The New York Mets wish you a very happy/upsetting holidays
The Mets set out to make a video in which its players would sing a classic holiday song for fans. They wound up with the offseason’s most harrowing hostage video.
For a not terribly good baseball team, the New York Mets are a pretty likable group — fundamentally decent dudes that are maybe not quite as good at baseball as the teams they have to play against, but seem to have fun playing baseball together for a living. Which makes it that much more upsetting that a number of them have apparently been kidnapped and forced to sing the jaunty 1950 holiday ditty "Sleigh Ride."
You are familiar with this song from its many, many cover versions — it has been covered by every important musical act of the last half-century and change, from Johnny Mathis to Amy Grant to fun. to Air Supply. But there is nothing in the “Sleigh Ride” canon quite like the Mets’ dead-eyed Proof Of Life video/musical Christmas card. The fact that the team made the video so difficult to embed -- our video professionals accomplished the feat above -- suggests that they have some sense of how frightening it all is.
Still, it’s worth watching for anyone who wants to experience:
- The surprisingly good singing voices of Matt Harvey and Jonathon Niese. Or not-surprisingly, as Niese's scouting report has long noted that he "seems like a crooner, for some reason."
- The Sad Stuffed Animal expression on the face of slugging galoot Lucas Duda, who barely opens his mouth while singing.
- The rapid-fire atonality of pitcher Dillon Gee singing about "a wonderland of snow" and sounding sort of like the singer from Cake wearily explaining to a blinking red light on a VHS camera that his captors are treating him well.
Honestly, it’s hard enough to be on the Mets without being called into a studio to sing a verbose and fast-moving (if appropriately non-denominational) Christmas song. There’s already the New York Post making cruel puns about you on its back page and sports radio bile-porpoise Mike Francesa adding Diet Coke-scented -er’s to your name where a’s should be. Also baseball is pretty difficult. Whichever party is holding these Mets hostage and forcing them to sing popular holiday songs should release them immediately. They’ve suffered enough. We’ve all suffered enough.
Hat tip to Hardball Talk on the video and Jonathan Vanasco on the embed.
