Fun article:
Baseball On The Radio: Ads Part Of The Game – Courant.com
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Inbox: Jeff Wilpon, Rainouts, Obstructed Views
Some great stuff in the mail today:
I posted some thoughts about whether or not baseball teams should just call games early (so people can go about their lives) instead of torturing fans. Is it not better to inconvenience 50 players than 30,000 paying customers?
DyHrdMET has left a new comment on your post “Would You Rather The New York Mets Just Not Play?“:
good question. this year, the Mets certainly won’t care for the fans. but wait ’till next year. when people stop going to games in the numbers that they were suckered into buying into ticket plans this season, maybe they’ll think differently about doing things for the fans.
myself, i was at Sunday’s game. i wrote about it during the 1st inning of the game i had a ticket to. I got there a shade after noon, just before the rain, got through the non-line at Blue Smoke, and moved under cover just before it started pouring. my friend’s little girl decided it was time to leave around 2pm, and i went with them, and i was back in NJ in plenty of time to see the entire game on TV. what do i get for it?
another time, maybe 20 years ago, maybe they would have postponed the game and played 2 on Monday. it was an option. they did have the window on Sunday when they did play and it was fine, but how do you handle 40,000 people on the concourses for 3 hours during the rain? there was no way i could have stayed walking around for that long, and not many seats under cover like at Shea to sit in to avoid standing (even the ones in the Upper Deck were cleared when the lightning started). i’m not gonna walk around sampling the cuisine or the clubs. even with Casey Stengel Plaza exposed behind the Promenade Club, it got lots of people stuck on one side of the concourse or the other. at least you could move all around Shea without getting wet (leaks aside)
Frank Nunziata has left a new comment on your post “Obstructed Views Citi Field Section 504“:
I have gone to three Met games this year and have had an obstructed view at two of them. In the “Pepsi Party Porch” I couldn’t see a large portion of right field. Last night, on the field level in section 138, row 16 (centerfield), I couldn’t see large portions of center field and right field and could not see the main scoreboard at all.
Also, whatever happened to Jeff Wilpon’s claim that all seats are pointed towards home plate? This is not the case at all.
I know the Mets are more proud of their food concessions than they are of anything else (as if offering decent food at a baseball game at exorbitant prices is a difficult or noble accomplishment), so I made sure to bring a turkey sandwich from a local deli with me.
I’ll tell you, not being able to see 2 of the outfielders from my seat last night annoyed me. I think I have a solution to the plexiglass problem (will post in a few days), but I won’t be able to solve problems like these.
jmp has left a new comment on your post “Jeff Wilpon’s Professional Baseball Career“:
Whether or not he played any games in the minors, the choice of college says a great deal about Jeff Wilpon.
By the time he was finishing high school, his father was already relatively wealthy and influential. If Jeff had a lick of smarts, he’d have gone to a better college than Palm Beach Community College. Hell, if his only goal was to play ball in school, there are better schools for that, and his father certainly could have used some influence to help him get into some of them. Of course, if he’d been that good a ball player, he would have gotten a leg up on getting into a school with a better baseball program.
So, he’s a not-so-smart guy who’s a not-exceptional ballplayer who’s now taking over a major piece of the family business, which happens to be a (roughly) billion dollar enterprise that includes the need to balance up front needs (fielding a competitive team and making enough money to pay them while attracting and satisfying fans), medium term needs (making sure there’s enough talent in the farm system to keep the team competitive), and long term needs (making sure my kids are won over as Mets fans for life). So far, he’s failing on all three…
Posted by jmp to The Mets Police at August 4, 2009 10:12 AM
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Life Without Yankees (Pictures)
WCBS has an excellent gallery of photos of Yankee Stadium.
I was driving up the Harlem River Drive last night and it looked really weird to see the new stadium lit up but the old stadium was dark – not lit at all, it was weird to look over as if the stadium wasn’t there.
I’m hoping I come into a few billion dollars today so I can buy the Yankees and move them back across the street. What a shame. Or maybe I’ll buy the Mets and move them to Los Angeles.
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Obstructed Views Citi Field Section 504
Seriously, this is how you lose fans for life. How can the Mets possibly sell tickets with this kind of view?
I don’t know what the solution is (I’m no engineer) but I can’t believe the stadium got built this way. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Here’s a letter I got from someone who spends good money on the team!
I‘m a double plan holder who bought an individual ticket for the August 1 game at Citifield. Section 504, row 1, seat 1, $23. The view was worse than I ever expected. I told the usher I couldn’t see from my seat. he told me to go the advance ticket window in the Promenade. The person at the window then told me i had to head to see someone in Customer Relations by the Rotunda. The game was on, so I just grabbed an open seat in 517 and moved four times to accomodate the true ticket holders. I left in disgust after the fifth, and I have another ticket in this seat for 9/4. Selling seats like these is FRAUD!
My question to David Howard: do you think this person will buy more tickets? You can fool all of us once.
Check out a video taken from section 503!
If you are new to Mets Police you will find plenty of obstructed views here.
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Would You Rather The New York Mets Just Not Play?
On Monday I write a column for Flushing University. This was this week’s column.
They got the game in yesterday. The question is, “Was that a good decision?”I think MLB needs to focus on the fans more than the schedule.Yes they got the game in, but after a two hour delay. If I have tickets for a Sunday morning, and there’s localized flooding and powerful thunderstorms around, I want the Mets to just call the game.I don’t want to do the whole “should we or shouldn’t we” dance. I don’t want to drive out to the park and then find out the game is canceled. I don’t want to stay home and find out they played. I just want to know the deal, as soon as possible.On Wednesday the Mets called the game at 7:13pm (for a scheduled 7:10pm start). Did they not know ealrier that they wouldn’t get the game in? Did “the window” suddenly close three minutes after scheduled game time? Did someone upstairs do some math along the lines of “well if 10,000 fans show up, and each spends $10, and 2000 of them pay to park…we make money on the night?” Maybe they do make money on the night, but it’s another straw on the camel’s back.I’m writing this around 6:15 on Sunday night. It’s the 9th inning. Figure you left the house at 11am, sat in the rain at the park for two hours, then caught a game, probably even left early. That’s no fun for anyone. Heading out to the park on Wednesday for the Mets to decide three minutes after game time that they aren’t going to play is no fun.What do you do when it rains? Do you “eat” the tickets? Fool on you. Do you head out to the park and sit in the rain? Fool on you.Just calls the games early. A doubleheader won’t kill anyone, and in 2010 the Mets are going to have the empty available seats, believe me.Maybe when the new stadium rolls around in 2069 someone will have heard of retractable domes. Maybe.
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