Cool old photo of the Shea Stadium scoreboard in 1965

Some of us were chatting in the comments section about pre-renovated Shea.  The great site Forgotten New York has the picture below:

Check out a few things…the National League is listed on the left side.  In later years it was on the right.  I wonder why they flipped that?   Even Mets Police 1970 wouldn’t have complained about that.

I love the big text message board that was replaced by a Budweiser ad at some point.  It would take forever to put a message  up there, they had to do it one letter at a time, scrolling through each letter like you would on a video game back in the day.

Check out the “video screen” up top.  That was gone before my day.  I recall that being a clock in the late 70’s, and later a Mets logo.

Note the way the pitchers are logged.  The pitcher uniform number is not being displayed, but rather a code which you would then look up in a scorebook.  I recall being at some other stadium semi-recently and finding it interesting.  Philly maybe.

I don’t recall there being a message area on the bottom left of the scoreboard.   I know the light panels were replaced at some point after the 1980’s, but the design in the picture is the one I grew up with (well without the video screen).

I’m so tempted to go sarcastic about the message in the lower left but I will refrain.

Here’s another pic (in color) of the scoreboard. Thanks to Corey for the links.

I really should go dig and see if there are pictures of me as a kid at a Mets game, and I really need to tell the Seaver story – maybe when the site gets a little bigger.

I was thinking about the now-removed fanbrick.  When I do the 10th anniversary MetsPolice column in 2018, that photo’s gonna be a nice rarity isn’t it?