The Mets Police

METS TO OBSERVE THE 17^TH ANNIVERSARY OF SEPTEMBER 11 WITH PREGAME COMMEMORATION CEREMONY

FLUSHING, N.Y., September 10, 2018 – The New York Mets will conduct a commemorative pregame ceremony on Tuesday, September 11 to honor and remember those whose lives were affected or lost on that tragic day in 2001.

The Mets will recognize the day with a moment of silence and honor the brave first responders, the victims and their families. In addition, the team will honor thousands of city employees, New Yorkers and volunteers from around the country who worked tirelessly in the rescue and recovery effort.

During batting practice, Mets players will wear first responder caps of the five agencies that participated in the rescue and recovery efforts at Ground Zero: New York Police Department, Fire Department of New York, Port Authority Police Department, New York City Office of Emergency Management and the City of New York Department of Sanitation. Over 100 uniformed representatives of those agencies will participate in an on-field warning track salute prior to the game.

Players and coaches will be joined by first responders from the FDNY, NYPD and PAPD, all of whom have been personally affected by the September 11 attacks during the National Anthem, performed by NYPD police officer Makiah Brown. Colors for the game will be presented by the Port Authority Police Department Honor Guard. Boys and girls whose parents or grandparents have battled 9/11 related illnesses will then take the field with Mets players.

FDNY Commissioner Daniel Nigro will throw out Tuesday’s ceremonial first pitch. Nigro was among the thousands of firefighters at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and was appointed Chief of the department the following day. He was responsible for overseeing all rescue and recovery operations at Ground Zero and the beginning of the unprecedented rebuilding of the FDNY. The ceremonial catcher will be Mets Hall of Famer John Franco, who played a key role in the team helping New York City recover from the attacks.

Outside of the ballpark, the New York Mets will plant a Survivor Tree presented to the team and Answer the Call in honor of late Mets Hall of Famer Rusty Staub. Staub founded Answer the Call: The New York Police Fire Widows’ and Children’s Benefit Fund over 30 years ago and it has since grown to provide over $145 million to the families of fallen FDNY, NYPD and PAPD heroes killed in the line of duty. The survivor tree is a sapling grown from the branches of the Callery Pear tree recovered at Ground Zero in the months following the September 11 attacks.

The tribute will continue in-game with Tuesday’s Veteran of the Game, Peter Regan of Ladder Company 174 in Brooklyn. After seven years of service in the United States Marine Corps, Sergeant Regan followed in his late father’s footsteps, Firefighter Donald Regan of FDNY Rescue Company 3, who was killed in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11.

FDNY Firefighter Regina Wilson will sing God Bless America during the seventh-inning stretch to conclude the night’s remembrance ceremonies.

There are the caps the Mets will wear in game.

MLB will donate all of its royalties from the sales of the caps to the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Pentagon Memorial Fund and the Flight 93 National Memorial. (Via MLB.com)

SLACKISH REACTION:  Let me begin by saying I like when the Mets rain a game out early and don’t torture the fans with heading out there and/or sitting through a miserable night.  That said, I found last night’s rain out suspicious.  The forecast wasn’t that bad.  Did they run the numbers and realize it wasn’t worth turning on the lights and paying the part-timers vs. the amount of people they were expecting?  Back in my vendor days, granted 20 years ago, they were very very good at projecting actual attendance.

Welcome to the third straight deGrom Day!   JDG will pitch tonight.   He is not going to win the Cy Young Award but he has been awarded the Big Ed Walsh Award!

Scherzer is 17-6 with a 2.31 and 271 Ks.   He’s gonna get close to 20 wins and 300Ks.  I like Jake and all but you need to sop lying to yourselves that he is winning the Cy.  20 Wins in the late 2010s is like hitting 115 HRs in a season.

Here’s some ideas for a better version of Citi Field.

Nice job by the Mets!

Thank you @Mets Todd Frazier, Drew Gagnon, Steven Matz, Brandon Nimmo, Corey Oswalt & Paul Sewald for visiting #FDNY #Engine22 #Ladder13 and #Battalion10, continuing the tradition of visiting a firehouse around the anniversary of September 11 https://t.co/h5J6JRn8Ak #NeverForget pic.twitter.com/SZk0RqmGBf

— FDNY (@FDNY) September 10, 2018

Wow!

