Wednesday, April 29, 2009

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Guest Writer: Citi Field: Who’s Ballpark is it Anyway?

Anonymous

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Today we are pleased to welcome Jason Antos into the extended Mets Police force. Jason is a local history writer with a focus on Queens. In 2007, he authored Shea Stadium: Images of Baseball, part of the Images of America series. More recently Jason was interviewed by the Daily News about the lack of Mets history at Citi Field. Today he shares his thoughts with us on that subject.

Citi Field: Who’s Ballpark is it Anyway?
By Jason D. Antos

There are many milestones that mark a change in the course of a persons lifetime. For some it’s a first kiss or graduating from college. For others it could be landing that first important job, marriage or the birth of a first child. For me, I can honestly tell people the exact time, date, and place that marked a major change in my own life. The end of my youth.

I arrived early on that rainy and raw Wednesday morning, the 18 of February to say goodbye to an old and dying friend who was about to take it’s last breath. After entering the parking lot I was afraid that I had missed the final moment in the life of Shea Stadium. So much of it had been destroyed and it was hard to tell if anything was left. And then suddenly it was there, the final piece. A small crowd had gathered at the base of the last section consisting of walkway ramps that spiraled to nowhere and ended just above what was once section 5, located between home and first. Steel workers were cutting the final beams and Breeze Demolition had left their mark on the stadium by spray painting a farewell message in big orange lettering; BREEZE DEMOLITION - LET’S GO METS IN ‘09 - SHEA’S GOODBYE!

Struggling against the cold wind and rain, I trained my video camera on the place where the Beatles once played, Seaver pitched, the New Breed cheered, and Buckner’s play cost his team a victory and helped ours to a World Championship. At approximately 11:25am a siren blared out three sharp bursts and, as everyone’s cameras rolled and flashed, the rope was pulled and what had been reduced to a virtual house of cards collapsed in 10 seconds. And then it was over. Shea Stadium was gone forever, reduced to a mound of grayish blue ash and twisted steel.

I couldn’t help but notice the irony of it all. This area had been labeled in the 1930’s by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his famous work The Great Gatsby as “The Valley of Ashes”. Ceasing the opportunity, I followed the NY1 news team behind the protective wall and stood just feet away from the rubble. I recorded every minute I could get of the interview between the news crew and the men who pushed the button that erased the park which honored William A. Shea, from the face of the Earth. While looking through the cameras viewfinder all I could think about was Gatsby and his description of Flushing Meadows as a “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”.

Not able to bare anymore I left the site never to return until just a couple of weeks ago. This time it was to attended the first event at Citi Field, a game between St. John’s and Georgetown University. Like most of the 40,000 people who showed up that day, all I was interested in was touring the new ballpark at the cost of just five dollars a ticket. It was the cheapest tour I had ever paid for.

It turned out to be a surreal afternoon.

Now, whenever experiencing something new one must always keep an open mind. And to tell you the truth I tried. I really did. But I couldn’t help it. After the initial shock and excitement wore off, reality began to sink in. Where were the comforts of our past home? To me it did not feel like I was home. The stadium for all its modern attractions and features does not have an identity. Where are the team colors of blue and orange? The Manhattan skyline above the scoreboard? Where were the homemade signs? Where are the Mets insignias? And where the hell was Cow Bell Man!?

The outside of Citi Field is a monument to advertising. Several billboards offering everything from Pepsi to Atlantic City are displayed.

The major fault of Citi Field is that it is a homage to the borough of Brooklyn and to the Brooklyn Dodgers. The tribute to Jackie Robinson is one of the more tasteful things that have appeared in these new corporate dominated ballparks. However, that is offset by the overbearing presence of the Dodgers. The Ebbets Club Restaurant, The Ebbets Lounge, and also the replica of the Gowanus Canal Bridge in the outfield are in my opinion very inappropriate for a stadium located in Queens and the home of the New York Mets. These elements distract from the game and provide an improper atmosphere. Almost a half century of Met accomplishments has been completely ignored.

It was announced a few weeks ago that plaques will be installed in the parking lot marking where Shea once stood. The Wilpons however only want to mark the location of the bases and not where famous moments occurred. This is yet another bad move in a long series of bad decision making that doesn’t take the fans feelings into consideration. The Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field are remembered by a single plaque marking where home plate was located. However, a massive apartment housing complex takes up the area in both locations. Shea Stadium is now a parking lot with sprawling open space that the Mets and Wilpons are not making good use of. It seems that Citi Group wants to move on and forget Shea and keep all the attention focused on their new ode to corporate America.

So in the end, the responsibility of keeping the memory of Shea Stadium and its greatest moments alive falls on us....the fans. What was once called the “New Breed” is slowly fading away and the last generation must keep this history alive when we tell stories to our children and grand children. Unfortunately, we will now have to explain both the history of Shea Stadium and the history of the Brooklyn Dodgers at the same time. For those of us too young to remember Ebbets Field might find that all a bit too difficult.

You can find Jason's book on Shea at Amazon.

www.metspolice.com
@metspolice
5 Responses to "Guest Writer: Citi Field: Who’s Ballpark is it Anyway?"
Anonymous said :
April 29, 2009 at 8:56 AM
Not able to "bare anymore"? Really? Not even to take a bath?

Quality writing from whiners. That's what the #1 hater site attracts.
Anonymous said :
April 29, 2009 at 9:19 AM
And I'm not done yet. That bridge in the center field stands is the Hell Gate Bridge (which runs from Astoria to Manhattan), not the Gowanus Canal Bridge. Has the author even seen a picture of either bridge?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Gate_Bridge
vs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_Canal#Flushing_the_canal

And the Pepsi sign is a reference to the identical sign that has been lit up in Hunterspoint, Queens for years. Granted it's not Mets history but it is a Queens landmark of industry.

As for there being some overall sort of lack of Mets presence, how about the giant fucking apple in centerfield, or the orange stripe on the outfield wall (the only one allowed in the league)? Keep in mind that Shea had a green wall when it first went up and its blue and orange color scheme wasn't fluorescent until the awful early 80s.

The Wilpons realize there's plenty of time to put up Mets related memorabilia and you have to believe it will go up. Until then, how about these Mets work on creating some perennial players? I don't want to see a Mets HOF filled with the likes of Doug Flynn and George Stone, upstanding and nice guys though they may be. Even the Yankee Stadium monuments started with just a few, and they weren't installed with the stadium.
Anonymous said :
April 29, 2009 at 10:35 AM
And you can't even spell "Whose"? In a headline?

Amateurs.
Anonymous said :
April 30, 2009 at 11:18 PM
Happy to see Jason Antos writing for METS POLICE. Hope to see more books from this articulate young writer.
parking lot marking said :
August 23, 2009 at 12:40 PM
This is a really interesting one i loved reading it.

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