By now you may or may not have heard about the commotion surrounding Fark.com’s rickrolling of Shea Stadium’s sing-a-long vote.

Mets.com had asked its fans to vote for a new eighth-inning sing-a-long song to potentially replace Sweet Caroline, which was ripped off from Fenway Park and has caused much embarrassment to fans such as myself who are ashamed of our organization’s lack of originality. The team included a write-in option amongst its list of choices, opening the door for the shenanigans that ensued.

Fark.com, which logs more than 4 million unique visitors each month, urged its community to descend upon the Mets’ online vote en masse and vote for Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up as a write-in candidate. Well, it worked.

True to their word, Shea Stadium played the song during the 8th inning of Tuesday afternoon’s home opener. The song was booed instantly, and loudly. You can see for yourself via this video from MetsBlog’s Regis Courtemanche.

But fear not. The Mets are well aware that the majority of their fanbase does not endorse Astley’s selection and has decided to play each of the top-six vote-getters during the eighth inning of the team’s first six home games. The team will then select a permanent sing-a-long song based on the fan reaction in the stadium.

To be perfectly honest, the worst part about all of this is that Sweet Caroline is still one of the choices, and so potentially we could be stuck with this rip-off of a gimmick for the entire season. I have nothing against Neil Diamond, but I’d prefer to listen to Rick Astley - at least it’s original.

The other choices include Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer, The Monkees’ I’m a Believer, Billy Joel’s Movin’ Out, and The Foundations’ Build Me Up Buttercup.

Hat tip to Hot Foot for the image.