Subscribe to YFSF feed
I had the good fortune of being invited to Shea Stadium last night to watch the blundering Metropolitans stumble their way through an old-fashioned ass-kicking (thanks to good friend CS for the invite). More then ever these Mets clearly are suffering from having Willie Randolph as their skipper. Oh, wait....
More pictures after the jump.
David Wright, ambling about the parking lot tailgates before the game. Not nearly in as good shape as you would think. Also looks about 40 years old.
The old, the new, and the net.
The umps emerge, pre-game, await taking the field.
Richie Sexson is very tall. And yes, I like playing with depth-of-field. Also, we were sitting right behind home plate and the netting is a compositional issue.
It only took four innings but pretty quickly Jerry Manuel wanted out of Shea about as badly as the rest of us.
In the sixth inning we visited a friend on the third base line, but the Mets looked just as bad from there.
And last, a random artsy-fartsy pic of the netting and the centerfield adverts.
Less artsy, more fartsy.
Posted by: jose-yf | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 01:49 PM
I like that last one.
Posted by: A YF | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 02:04 PM
I wasn't listening to this game on the radio, since there was a game on channel 9. So I watched the Pirates beat the Yankees and read the Economist, but I turned on WFAN after that was over. The update came on and I heard the score of this game and my first thought was, 'Well, that was an interesting season, but glad that's over with now.'
Don't get me wrong, I'll still go to see the Mets as often as I can, maybe 5 or 6 more times, and I'll probably even enjoy doing so. But last night's game was the official end to the season, as far as I can tell. It's sort of a load off, to be honest. Maybe if I just let this one go now, the summer will be less angst-ridden and more fun from here on out. Here's hoping anyway.
However, I'm also now trying to make arrangements to visit Boston sometime this summer and use one of the Sox package tickets that are still under my name. So I'm hedging my bets, I guess.
Posted by: FenSheaParkway | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 02:12 PM
"Less artsy, more fartsy." HA!!
I've been to only one Mets game in Shea. It was in 2006 and Billy Wagner blew a save against the Cincinatti Reds. I loved every millisecond of it.
Now that is a h...i...d...e...o...u...s stadium. Under no circumstances does the color orange look good in a stadium or on a sports uniform. Sorry Tennessee and Hurricane fans.
Posted by: IronHorse (yf) | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 02:25 PM
Last night was a perfect example of the myth of the fired up manager getting tossed and inspiring his team. The Mets did what Manuel did when he stepped out to bitch: they checked out of the game. Manuel had no interest in sticking around.
I wonder if the Mets can pull it off and fire two managers this regular season?
Posted by: SF | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 03:04 PM
Shea is an awful, awful park. It has nothing of architectural significance, it is dreary, it has poor site lines, it has terrible pre-field spaces, and circulation paths that are frankly scary and intimidating. I don't know if the new park will be anything of interest (the outside looks like generic historicist bunk) but it can't be worse than Shea, which makes Yankee Stadium look like the Duomo.
Posted by: SF | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 03:14 PM
The perfect symbolism of Shea stadium is the view in center-right. First you have the God-awful paper-maché "home run apple" comnig out of a top hat. Then...urban wasteland. Parking lots with weeds growing up through cracks, deli sandwich wrappers blowing around, spray painted old buildings in the distance. Just absolutely terrible.
And then there is the orange.
Posted by: IronHorse (yf) | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 03:59 PM
The view in center-right is about the best thing at Shea, IH. You get the approaching airplanes, which I think is perhaps the most endearing thing about the park. It's actually neat, no joke. They also offer a welcome distraction from the starting pitching. And the defense. And the lack of clutch hitting.
Posted by: SF | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 05:38 PM
Shea is a dump, no question. Thankfully, I am a Mets fan but not a native New Yorker, so I don't have even a twinge of nostalgia about the place to make me regret it being torn down.
But all the hostility towards orange is very puzzling. Orange is a great color! It was the national color of Netherlands, representing the royal family, the House of Orange-Nassau. Now that's New York!
/tongue-in-cheek
Posted by: FenSheaParkway | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 05:44 PM
Nicely played FSP...I'll have to rethink my anti-orange crusade in deference to Dutch nobility.
Posted by: IronHorse (yf) | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 05:52 PM
Not just any Dutch nobility: Dutch nobility whose subjects populated and urbanized the city that the Mets now play in.
I'm at least halfway joking of course, but I do wonder what the inspiration for the orange in the NY Giants uniforms was.
Posted by: FenSheaParkway | Wednesday, June 25, 2008 at 06:04 PM