Mets and Yankees tattoos: These Long Island fans share their ink-credible stories
Jordan Shatz poses with his Citi Field tattoo at his home in Mount Sinai on Thursday. Credit: Kelvin Loarca
Rooting for a sports team often is a lifelong commitment. So is a tattoo.
That’s where some Long Island-based Mets and Yankees fans come in.
To show off their devotion, many fans of our two local baseball teams have turned to permanent art on their bodies. Some of them will be on display starting Friday when the Yankees visit the Mets at Citi Field in the opener of the Subway Series.
Take Jordan Shatz, a 34-year-old from Mount Sinai. Shatz wears his heart on his sleeve when it comes to his beloved Mets. And he has what he called “2½ sleeves” of Mets-themed tattoos that cover his arms and most of his right leg.
The tattoos, which were inked by Luiz Lopes of Selden Ink, truly are works of art.
The first one Shatz got was on his leg. It shows Tom Seaver in his windup with Citi Field in the background.
“It’s a funny story behind it,” Shatz told Newsday in a telephone interview. “I was shopping for an engagement ring at the time. Went to go get the tattoo done and initially my plan wasn’t to get the whole sleeve done kind of at the speed that I did. It was more like he just had availability, so I kept going.
Lorenzo De Micco's Yankees tattoo. Credit: Lorenzo De Micco
“The same time I was getting the tattoo done, I was saving for the engagement ring. So when I actually proposed, my wife had no idea because she thought I was spending all my money on the tattoo. At that point I was seeing my tattoo artist more than I was seeing my wife.”
Shatz also has large tattoos featuring Mike Piazza, David Wright and Keith Hernandez. And a small one of Mr. Met, who with his giant baseball head is a popular tattoo subject.
Peggi Johnson, a 67-year-old from Baldwin, has the Mets’ famous mascot inked on her back. It was put there by her niece, Rebecca Betts, a Baldwin native who owns Morning Glory Tattoos in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Why did Johnson choose Mr. Met?
Jesse Saperstein's Yankees tattoo Credit: Jesse Saperstein
“Well, he’s homegrown,” she said. “He never changes, never disappoints me.”
The same can’t be said for this year’s Mets team, which got off to a painfully slow start. But Johnson — who has what she calls “a shrine” to the Mets in her house — said she doesn’t tie her fandom or her tattoo desires into how the team is doing at a particular point in time.
“I’m not into that at all, that they’re doing good and they’re doing bad,” she said. “I would get another [tattoo] tomorrow if I wanted one.”
Johnson’s daughter Alison has the Mets script logo tattooed on her right arm along with ink honoring the NHL’s Rangers and the Green Bay Packers. The 36-year-old got her Mets tattoo when the team went to the World Series in 2015.
“Just weirdly, I got it while I lived in Myrtle Beach,” she said. “They thought it was interesting, like, ‘Oh, wow, you’re getting a New York tattoo down here.’ But I just love sports. I breathe, eat, sleep sports, so it was easy for me.”
Peggi Johnson's Mr. Met tattoo and Alison Johnson's Mets tattoo. Credit: Peggi Johnson; Alison Johnson
Getting your ink done when you live outside of New York to proudly display your roots doesn’t just apply to Mets fans.
Jesse Saperstein of Farmingdale, who lived in Las Vegas about 20 years ago, got his Yankees tattoo during a visit home at Kings Avenue Tattoo in Massapequa. It features a Yankees top hat logo on his left ankle and has the numbers 42 for Mariano Rivera, 2 for Derek Jeter, 20 for Jorge Posada and 51 for Bernie Williams.
Saperstein said he got it out of love for those championship Yankees teams — and also to make a point when he got back to Sin City.
“The truth is what really prompted me at that time to get the tattoo was I was actually living in Las Vegas and most people out there hate New York and they hate the Yankees,” said Saperstein, 44. “When I came home to visit, I just felt, to counter all that negativity, it was a good time to get one. All their hate — that was probably the catalyst. I love it.”
Saperstein is not alone in making a statement in hostile territory. Lorenzo De Micco of Huntington, who works at King Avenue Tattoo, got a Yankees tattoo when he was in college in Providence, Rhode Island.
Lorenzo De Micco's Yankees tattoo. Credit: Lorenzo De Micco
“It’s kind of funny because I got it in Red Sox territory,” the 26-year-old said.
But that’s not actually the funny part of the story. De Micco’s tattoo on his right arm is an interlocking “NY” logo with the number 42 on one side and 36 on the other.
Rivera is 42, obviously. The number 36 is for Mike Ford — not obviously.
Mike Ford? A first baseman who hit .199 for the Yankees in parts of three seasons?
“I actually lost a bet with my brother when I got that because I bet that Ford wouldn’t hit a walk-off home run against Liam Hendriks of the A’s in 2019 [which Ford did on Sept. 1],” De Micco said. “And I’m a man of my word. I had to get his number. So I have Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer of all time, next to a journeyman first baseman.”
There is one tattoo-related bet De Micco won’t make: Anything that would require him to get Mets ink.
“There’s nothing on planet Earth,” he said, “that could make me do that.”
Anthony Rieber covers sports media and business and professional sports (you know, games and trades and things). He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since Jan. 1, 2026.