Tonight’s game vs. Miami has been postponed. The make-up game will be rescheduled as part of a single-admission doubleheader on Wednesday, September 12 at 4:10 p.m. https://t.co/7RbAn2TZ8G

— New York Mets (@Mets) September 10, 2018

And to think, they could have made 7000 people travel to Queens and at best have a miserable evening. Progress!

Hey guys, I like JDG as much as you do, but let me make this super simple…

Quoting MLB.com about the CYA:  “Named for the winningest pitcher in baseball history, the Cy Young Award is voted upon by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America prior to the beginning of the postseason.”

So there you go.

Now, we know JDG had a great season but he won’t be the WINNINGEST whether or not that makes you sad or you hate the stat.  Therefore, I have created the ED WALSH AWARD which will go to the pitcher with the grooviest ERA.

Big Ed has a career 1,816 ERA in 14 seasons. Thus we name the award after him.  The award will be issued by me every year when I remember to do it and need a blog post on a slow rainy day.

Congratulations to Jacob deGrom, winner of the 2018 Ed Walsh Award!

I come to you with a premise that the t-shirt people aren’t going to like.  Citi FIeld’s outfield sucks.

I know, right?

Yes I know there are 850 people who like to sit 550 feet from home plate and good on them, but Citi Field’s OF sucks.

Take a look at those OF seats in LF.  Never mind the ones upstairs where you can’t even see the LF, let’s focus on the lower bowl.

Look how set back those seats are.  Look how high they are above the wall.  Look how you have a deck hanging over some of the seats.

Now let’s look at Wrigley.  (This photo is from 2013 and the pre-renovated bleachers, although the new ones sit the same way).

 

 

Look how tight you are to the game.  As if you’re in a PARK not a mall that happens to have a baseball game in it.

Going around the horn – yeah the bridge is cool, but again look at all that space between the bridge and the fence?  What if we filled those with LOW seats where you could feel part of the action (maybe there is a batter’s eye concern).

As for the bullpens, maybe stick them where the whatever the Mo’s Zone is called now in RF.

Here’s another angle…what if we ripped out all that lower bowl and moved fans closer?  I will give you your choice of leaving the bullpen where they are and making seats lower to the fence where the Modell’s sign is – or putting the bullpen in RF and filling in under the bridge.

Then there’s the porch itself.  There probably was a good idea here, but that section feels like Citi Field Siberia.  It’s not easy to get to, and feels disconnected to everything else.  Maybe there is another approach to be had? Maybe more of a landing?   A bar/food/hangout plaza – especially for cold days when that’s one of the few places with sunshine.

Here’s Anaheim…

Then there is the scoreboard.  Honestly, it’s too much,  It’s too big, it adds to the feeling that I am at the mall, and it’s surrounded by too many ads.  I get that there is money to be mad, but it’s visually unappealing.

Here’s Wrigley’s relatively new scoreboard in RF.  What I like it about it is they matched the aesthetic of the park.  It is a video screen, but they didn’t go bananas and they keep the white on green.

In between innings that becomes a video board for commercials.

Overall, here’s the look of Wrigley from this summer, and remember we are talking outfield between the poles here, isn’t this a much better aesthetic than the walls of Citi?

Here’s Anaheim again – not as low as I’d like but still better than that trapped feeling of Citi

And the noise in Queens…

Which do you like better?   I vastly prefer the Wrigley PARK feel and not the visual noise of the Mets version, not to mention the seats are more set back.

What about the players?

“We don’t know why, but something is going on in this ballpark and the way we play here,” Roessler said at Citi Field recently. “We’re trying to find out. One thing I’ve heard is that the centerfielders will tell you sometimes they can feel the wind at their back, coming in from both sides of the [centerfield] scoreboard. But that’s just one anecdotal thing.” (via Sports Illustrated)

I know the Mets don’t give a hoot that I don’t like the outfield, but maybe if they see a baseball reason they might maybe re-visit it some day.