HOW MR. SMILE SCORED HIS BRIDE
They ‘Mets’ on Insta
When he wasn’t sliding into home plate, he was sliding into her DMs.
Mets star shortstop Francisco Lindor — who wed Katia Reguero in December after a one-year engagement — first touched base with his bride through social media.
“I messaged her on Instagram. Her picture popped up and I was like, ‘This girl is beautiful!’ ” the 28-year-old Lindor — known as Mr. Smile — said with his signature grin during an exclusive interview with The Post at his locker in the Mets clubhouse ahead of his April 30 bobble gnome day at Citi Field.
“We talked for three months and then I met her in Arizona ’cause I was out there for spring training,” he added. “We just hung out and I was like, ‘I think she’s the One.’ At first, I was a little bit like, ‘Ahh, I don’t want to really commit,’ but I knew that she was the One.”
Reguero, 28, a fellow Puerto Rican native, balances her new husband’s athletic side with music. She’s an experienced violinist, Lindor said.
“She doesn’t do it like she was back in the day when she was doing four to five hours a day . . . we have the baby now, but she still does two hours whenever she gets the time,” he said.
And if their 1-year-old daughter, Kalina, wants to follow in her dad’s cleated footsteps, Lindor is all for it. “If she wants to play softball, I’ll be right there. I’d give her my advice, but somebody else would probably teach her,” he said.
The family (left) recently moved to Manhattan after Lindor inked a $341 million, 10-year deal with the Mets in 2021.
When asked the best and worst aspects of living in New York, Lindor — who named Rincon Criollo in Corona as one of his favorite restaurants in the Big Apple — said, “The best is the convenience to everything, at all times you can get something to eat.
“The worst part of living in New York is if you get stuck in traffic, you in traffic for a while.”
His bobble gnome will be given to the first 25,000 fans at Citi Field when the Mets take on the Phillies. “They showed it to me. Somehow, some way, they still managed to make me look like me,” he said. “It’s always cool whenever you get a bobblehead. It’s a piece of art that the fans are taking home . . . and my family will get a kick out of it.” He already knows where his will sit — in a sentimental location in his mother’s Florida home. “My mom has a memorabilia room in her house. That’s where everything usually goes, whether it be trophies, bobbleheads, pictures,” he said. Besides being immortalized in resin, Lindor wants to be remembered in another way. “As a winner. I just want to win,” he said.