A Q&A With Greg "The Jingle Man" Princivil, The Internet's Most Vocal Mets Fan
When the Mets are rolling, Princivil shares his appreciation the way he knows best — through song.
The uninitiated might suggest the most musically talented Mets fan to be Julian Casablancas or Billy Joel, but real fans know it’s actually a 42-year-old digital advertiser living on Long Island. Known as “The Jingle Man,” Greg Princivil posts multiple song parodies a week on Instagram, TikTok, and X featuring Mets-themed lyrics, often scream-sung at his television while a key in-game moment plays in the background. His songwriting ingenuity and sheer exuberance has netted him a devoted Instagram following of over seven thousand. This includes myself — some of my personal favorites of his include “Pete Homer Club” (to the tune of “Pink Pony Club”), “David Peterson” (“Build Me Up Buttercup”), “Ryan Helsley” (“Paparazzi”) and “The Mets Got Mullins” (“Let’s Get It Started”).
Princivil has been locked into the orange and blue since the early 90s, and said he wasn’t exactly cognizant of MLB when the Mets last won the World Series in 1986 (he was 3). He’s long prided himself as an eccentric chant leader in the upper decks at Mets home games, but his Mets jingling took off in a meaningful way after a fateful call in to Boomer And Gio on 101.9 WFAN in 2019. After extolling the values of third baseman JD Davis through a commercial song parody (“Call JD Davis, 877-RUNS-NOW!”), he was hung up on, with Gio berating his producer for allowing the call through. The song resonated with listeners, though, and his sound bite became a recurring drop on the show.
Getting booted off the airwaves serendipitously led to the start of a new passion project for Princivil, who launched JingleMets soon after. Six years in, his jingles have delighted both fellow fans and those connected to his favorite teams. The Mets invited him to Citi Field as part of Fan Appreciation Day last year, and a Knicks jingle honoring legendary point guard and broadcaster Walt “Clyde” Frazier, which he recorded with frequent collaborator Jordan Simpson, was played at Madison Square Garden.
If you’re unfamiliar with his work, I recommend giving JingleMets your undivided attention for a few minutes, but when you come back, you’ll see the highlights of our conversation, spanning his songwriting process, the current state of Mets baseball, and how his work is received by the team.
This interview was edited for brevity and clarity. For my baseball-challenged readers, I’ve created a glossary here of every name mentioned so you can still follow along.
Were you singing Mets songs before Jingle Mets really took off?
I was always a jingler. I remember being a kid and making my sister laugh, and then I just kept it going when I had two sons. I had songs to keep them calm while I was changing their diapers. Jingling is just something that comes naturally.
I'd always be in the stands at Met games creating different chants. An example off the top of my head is [for] Ángel Pagán. That one in the 500 section was everybody's favorite, when I would say, “Is he Catholic?” And then people would go, “No!” “Is he Jewish?” “No!” “Episcopalian?” “No!” “Is he Pagan?” “Yeah!”
It was almost six years ago exactly when you got put on the map on social media. Can you tell that story and how that helped grow the account?
I decided to call my favorite radio morning show with my JD Davis jingle and I got hung up on. But then JD Davis went on a tear, [Gio] apologized and played my jingle again, and it caught on. KFC from Barstool started sharing my stuff and championing my stuff, then there were t-shirts made of 877-RUNS-NOW, and everything just blew up from there. And then I just decided to start recording my screaming at the TV and jingling for every player.
I've never been more excited to ask the cliche, “Where do you get your ideas from?” question. I'd just like to know, where does it usually start?
With me, there's no rhyme or reason. As it stands right now, I have notes in my iPhone. For example, I was watching TikTok on the treadmill, and I saw something with Heart where they were singing their song “Alone,” right? It's like, “'Til now, I always got by on my own.” So then I was like, oh shit: “Vientossss.” So I wrote “Alone-Heart-Vientos.” Anything can happen during the course of the day where my brain marries a song or jingle with a player. If the game is going on and there's a lull in the game, I'll flesh it out.
What are some of your favorite jingles in the current rotation?
I love “Pete Homer Club.” There was a dad who went to a game with this little girl, she had a “Pete Homer Club” sign and t-shirt, and I actually spoke to the dad 'cause I was like dude, you know I'm cursing in there, right? He's like, don't worry about it, I'll handle that. I'm the father. I'm like, you know what, as a fellow dad, that's right. You're doing a great job.
I'm curious about your lyrics because it does feel like you put more into your songs than just swapping a player's name in. One of my favorite recent ones is the Ryan Helsley “Paparazzi” one, where you're really telling the story of how he got to the team. So how much time are you spending on the rest of the song?
I'm glad that that's one of your favorites, because there's two types of people: people who like Lady Gaga, and liars. So that's number one. But number two, a lot of times I'm writing a lot of stuff, and with Ryan Helsley, I was really excited. So I wrote a whole bunch of shit, some of it didn't even come out. I wanted to take you guys on just a little journey, so I tried to cram everything I could into that.
So what goes into that? I look at his pitch mix. I also wanted to shout out David Stearns for replenishing the bullpen, and I wanted to get people excited about the moves that we were making and the deadline.
Has any Met, or anyone associated with the team in any way, reached out to you about your work?
There's Trevor May, [Brandon] Nimmo, Nimmo's wife commented — I forgot exactly what she said, but she was appreciative of the jingle. Katia Lindor liked the Lindor opera and commented on it as well, and I thought that was super cool. Sean Manaea put “Mets added Sean Manaea” on his story.
The Mets brought me to Fan Appreciation Day last year. I met Tía Alex, I met a lot of people behind the scenes, I met Carlos Mendoza actually. He was talking to Lee Mazzilli and then he turns and sees me out of the corner of his eye, gives me a hug, and tells me that he knows my stuff. I was really honored by that.
Have you ever been so demoralized while watching this team to the point that you consider not making jingles anymore?
I never considered not making jingles and wallowing. However, I will say, during long losing streaks or if we're a lot of runs behind, I do understand that morale is down and a jingle would be the last fucking thing that anybody wants to hear. If you jingle at these non-appropriate times, that wouldn't be beneficial. And this is New York, you're not cheering anybody up in the middle of misery like that.
How do you feel that “Piano Man” is no longer the permanent eighth-inning song at Citi Field?
I don't know if you Twitter stalked that much, but I'm not a huge Billy Joel guy — I'll just keep it at that.
What are the expectations for the rest of the season?
We started out as one of the best teams, and then we plummeted. But I'm glad that we plummeted when we did because every team swoons and every team has a streak where they play solid baseball. If we can get hot at the right time, like we've done before, that's pretty exciting. I am very hopeful in the way that we're trending right now and hoping that we can continue it. And as a positivo on the internet, I do believe that we will.
Editor’s note: This interview took place the day after Nolan McLean’s 8-inning shutout masterpiece en route to a sweep of the evil Philadelphia Phillies.
Is there anything else you want to add?
LGM, and LFGM as well.
M-E-T-S!
be honest henry did you steal my Editor's note formatting swag