A dance, some hugs and memories — and prom pictures — at Citi Field for Mets fan Callie Quinn
Mets pitcher Jerry Blevins dances on the field with Callie Quinn of Staten Island at Citi Field on May 18, 2018. Credit: AP / Julie Jacobson
She danced with Jerry Blevins in foul-ball territory, got hugs from Noah Syndergaard and Michael Conforto and traded laughs with Mickey Callaway.
All told, it’s going to be pretty hard for Callie Quinn’s actual prom to outdo her prom pictures.
Callie Quinn, the Staten Island viral sensation who needed to earn 500,000 retweets on Twitter to get her prom pictures taken at Citi Field, got her wish Friday afternoon, and then some. Donning a Mets-blue ballgown with orange lacing along the corseted back, Quinn, 17, saw the fruits of an unlikely campaign that started with a single tweet back in January.
“I’m just really ecstatic about it,” she said, hair outfitted in a low chignon. Under layers of tulle, her shoes peaked out — Keds that looked like baseballs, a gift from her mom. “I [met] Conforto and I literally broke down. I almost cried real hard . . . I met Mickey and that was so nice, and Jerry Blevins. Keith Hernandez and that was awesome.”
The New Dorp High School senior will celebrate her actual prom next Friday, but the lifelong Mets fan long had dreamed of incorporating her favorite team in the milestone. The Mets’ Twitter account played ball, but tasked her with getting half a million retweets, which is no small feat. But the internet being what it is, Mets faithful mobilized, and last week, she got official notice that the photos would happen. It actually only took her eight days to get the retweets she needed.
Along the way, there was help from the 7-Line Army, Mr. Met and various media members. Suddenly, William Shatner got involved, and Alyssa Milano and Chelsea Clinton.
On May 17, she got her very own prom-posal — a surprise visit from Mr. Met at her school, holding up a boombox, “Say Anything” style. Her dream a reality, she acknowledged that she didn’t really think she would get this far.
“When I started thinking about it, I was like, [500,000 retweets], that’s super high. I don’t know about that. But then I got to like 300,000, that was when I was like, all right, I might make it. At 400,000, I knew I was done. I knew I would get there . . . [The best part] is all the people that I met through Twitter. This is a huge bonus, of course. This is the end goal. But I think all the connections that I made, all the friends I made through this, it was awesome.”
Quinn said that she’s been a Mets fan since birth. There’s even a picture of her at seven months old, at Shea Stadium. Seventeen years later, she’s got a few more photos to add to the collection.
Laura Albanese is a reporter, feature writer and columnist covering local professional sports teams; she began at Newsday in 2007 as an intern.
