Last week, we gave New York Mets fans a heads up to avoid check out Citi Field on Friday before the Mets played the Milwaukee Brewers, as Nick Cannon and a local radio station, 92.3 NOW, were hosting a pre-game event at which the host of “America’s Got Talent” would attempt to break the world record for the most hugs in one hour. The point of his “Hug It Out” effort, which was not made clear by most news sources last week, was to collect toys for the Mets Care Room at the New York Hospital of Queens.
So first the good news – Cannon and 92.3 collected 1,698 toys for the hospital. The bad news is that he fell short of Nick Vujicic’s 2010 record of 1,749 hugs by 52. But before we go making fun of Cannon for failing, let’s put blame where it belongs – on the Mets.
Reported attendance for Friday’s 6-1 loss to the Brewers was 24,470, but at least one fan account suggests that the game crowd – and Cannon’s hug total – were much lower than what has been reported in the past few days.
Regardless, it was a commendable effort by Cannon, a guy that we love to make fun of for being crammed down our throats by NBC and MTV, and maybe next year he’ll do the smart thing and hold his event at a New York Yankees game. Just don’t do it at a Los Angeles Dodgers game. That would end badly.
Image: Nick Cannon by David Shankbone 2010 NYC by david_shankbone, on Flickr
