Channeling The Beatles and Mets With Caitlin Larkin

A fan earns her way behind the mic and on the air

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This season is turning Caitlin Larkin into her father.

“I was around six or seven when I kind of remember baseball creeping into my life. And I remember seeing my dad cursing at the TV, as most Mets fans do,” says the New York native who has been an on-air personality on the Beatles Channel on SiriusXM since early last year. “It’s so funny: When I watch a baseball game and I curse at the TV now, it just reminds me of my father.”

So far this year, Larkin and her fellow Mets fans probably sound like Terry Collins after Noah Syndergaard was ejected for throwing behind Chase Utley. (Cover your children’s ears and click here to watch the clip.)

The Mets rolled into San Diego this weekend for a three-game set to wrap up the first half of the season. Two clubs that squared off in a Wild Card series last October find themselves far from where they expected to be as we head into the All-Star Break.

Late last season, the 101-win Mets lost their grasp of the NL East crown and a first-round bye after being swept over three games in Atlanta; meanwhile, the Padres followed a rather uninspired path to a playoff berth after opening the season a mighty 28-14.

Now, challengers that never showed up last year have arrived. Entering yesterday’s game, the Mets and Padres were tied with a record of 42-47. To reemerge as playoff contenders, they’ll have to win at least five out of every eight games — a .625 clip — in the second half. Good luck.

As my wife, whom I married despite her allegiance to the Yankees, recently said to me: “The Padres are the Mets of California.”

Constantly playing in the shadows of a larger, well-decorated franchise while finding a championship and national respect elusive, Mrs. WTP might be onto something there. We won’t even get into the psyches of the fan bases.

Carry That Weight

Born on Long Island in the late ’80s, Caitlin Larkin was raised to love the Beatles and the Mets. “I've been a Beatles fan since I could breathe,” she says. “I tell people I came out going, ‘Woo!’”

Larkin represents a younger generation of Beatles fans. The Mets have never won a World Series in her lifetime, so — in a way — the image of Gary Carter leaping into the arms of Jesse Orosco is as mystical as footage of the famous Shea Stadium concerts.

About six years ago, after discovering hundreds of videos of people sharing personal Beatles collections on YouTube, she began sharing her own. She gained a following and connected with the Beatles YouTube community — enthusiasts hunting for vinyl and Beatles collectibles.

Larkin’s journey to Beatles professional accelerated a few years later after she took the advice of a friend and launched her own TikTok channel where she shared original Fab Four content.

There was some doubt she had to overcome initially. “Am I too old for TikTok?” she initially wondered. (Who among us hasn’t asked ourselves that question?)

She deemed herself age appropriate and, upon exploring the platform, found that there wasn’t much of a Beatles presence (probably because she was too old for TikTok).

“I thought it would be a fun idea to do ‘On This Day In Beatles History.’ That would be my thing, so that every day there would be some sort of content,” she says. How did it work out?

“I surpassed what I did on YouTube in a matter of minutes. It was unbelievable. Like, the first two videos I published went totally viral.”

After one full year of generating daily Beatles history content, she came up with a great follow-up idea. With no Beatles presence on TikTok, Larkin found the next best thing. She created what she called “The Fake Beatles Channel,” and posted fake radio breaks. All she wanted was to be acknowledged by the SiriusXM account. “How cool would that be if they saw it?” she wondered.

Well, they saw it. Less than two weeks after she had begun, the program director of the Beatles Channel contacted her. In late 2021, she was invited to collaborate on some projects. Before the end of the year, SiriusXM had offered her a job.

I’m Looking Through You

The Mets and the Padres aren’t carbon copies of each other, though both clubs have seen star players underperform this year. A six-game winning streak to begin July nudged New York in the right direction, but it will take a lot more winning to compensate for a June in which they went 7-19.

Last year, the Padres were 30-17 in one-run games. So far this year: 5-15.

The Mets posted a 21-15 record in one-run contests last year, but in those games this season, they’ve limped home at 13-16. Remember when superstar closer Edwin Diaz suffered a season-ending knee injury while celebrating a World Baseball Classic victory? We shouldn’t be surprised that the team is now ending up on the wrong side of the closest games.

I Saw Her Standing There

“If it weren’t for the Beatles, my older brother and I would not exist,” Larkin admits. Her parents met in 1975 on her father’s 20th birthday. Celebrating with some friends that evening, he encountered a beautiful woman. As the story goes, he was too nervous to approach. Luckily, he was at a bar!

When his advances were rejected, he said what any drunk romantic would: “I bet you don’t even like the Beatles!”

“Of course I do,” the young woman replied. “They’re my favorite band.”

Larkin’s parents were married for 20 years before splitting up, after which she moved with her mother to Port St. Lucie, Florida, the Spring Training home of the Mets.

Happiness Is a Warm Gun

Whenever a team disappoints, the manager is usually the first to find himself in the crosshairs. Respected veteran managers Buck Showalter and Bob Melvin might find their seats a bit toasty these days, but I’m not sure either of them really cares. Each has been fired before. They know the game.

With 40-plus seasons of managerial experience between them, seven Manager of the Year awards, and exactly zero World Series appearances, their bosses knew exactly whom they were hiring.

If fired, both of these skippers would be nothing more than scapegoats for larger organizational problems.

Can’t Buy Me Love

“Did I think it would go this way? Absolutely not!”

Is Larkin referencing her life behind the mic on the Beatles Channel or the 2023 Mets?

“You have to make your own destiny. You can’t just sit and think that all of these things are gonna, you know, come and happen to me because I’m so great and so wonderful,” she says, reflecting upon what it took to manifest a farfetched dream. Once again, however, she inadvertently provides commentary for both the Padres and the Mets.

Larkin, who was wearing a vintage Mike Piazza caricature t-shirt when we spoke, will forever feel connected to the 2000 Subway Series team. “It was kind of like, for me, when the Beatles Anthology came out in 1995. I was finally — for myself, in my lifetime — witnessing history in that particular fandom,” she says.

“Also, at the time, I was an 11-year-old kid, and *NSYNC sang the Star Spangled Banner at one of the games… I was such a huge fan of them. I just felt like everything was kind of coming together… a culmination of all the things that I love. And so that specific moment in time really holds a special place in my heart.”

Baby, You’re A Rich Man

With Steven Cohen’s deep pockets and a hitherto pragmatic approach to his team’s in-season struggles, we should all expect that the Mets will look to improve the roster in advance of the August 1 trade deadline. Similarly, the Padres are in too deep to move in any direction other than forward at all costs.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see both teams pursuing the same relief pitchers throughout the rest of this month. I also wonder if the Mets would be interested in Jake Cronenworth, a fan favorite in San Diego who has been pushed over to first base because of a shortstop-heavy roster. The Padres extended him through 2030 prior to Opening Day and he’s had a disappointing season so far, but the exchange rate on existing contracts is different in Queens. Never rule anything out with these Padres or with Cohen’s Mets.

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer

The Padres took the rubber game of the series yesterday, as Manny Machado homered twice off of Max Scherzer.

“I’ve just been cursing at the TV, like my father and his father before him,” Larkin reminds us.

You can listen to Caitlin share her love for the Fab Four on The Beatles Channel weekdays at noon ET / 9:00 am PT.

And don’t forget, if you haven’t read about the newest member of the WTP family, read this story below! The Beatles and a puppy… Martha, my dear!

Warning Track Puppy

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