Prom-ise kept! Superfan Callie meets Mets
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NEW YORK -- Callie Quinn swished around Citi Field in a blue gown with orange lacing, tears coming to her eyes at several points as her idols approached her. Michael Conforto came over to take a photo, which was almost more than Quinn could bear. Noah Syndergaard's presence elicited a gasp. Jerry Blevins approached asking for her hand for a dance.
For Quinn, this dream of a day was four months in the making. Unable to find a prom date back in January, Quinn direct messaged the Mets on Twitter asking if a player might be interested in taking her. Turns out the Mets were scheduled to be in Milwaukee the day of her prom, but the team issued a challenge: get half a million retweets, and the Mets would let Quinn come to Citi Field to take her prom photos.
Days later, with the support of celebrities including Chelsea Clinton and William Shatner, as well as plenty of Mets players, Quinn was well on her way. She reached the required threshold before the end of January, and the Mets kept their end of the bargain, scheduling her to come to Citi Field for Friday's game against the D-backs.
"It's overwhelming," said the 17-year-old Quinn, who wore a pair of shoes designed to look like baseballs underneath her prom dress. "I'm just really ecstatic. It's so fun to be here so far, and meet a few of the guys. They were so nice. It's just really cool."
A senior at Staten Island's New Dorp High School and a lifelong Mets fan, Quinn received plenty of date requests after she became an online celebrity, her tweet becoming one of the most-shared in the social media site's history. She conducted dozens of interviews back in January, then even more Friday at Citi Field.
"This is a huge bonus, of course," Quinn said of her day at Citi Field. "This was the end goal. But I think all of the connections that I made, all of the friends I made through this, that was really awesome."