On June 28, following a New York Mets 7-2 victory over the Houston Astros, Jose Iglesias, aka Candelita, took to the field with his teammates to perform his new song OMG. Sung in Spanish, the song is about positivity, happiness, and fulfilling lifelong dreams.
The orange and blue sign that bears the song’s title is seemingly synonymous with it. The sign, created by Jerome McCroy, AKA Jaymac, was a match made in heaven, as the message of the song almost perfectly encapsulates the career of the sign’s creator.
“I knew as early as four years old I wanted to do something artistic and creative,” McCroy told amNewYork. “Over the years, I developed that by drawing cartoon characters, figure drawings, and buildings. Always trying to construct and make things. Whether it’s Lego sets or things like that, I was always interested in taking things apart and putting them back together.”
While the foundations of McCroy’s interest in pursuing art were always present, as many people find, the shift often moves from following your dream to making the most money. And after taking art classes throughout high school, the decision to move on from art was a difficult one.
“The focus had to shift to what makes money,” McCroy said. “One thing I remember my parents always telling me was that ‘you have to focus on something that’s going to be a career base for you.’ And they didn’t feel that art was going to be that.”
While, at least for the time being, art had exited McCroy’s life as a primary focus, the urge to get back to his passion always remained strong. It wasn’t until many years later that McCroy refound his love for art, and the connection came from within his family.
“It wasn’t until 2009 that I was actually drawing with purpose,” McCroy said. “I was actually drawing figures for my son. I had a newborn son in 2009, and as he started becoming a toddler, he started becoming into the things I was interested in. It started with Spider-Man and Batman. I found myself drawing a lot of comic book characters for him.”
The birth of his son reopened the artistic floodgates for McCroy, who rediscovered his love of art and began trying new things. In 2013, he got into doing wood cutouts and participating in a group project in California, which is a moment McCroy looks back fondly at.
“We did an installation where we put up walls for graffiti artists,” McCroy said. “I just felt so alive being a part of that installation. I knew that, eventually, I would be doing installations of my own or finding a way to make this part of my day-in and day-out way of making money.”
That is exactly what McCroy did. After years of keeping his talent secluded from the public, he finally began to create. During the pandemic, he began painting sneakers, which helped his Instagram account grow and his exposure to rise.
McCroy’s love for sneakers started as a collector. It was someone from whom he bought sneakers that inspired him to make one of his very first sports-inspired logos.
“He didn’t want to take money from me,” McCroy said. “He said, ‘You can make me something; I know you’re an artist.’ So I made him a New York Yankee symbol that had a subway map on it that I coated with resin. That particular piece went mega-viral, and it grew into sports fans from all around the country asking how I could do something similar for their team.”
After that moment, McCroy’s focus shifted to making sports-related art full-time.
McCroy turned down a promotion at his full-time job to pursue art, and ever since 2021, he has been pursuing his passion full-time. He began making creations for athletes such as Aaron Judge and DeMarcus Ware, but after what was an amazing 2022 and 2023, the ups turned into downs.
“In the middle of June this year, we were looking at the trajectory of the business,” McCroy said. “Where things were going, and I was having some really tough conversations with my wife about whether or not I’m going to do this full time.”
At the same time, McCroy’s favorite baseball team, the Mets, were struggling.
In a season that began with little expectation, the Mets were somehow still falling short of them. They were 11 games under .500, and all seemed lost. But, much like McCroy, something big changed when Iglesias was called up. He brought something that was lacking at the time: vibes.
Iglesias’ song OMG became the Met’s anthem. Throughout the season, the song would play any time the team hit a home run, but the most iconic part of the OMG movement was the sign that the player who hit the home run would take a picture with after rounding the bases. That sign became the crowning achievement of McCroy’s career.
“I was between making a sign about Grimace and a sign about this new anthem that was happening inside the Mets clubhouse,” McCroy said. “The team had been listening to OMG. We found out it was more popular with some of the players. I knew that was a sign I wanted to create.”
Once the idea struck him, the next step was to make the sign. The process of making it was no easy task. But he carefully crafted a sheet of wood into a vibrant, popping sign that stands out from a mile away. He took the sign to a Mets game, where he drew the attention of Mets owner Alex Cohen, who assisted McCroy in getting the sign into the Mets’ hands.
From that moment, McCroy’s life became a whirlwind. The sign became a national phenomenon, and fans wanted to hold what the players were holding. This sparked a new phase of McCroy’s business, as throughout his warehouse, you can find different iterations of the sign from Christmas tree ornaments to three-foot-tall OMG signs.
However, what McCroy is most proud of is the sign making its way to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“To see that the sign is being placed in the Baseball Hall of Fame, I honestly can’t think of anything cooler than that happening,” McCroy said. “I’m so grateful for it and so appreciative of it.”
