“Nice to see him get from the beach here to the ballpark,” Dan McLaughlin of Fox Sports said, after Christie, seated near the field along the first base line, caught a ball off the bat of St. Louis’s Paul DeJong. The fact that he gave the ball to a youngster did not appear to make enough of a favorable impression to stave off the booing.

In general, Mets fans probably aren’t the happiest group of folks around, given that the team began the season with World Series aspirations before suffering an avalanche of injuries and sliding to 41-49, over 10 games out of a possible playoff spot. When Christie made his catch, New York was already well on its way to a 5-0 defeat, but it sounded like there were more than a few New Jersey residents in attendance.

AD

AD

Last month, a Quinnipiac University poll found that 81 percent of the state’s voters disapproved of Christie’s performance, with just 15 percent in favor — and that was before the beach fiasco. During a budget stalemate, the governor ordered all of New Jersey’s public beaches closed during the Fourth of July weekend, only to be photographed availing himself, along with his family, of a pristine stretch of otherwise off-limits sand.

After his exclusive session in the sun, Christie took some heat of a different kind when he hosted several hours last week on New York sports station WFAN. He was trying out to fill the shoes of the departing Mike Francesa, but some listeners were in “mad dog” mode, assailing the governor when given the chance to call in.