Looks like Jeff, Omar & Dave have fired everyone up. Comments had been both fewer and shorter for most of the September…but the readers are back and have a lot to say. You reading this in Flushing?
Glenn C has left a new comment on your post “Don’t Miss: Audio Of Francesca’s Wilpon/Minaya/Dav…“:
Cmon Shannon, It was reassuring to you to hear them say that? So you think thats the truth the same way that Dave Howard says there’s no sightline problems? Does anything these guys say change your opinions that they are inept at running their own affairs? Do I need to start a list? The Gooden autograph, Tony B, Omar’s press conference, Old Timers Day being a bad investment, the raised ticket prices, no Mets stuff in the stadium, no access for BP, the botched closing Shea ceremony, Ollie Perez contract, disastrous handling of injuries, weekend ticket plans,I could go on and on. What they say and do are two different things. They are businessmen and not baseball men so they will never make the correct baseball decision. It comes down to money and if they have a chance to bring in someone who draws at the gate they will do it over bringing in the right fit for their team.
It’s Day Two of the offseason so I remain hopeful. This could be a disaster if they go Eddie Murray/Willie Randolph shut-up the fans. I’d rather eat a crappy 2010 than finish 3rd pretending to be chasing the wild card in 2010-2013.
NY Cuban has left a new comment on your post “David Howard Needs To Look At These “Sightline Iss…“:
You know what, I almost could tolerate Jeff in the interview yesterday. Omar should be demoted to a scout somewhere where we never have to hear him talk again…but Dave Howard…DAVE HOWARD…he should be fired instantly. Really, I wish we could take him outside the rotunda and throw fanwalk bricks at him. What a pompous a-hole. He has no clue about BASEBALL. He admittedly never sat in Camden Yards, he didn’t take the teams make-up in designing the stadium, he didn’t take the fans into account when building site-lines…and his parting kick in the groin. Don’t worry kids, “being a Mets fan builds character.” ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! I don’t want character, I want championships, preferably in a stadium I can actually see the field from.
Jeff, you sound like a man who wants to make money somehow, so in turn you want to appease the fans (even if you don’t believe what you say)…so listen to the fans…FIRE DAVE HOWARD!!!
Francesca nailed him on that “being a Mets fan builds character” line. Finishing last will toughen you up when you’re old and dying in a hospital I guess. Or you can win the World Series.
It’s interesting that we have come to know David Howard’s name. You didn’t hear much about him before the new park.
Would it be the worst thing if they had regular focus groups with say some of the louder bloggers, or long term season ticket holders, rather than guessing. Jeff was surprised at the Dodger thing? Really?
You forgot to include one of the most egregious ones, which could only be solved with the proposal to move home plate towards the walls by 10 feet or so: The play by play announcers have no line of sight into either outfield corner from their booth behind home plate!
The Mets made a decision that they wanted as many fans as close to the field as possible, so there is exceedingly little foul territory down the lines leading into the corners. Well, if you put the front row just a foot or two from fair territory, and that front row is 3-5 feet above the field, the only way to have a view of what’s going on in that corner is to be on the opposite side of the ballpark.
Aside from the issue of railings and plexiglass, the other major sightline problem is the upper deck in left field. Again, this is because the Mets made the decision to have an upper deck in the outfield in the first place. If you’re designing a ballpark with an upper deck in the outfield, the only way to have a view of more or less the entire outfield from those seats is for that upper deck to sit behind the lower deck, not above it — and you’ll still lose the space right in front of the wall, but the only way around that is to elevate the field and use transparent walls, which is just silly, since you’d get a view of what’s going on at the edges of the field at the expense of seeing things in the middle of the field.
Part of it is just a marketing problem. No one complains that you can’t see the right field wall from the Pepsi Porch, because the whole gimmick of the Pepsi Porch is that the front rows overhang the field. A very strong argument could be made that the Mets would have been better off with a smaller upper deck in left, while adding more rows to the upper deck behind the plate where the sightlines are better. (I’ve found that the upper deck seats behind the plate present the best bang for the buck, giving a good view of the whole field for prices that are a hell of a lot closer to reasonable than much of the rest of the park.)
Imagine how differently we’d all be perceiving the sightlines if someone at the Mets ticketing and/or marketing departments decided that the left field seats should be marketed as sacrificing views of deep left in order to be closer to the plate, while toning down all of the talk about the ballpark having fantastic sightlines all around. Somewhere along the line this was a design decision — not good, not bad, but a decision that had to be made — that was lost somewhere along the way in favor of marketing that was designed around a set of design decisions that were different than the ones that were actually made…
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post “David Howard Needs To Look At These “Sightline Iss…“:
With Citi, the obvious omission was not only the seats in left, but what about the partial view seats down the left and right field line?
As for the dimensions, simple solution is moving home plate 8 feet to make center 400 feet, and get rid of the stupid Mo Zone.
In conclusion, designing a park for the current roster (and management) which will only play in the park for at most 5 years of the parks 40 year history is idiotic.
As for the building character statement, I say that but as a joke about the org — for mgmt to say that means they are incompetent.
Why build a roster for just 5 years? Always build your roster for your park. The Red Sox do it. The NYY’s do it. The Cardinals always did it in the 80’s. We also did fine without Keith hitting 35 HRs…power isn’t everything.
kjs has left a new comment on your post “David Howard Needs To Look At These “Sightline Iss…“:
Great post. Great suggestions, especially moving home plate up to improve sightlines and ensure the players don’t crack their skulls going after foul balls. (After all, skulls are important to human players, and even clueless invertibrates like Dave Howard should know that.) But the NY Mets are now the Assklown Organization of MLB, and after hearing the Three Stooges on FatDog’s show yesterday, I expect no rational changes to improve the sightlines until new ownership moves in. This is an ADD ownership that believes New York baseball is a shopping, wiffle ball, and eating experience.
TomG has left a new comment on your post “SI: Mets Likely To Give Backman A Minor League Job…“:
If this is true, and comes to fruition, it will be a great move. Wally was a great manager who had some bad breaks away from the diamond. From what I understand, his troubles with the Peanuts were overblown as well. It would be an odd bit of history repeating itself however, if Wally wound up managing the Bisons. Back when Jerry Manuel was the White Sox manager the manager at AAA, Wally Backman, was criticized for rooting against the White Sox so he could get Jerry’s job.
Perhaps Wally would be a good bench coach? With Lee Mazzilli at first? That would shut at least one loudmouth up.
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Regarding my comment, you are correct, you build your roster for your park, but i said is you do not build you park for your current roster. Even so, the dimensions stink.
That being said, the Sox park was built like that since it met the dimensions of the neighborhood and the cards played in a vast multipurpose stadium that needed turf.