The HOF game stirred the emotionsin all of us. Â Here’s some good comments that came in…definitely worth clicking through if you’re on the main page (I didn’t want a super-long piece on the main page). Â I can’t wait to get home to process the photos.
Scott:
Those left field seats are obstructed view. I had them last year and they sucked…needless to say, I don’t own them again last year as the Mets felt I was wrong and they were right.
The Mets moved the true fans to the upper decks, or out of the stadium, and just like the Yankee Stadium, that causes a big change in the atmosphere at games. Your diehards are nowhere near the field, your corporations are.
The Mets went for the corporate push, starting with Citifield and here is your outcome. Business geniuses they ain’t (I mean, hey they did invest with Madoff, so that says about all you need to know about their business acumen).
Lisa:
Shannon, I agree about the crowd size. Heck, I could make it there with my Met fan blogging partner, and I’m a Yankee fan. But I wanted to see history (and former Mets – and Yankees – Darryl and Dwight)!
And you’re right. When fans don’t show up to things like this (the Mets drew, what, 2000 more than their average attendance for today), it’s really easy for the Mets to not want to spend the money and do such events again.
“Mets2010”:
fans aren’t going for a number of reaosns, and calling them out is your right but I disagree.
Maybe the place would have been filled if the Wilpons didn’t further alienate fans by tacking on worthless “plus†games to ticket plans
maybe the place would have been filled had the Mets not flooded the market with deep discounts and half off offers last year, basically insulting anyone who purcheased tickets ahead of time
Also, and this is out of the Mets control, I think many Mets fans see Doc and Darryl and think of what might have been. They drank, snorted, partied and overslept there way through NY, turning what should have been a dynasty into only 1 championship. They then go across town and the rings started coming again. Maybe they simply did not want to honor these two players, if I recall the team celebration drew a sellout to Shea
Ceetar:
One thing I want to add.
On a day both Davey and Gooden made light of how they felt about the 2-strike clapping thing, Mets fans were very lackluster in their enthusiasm. The scoreboard tried to get us to clap along at the appropriate time, but most were having none of it. (Granted, they should’ve put up a clip of Gooden clapping I guess..)
So go ahead and criticize the team for “not being in it†but the crowd wasn’t in to the team either. They’ve been pretty poor in general this season. Their seem to be more fans that would rather Perez come in and fail than to see Castillo come through in a big spot. (which he typically has as a Met, btw.) The crowd today was pathetic in that regard. Asleep while Niese was cruising, and then joyously angry when Oliver got in the game.
DyHrdMet:
I was there. $60 for a seat in the outfield which cannot see the scoreboards at all. Shea used to discount that. To me, it looked like 40,000 and not 35,014. But maybe I don’t know how to count the fans at Citi Field. I don’t think Citi Field is capable of housing any more that 35,000 with limited views and over-priced seats. There ceremony was good. I think the 2010 season ended during the game today. It’s over. The fans that were there showed their love for Mr. Cashen, Davey, Doc, and Darryl. Even though 1986 was the championship team, it’s about these 4 people who were the foundation for the teams of the 1980s. Rusty was part of that, and he’s in the Mets HOF, along with the others there. No Seaver. He, and some others in the Mets HOF, were not part of the Mets of the mid-late 1980s.
Sparks:
As the stories and stats have been reviewed over the course of the past week, the case for Straw’s number being retired becomes more obvious.
TWENTY YEARS after he last put on a Mets uniform, he’s STILL the team’s all-time leader in HRs, RBIs, runs, walks, and extra-base hits.
No, he’s not in THE HoF, and yes, he could’ve done so much more, but even the catcher who IS assumed to be bound for Cooperstown sits #2 to Strawberry in all of those categories as well as many of the derived stats such as adjusted OPS+, WAR, etc.
Retiring Gooden’s number is more debatable, but retiring Straw’s should be a no-brainer.
