Is it Love? NY Mets’ Fans Help Drew Smith Court SI Model on Twitter

Unlike basketball or hockey players, baseball players aren't usually known for "shooting shots" anywhere on the baseball diamond.

New York Mets' relief pitcher Drew Smith attempted to change that narrative last week, by taking a risk, and "shooting his shot" on Twitter last week, in an attempt to court a Sports Illustrated model who had thrown out the ceremonial first pitch before a Mets' game that day.

What you're about to read, is the beginning of a modern-day love story, one that's penned by Smith, with the cyber help of New York Mets' fans from around the Empire State.

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NY Mets' Drew Smith Attempts to Court Cindy Kimberly: A Baseball Romance Novel

As Peter Brand once quipped in the movie Moneyball, "how can you not be romantic about baseball?"

It's stories like these that prove Peter's point.

Now, let's meet the two eligible parties. On one side, we have Drew Smith, relief pitcher for the New York Mets. Smith was a 3rd round pick of the Detroit Tigers in 2015, and after trades to the Rays and the Mets (the second of which was a one-for-one deal for Lucas Duda), made his Major League debut with New York in 2018. Since then, he's quickly become a pivotal part of the Mets' bullpen.

On the other side, we have Cindy Kimberly. Born in 1998, Kimberly is from Costa Blanca, Spain, and reportedly rose to stardom after Justin Bieber posted a photo of her on his Instagram feed. She went on to become a model, was on the cover of GQ Spain in 2018, and is now a model for Sports Illustrated.

Now, let's set the scene: on Wednesday, May 18th, three Sports Illustrated models, including Kimberly, threw out ceremonial first pitches at Citi Field to promote this year's swimsuit edition.

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Nader and Kimberly threw out the pitches, to Smith and fellow reliever Chasen Shreve, respectively. The Mets would go on to win in dominant fashion, an 11-4 drubbing of the St. Louis Cardinals. Though he didn't pitch in the game, it appears as though Drew Smith had been warming up as the innings went on.

The right-hander wound, fired, and the pitch home:

And the crowd went wild!

Now, this is where the fun really begins, because slowly but steadily, New York Mets' fans began to help Smith in his quest for love. In a similar fashion to when New York Islanders' forward Anthony Beauvillier tweeted at actress Anna Kendrick, Mets' fans began to shower Smith with compliments and other ego-inflating stories, in an attempt to help Smith impress Cindy Kimberly.

Some of the best ones were:

There are countless more, but these should give you an idea of the level of commitment Mets' fans had in this moment. Once the fans did their part, all of Mets' Twitter collectively sat back from their keyboards, and waited.

Then, the response heard 'round the world hit Drew Smith's timeline:

It's a tale as old as time: man meets woman, man catches woman's ceremonial first pitch, man courts woman in a public online forum, thousands of others help the man, and the woman responds in kind. The screenplay must already be in the works for the feature film.