Tag: shea stadium

Two Days Until Opening Day!

With all the new surrounding Santana, today’s countdown post is a mini version, just a look at this Shea Stadium panorama I took on Opening Day 2006 (with help from of Photoshop Elements).

Heading into the 2006 season, Marty Noble said “If the Mets are going to win a division championship, this is the year. No other team in the NL East seems as well-equipped and the club has been assembled with October in mind.”

Yahoo! Sports said “The New York Mets have good reason to be optimistic this season”

And a new advertisement on the outfield wall simply proclaimed we had “The Strength To Be There*”

 

*By the way, why am I just now realizing the parallel meltdowns of AIG and the economy and the Minaya-era Mets?

Four Days Until Opening Day!

Today’s Flashback – 2002

Monday, April 1, 2002 vs. Pittsburgh Pirates

Win, by score of 6-2, to go 1-0 on the season.

Opening Day 2002 was another start to a season where Mets fans had high hopes. Steve Phillips had made some bold transactions in the offseason.  We “stole” Roberto Alomar from the Indians in a trade that was wildly heralded as one-sided, even though we had given up can’t miss prospect Alex Escobar (remember him?).  Another once blue chip prospect Alex Ochoa was sent away in a three team trade that netted Jeromy Burnitz, also jettisoning Benny Agbayani, Todd Zeile, Glendon Rusch and Mike Piazza’s best buddy Lenny Harris.  And of course the big move, trading Kevin Appier for slugger Mo Vaughn, a player who had missed all of 2001 and was still owed $50MM. We even brought back Roger Cedeno!  In all, Steve Phillips brought in 13 new players and the team boasted a $95 million payroll.

53,734 fans were in attendance (then the largest opening day crowd in Shea Stadium history) to see the new team on a windy afternoon game that started at 3:12. It was a new post 9/11 world for us in attendance.  We were met by huge lines, slowed by new security procedures, to get into the stadium.  The Mets uniforms bore two special patches – one commemorating the team’s 40th anniversary, and one in memory of 9/11.   New mayor Mike Bloomberg threw out the first pitch and during the seventh-inning stretch, Art Garfunkel sang ”God Bless America.”

Al Leiter started the game for the Mets, and pitched very well, allowing 1 unearned run over six innings to get the win, as newcomer David Weathers threw two no-hit innings and Armando Benitez closed out the ninth.  Newcomer Mo Vaughn went 0-5 with two strikeouts (but it was the bat manufacturers fault?), but Roberto Alomar drove in two runs, as did Jay Payton, who hit a homerun.

Bobby Valentine’s Mets would go on to a 75-86 record, finishing last in the NL East.

Five Days Until Opening Day!

For today’s flashback, I have something a little different.  I already wrote a flashback post of memories of 2008 – the last Opening Day at Shea Stadium – but today I’ve uploaded a video from that date.

I took the 7 train to the game, and so you’ll see Shea Stadium show up between the treetops.  Getting off the old platform, we get a look at the under-construction Citi Field and a sense of the atmosphere around Shea.  We take a look inside the dark corridors of Shea (no Shake Shake there), and then a vision any of us can recall: emerging from the dark corridors to see the bright green landscaped grass of Shea Stadium.  I recorded the Opening Introductions (including a loud ovation for new Met Johan Santana), and finally a little bit of some game action.  Remember what “Lets Go Mets” sounded like at Shea?

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2EWkUSQCh0?list=UUOQuTSZOL07O9JSLo2IrucQ&w=560&h=315]

I have a friend with whom I’d been going to Mets Opening Day for I don’t even know how many years.  This year he called it quits on the streak.  I didn’t really try to twist his arm – I hoped he would go, but he just said he doesn’t feel connected to this Mets team, he doesn’t like ownership, and he still misses Shea.  Watching this video does make me nostalgic, but really it makes me nostalgic for my younger days.  By the time 2008 rolled around, Shea Stadium was past its days. There really is no denying it; I just wish the architects of Citi Field had remembered they were building a baseball stadium, and not a food court with a ballfield attached.