Pete Alonso Drops Emotional Farewell Video After Ditching Mets for Baltimore
If you listen closely, you can hear the collective sound of hearts breaking across Queens right now. Or maybe that’s just the sound of jersey sales plummeting.
In a move that feels like a glitch in the simulation for die-hard New Yorkers, Pete Alonso—the “Polar Bear,” the homegrown hero, the guy who made hitting baseballs look as easy as hitting buttons in MLB The Show on rookie difficulty—is officially gone. He’s traded in the pinstripes for the orange and black of the Baltimore Orioles, signing a massive five-year, $155 million contract that ensures he’ll be eating crab cakes instead of dollar slices for the foreseeable future.
But before he fully migrates south to Camden Yards, Alonso took to Instagram to drop a farewell video that was surprisingly heavy on the feels and light on the corporate PR speak.
The “Polar Bear” Says Goodbye
Usually, when athletes leave a city, we get a generic Notes app screenshot or a tweet that looks like it was written by a ChatGPT prompt. Alonso went a different route. He posted a video montage that effectively served as a breakup letter to the city that raised him.
“New York, thank you,” Alonso started, and you could tell he wasn’t just reading off a teleprompter. “These last few years have shaped me in ways I’ll carry for the rest of my life.”
It’s easy to be cynical about pro sports. We know it’s a business. We know the $155 million check clears regardless of sentimentality. But Alonso touched on something that actually resonates: the terrifying, suffocating, electric pressure of playing in NYC. He thanked the fans for the “tough love,” which is a polite way of thanking them for not booing him out of the stadium when he went through slumps.
“Thank you for getting rowdy every time I stepped up to the plate and made the building shake when the ball found a seat over the wall,” he said. And to be fair, nobody made Citi Field shake quite like he did.
A Legacy of Smashing Buttons (and Baseballs)
Let’s look at the stats, because they are frankly ridiculous. Since getting called up in 2019, Alonso has been a cheat code.
Rookie Record: He mashed 53 homers in his first year. Fifty-three. That’s not a rookie season; that’s a career year for 99% of the league. ** consistency:** He’s been an All-Star four times.
The Clutch Factor: Remember that go-ahead three-run homer against Devin Williams in the Wild Card Series? That was arguably one of the top five moments in Citi Field history.
Losing that kind of production isn’t just a roster change; it’s like losing your main tank in an MMO raid. The Mets aren’t just losing a bat; they’re losing the guy who embraced the absurdity of being a Met. He genuinely seemed to like the chaos.
Baltimore Legends Are Already Trolling
Here is the salt in the wound for Mets fans: The Baltimore Orioles legends are already rolling out the red carpet, and they are being incredibly smug about it.
Cal Ripken Jr.—baseball royalty—is already tweeting at Alonso asking to grab crabs. Jim Palmer took it a step further, practically subtweeting the Mets’ front office by pointing out Alonso’s impressive RBIs and stats, sarcastically asking if they weren’t “impressive enough” for New York to keep him. When you have Hall of Famers dunking on your former team for letting you walk, you know you secured the bag.
What’s Next for Alonso?
Seeing Alonso in an Orioles jersey is going to look wrong. It’s going to look like Michael Jordan in a Wizards jersey or seeing Mario show up in a Sega game. It’s unnatural.
But for Baltimore, this is a massive level-up. They are adding a premier power hitter to a lineup that is already young, hungry, and dangerous. For the Mets? They have a massive, polar-bear-shaped hole at first base and in the clubhouse.
So, goodbye, Pete. Thanks for the dingers, the Derby wins, and for actually caring about the franchise. Enjoy the Old Bay seasoning. New York is going to miss you, even if they pretend they’re “retooling” without you.
