With Shannon off for a few days, and Goon doing…..Goonish things….I took it upon myself to head out to CitiField yesterday to check out the 50 Years of Amazin’ Baseball show.
First off I want to make it clear that this was not something run or organized by the Mets but rather by MAB Celebrity Services which run card and autograph shows around the country. These guys are pros at doing this and all-in-all I thought the event was very well run and very organized.
The pros:
- The show was in the Caesar’s Club which was a good sized setting and lent a real air of “Metsiness” to the event
- The players were set up by the large windows (the ones above the rotunda) and player sessions were nicely staggered throughout the day so that it never got too crazy with too many players at a given time
- If you purchased an autograph, you were given a numbered ticket. Numbers were called in staggered groups so as to never really have long lines by each table (except that didn’t work for Seaver)
- Of course there was a memorabilia shop available and a silent auction with some very tempting items (I was almost wooed by a Joe Namath/Tom Seaver autographed picture)
- They did open up 1 concession stand so that people didn’t go hungry
- There were also some nice Q&A sessions with some of the players (I took a few videos which I will post soon)
Now the cons (and really, these are very small, nit-picking things)
- They ONLY opened up 1 concession stand and the line was longer than any I’ve seen at a game.
- There were no water fountains that were accessible. If you wanted water you had to buy a bottle
That’s it – it was a very good event
I got pictures of and/or with almost everyone who was at the show. The only one I could not get was Willie Mays. There was no picture taking of Willie. So on to some of the pictures I did take (and I apologize ahead of time that my sorry face is in most of these):
For this post, let’s start with the pre-86 Mets. I’ll post 86 and beyond Mets later today
Roll over the picture to see who it is and click on it for a bigger view.
Rumor has it that Willie Mays is a 245 year old vampire, therefore his image does not appear in photographs. His appearance at the show fell in line with Sandy Alderson’s new theory of “vampires or something”….
Where is the photo of my Youngblood jersey 🙂
Scott – it’s coming in a later posts on other things I saw yesterday. Focusing on players first
Any idea why they wouldn’t allow photos of Mr. Mays?
I don’t know if this is true or not but someone told me he has an eye condition that makes him extremely sensitive to flashes.
I can say that when I had a scratched cornea any camera flash would cause a lot of pain – have no idea if this is the case but it’s one thing I heard
Yeah, the flash/eye issue is why they weren’t allowing Mays photos. And in watching concerts, night games and the top of the Empire State Building on any given night, about 98% of camera/iPhone owners don’t know how to turn off their flashes.
As for the issues with calling the tickets for Seaver, I’ve seen it before at MAB events with Yogi Berra. I don’t know if it was just two fluke incidents or a general problem they have handling the flow with the most popular players or what. (I suspect there was no issue with Mays on account of his exorbitantly high price tag; though, despite that, I wavered back and forth before deciding against it.)