Mets Trip: Wrap Up
My trip to New York to visit family and see my first Mets game at Citi Filed is quickly coming to an end. It was great to go to the game with my brother and friends and see the Mets win, but the Citi Field experience was completely underwhelming. To be fair, I've only seen Major League Baseball games in Shea Stadium, the old Yankee Stadium, and Tropicana Field. So, I don't have a large sample set to compare with Citi Field. With that said, I was not impressed with Citi, and I really missed Shea Stadium.
Shea was not that old. It's a crime that a structure was torn down after only44 years. Unfortunately, the economics of baseball made it necessary for the Mets to build a new venue, but I wish Shea could have been preserved or renovated for soccer or some other purpose. Shea was ugly, and there is no denying it. It was a multi-purpose, function over form, 1960s era behemoth. The mets and New York City could have made vast improvements over the years to Shea, but I guess they were focused on a new stadium and did little to make it a nicer place to visit.
I should probably give Citi Field another chance and come back to see another game before passing final judgement. You see, I grew up with Shea, and my opinions about Citi Filed are undoubtedly colored by sentimentality and sadness. I lived on the Port Washington Long Island Railroad line that transported me directly from my home town to Shea. I remember the first time my dad brought me to a game. I was in this dark hallway that led to a dark tunnel under the stands, and when I came through the tunnel into the stands I saw blue sky, green grass, and an ocean of people and orange and blue seats. It was breathtaking. As I got older and went to more games, I was never as impressed with this scene as the first time, but the sight of Shea before a game always gave me pause. For me, baseball is big and brash, just what New York is supposed to be. Citi Field is small and quaint and would be right at home in a small market baseball town. That 'intimate' feel was what the Wilpons were trying to achieve when the had the stadium designed, but as I stated in a previous post, this stadium seems to have more to do with a team that left New York for L.A. over 60 years ago than it does with my Mets. Citi Field is more about manufactured nostalgia than about the modern day New York Mets.
Citi Field is new and clean. It has wider seats and some more leg room. It is an inoffensive building with little to no warmth or charm. Food and beverages are insanely overpriced, and three of the four concession stands were closed in our section on the day I saw the Mets beat the Braves. There were no beer vendors in our section, and just a couple of hot dog guys. Tickets prices are beyond ridiculous. On that day, I was in no mood to wander the stadium. I hear that the area behind the scoreboard is cool, and I should have explored a bit more; perhaps that would have given me a better impression of the facility. Next time I come for a visit I don't think the loss of Shea will affect me as much, and I'll be able to do a better job of fully appreciating Citi Field, but with ticket prices being what they are it may be a long time before I come back to the house that CitiGroup built.
