Welcome back to the Mets Beat newsletter! Anthony DiComo has covered the Mets for MLB.com since 2007, including the past 16 seasons full-time on the beat. |
NEW YORK -- Soon, Francisco Lindor and his wife Katia will start the Lindor Foundation, a new initiative that will add to the shortstop’s growing list of charitable works. Throughout his career, Lindor has already done plenty of good. Since 2020, he has donated more than $1 million to Montverde Academy, his high school in Florida. That money has gone mostly to Lindor Hall, a two-story middle school building featuring state-of-the-art science and technology labs. He also established the Francisco Lindor Scholarship Fund to help students who otherwise wouldn’t have the financial means to attend Montverde. • VOTE NOW: 2025 Roberto Clemente Award presented by Capital One Additional philanthropic endeavors for Lindor have included hurricane relief efforts in his native Puerto Rico, as well as health and wellness initiatives, environmental initiatives and meet-and-greets with students. For those reasons and others, the Mets on Monday named Lindor their nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award -- Major League Baseball’s highest off-field honor -- for the third year in a row. MLB will announce the league-wide winner during the World Series. “That means I’m making my dad proud,” Lindor said of his nomination. “That means I’m helping others. I’m representing Puerto Rico, my family and the Clemente family the right way. So I’m happy to get another chance of winning it.” |
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Regardless of whether Lindor wins the award this year, he intends to step up his charitable game through the Lindor Foundation, which will launch in the near future. Lindor’s wife, Katia, will run the foundation with the intention of providing scholarship money for students to attend college. In a nod to Katia’s background as a violinist, the Lindors will focus their efforts on those looking to pursue the fine arts. “There’s a lot of things for athletes, but not everyone gets to be a professional athlete,” Lindor said. “My hope and my goal is to give people stuff that I wasn’t able to get. I didn’t get the education in college, so maybe I can help others get educated. “It will be special, because whenever you can have a foundation, it means you have the resources to help others. I’m blessed to have a lot more than what I deserve. So I think it would be part of the legacy. I think my daughters and my boy are going to grow up, and hopefully … they want to [help]. They’re going to have something to look up to. So I’m excited for it.” |
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As a native Puerto Rican, Lindor has often spoken of the Clemente Award as a long-term career goal, understanding how much Roberto Clemente meant to his homeland. Lindor’s foundation should take him one step closer to realizing that vision, regardless of whether it happens this year or later in his career. “It would be a dream,” Lindor said. “It would be something that probably I would give the trophy to my dad and say, ‘This is you. You instilled this in me and were the one that made me be the one I am today when it comes to that.’ It would be special for sure. It would be something that I would cherish for the rest of my life.” |
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MLB MORNING LINEUP PODCAST |
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Which is the only Mets team to lose eight consecutive games and still make the playoffs? A) 1969 B) 1973 C) 1999 D) 2015 |
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Later this week, the Mets will eclipse 3 million fans at Citi Field, a mark they’ve reached only once before in ballpark history. That was back in 2009, Citi’s inaugural season. With six home games remaining, this is already the seventh-most attended season in Mets history. The Mets are likely to finish in the Top 5, though they won’t come close to eclipsing the franchise-record 4,042,045 fans who showed up for Shea Stadium’s final campaign in 2008. (In fact, they’ll never eclipse that mark, since it’s above Citi Field’s full-season capacity. Shea Stadium had about 15,000 more seats.) Whether the Mets can draw more fans than in 2009, when 3,168,571 of them spun the turnstiles, will be a close call. To reach that mark, the Mets will need to average 38,598 fans per game over their final six games. For reference, they’ve averaged 39,160 fans per home game so far this season, so they’re right on pace. Consider it a subplot to watch over the final homestand of the season. Some of you will even be part of it. Get your tickets to come see the Mets at Citi Field here. |
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• The Mets really, really, really needed a win on Sunday. Pete Alonso provided it with another of his “sick” walk-off homers. No Mets player in history has more. • Among those to show up to the Mets’ Alumni Classic on Saturday were several members of the 2007 Mets, who are infamous for enduring one of the most precipitous collapses in MLB history. Their advice to the current team? “Just go for it.” • It will be difficult for anyone around the Mets to trust Kodai Senga until he actually goes out and proves himself in the Majors. But at least Senga’s first start following a demotion to Triple-A Syracuse was a success, as he struck out eight batters over six innings while proving far more efficient than he had been in Queens. • Speaking of starting pitching, the Mets are moving Sean Manaea to the bullpen -- at least temporarily. He’s going to piggyback with Clay Holmes tonight, as the Mets open a key three-game series against the Padres. |
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C) 1999 The ’99 Mets lost eight straight games from May 28 through June 5 to fall below .500, plus another seven in a row from Sept. 21-28. But they rebounded to make the playoffs by winning a tiebreaking 163rd game vs. the Reds in October. |
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