I could do to show how thankful I am to be their teammate.”
The reality, of course, is it turns out they all had a pretty terrific teammate, too.