:: Life on Planet Dan-E ::
Thoughts, observations, and introspections from an
:: Sunday, July 04, 2004 ::
I really shouldn't be as impressed as I am but I just can't help it. This guy is my idol. I mean, i can wolf down a large meal as well as the next fat guy but... geez. I'm not worthy. Anyway, here's the next ballpark.
SHEA STADIUM in NEW YORK CITY
Thursday, June 24.
Like Fenway, I wasn't expecting much from Shea Stadium. Even less and as it turns out, I was right to, only not so much. Shea has been around 1964 and like Fenway, it shows its age but unlike Fenway its owners haven't done too much about it. Like many of the stadiums built back in the 60s such as the now-imploded Veteran’s Stadium, it was designed to be massive enough to see a mile away while housing not just baseball, but football and other sports. Like the Vet, it’s shaped like a huge bowl. Appropriate in this case since it’s located in Flushing.
Architecture:
Large, grandiose even... and a little bland. It looks impressive from a distance with the different tiers having their own color but it can’t compete with Dodger Stadium’s classic yellow-orange-blue-red arrangement.
Up close, it seems like one massive structure that architects raised just for the sake of putting something there. At least the relatively new blue paint on some of the outside panels give you the impression that Mets owners are actually trying. Within the panels are minimalist line drawing art of players in various action poses, which I thought were a nice touch.
Walk inside and you’re treated to more of the same: otherwise dull expanses of concrete with a blue trim on the posts, piping, and other places to try to liven things up a little. Walking around inside gives you the impression of walking around in a factory instead of a sports stadium. Part of this is because of the miles of ramps, the dark lighting (despite being a day game), and because the ushers and other employees don’t seem nearly as cheery as those at the other parks. You look around and you’d be hard pressed to blame them. On the plus side, the bathrooms weren’t nearly the stomach-churning hellhole that I heard they’d be.
It didn’t help that the grass lacked the typical checkerboard pattern that you’d find on other fields. Instead, there was an oddly spaced series of “V”-shaped marks pointing towards home that didn’t even line up properly. A rather half-hearted attempt at best.
Still, better than what I expected since, from what I was told, they cleaned it up quite a bit recently. ***
Ballpark Experience:
It wasn’t the quietest game with planes from the airport flying overhead every few minutes. Our seats were in the uppers tier, right behind home plate and we had an almost directly overhead view of the field. (And at $12, a little overpriced.) At least the game was pretty interesting. We were treated to a pretty good pitching duel between future Hall of Famer Tom Glavine vs. Cincinnati’s Cory Lidle. We anticipated maybe an historic moment beforehand in being able to see Ken Griffey Jr.’s 500th homerun but he already hit it a view days before. What he did first time up was an unexpected, and amusing, attempt at bunting down the third base line to thwart the Met’s infield shift.t
Funny moment came when Mets center fielder Mike Cameron dropped a routine fly ball in the sun and allowed two runs to score. Funny because Cameron is a two-time Gold Glover and you wouldn't expect something like that from him. Did I mention that he also stuck out three times? For a stadium that was less than helf capacity, the boos were quite loud. ****
Quality of the Food:
You hear about how New York City is home to some of the best hot dogs in the country and if that’s true, they didn’t make their way into Shea Stadium. Don’t get me wrong, they were fine but for $4.75 they should have been larger and grilled. Maybe the kosher dogs might have been better.
I also tried an Italian sausage that smelled good when I walked past the stand but it ended being, like so many things about Shea, a little bland. For $6 I should have been able to choose a spicy sausage and it also should have been a little larger. I left the game hungry.
Which brings me to my next point: this being New York, be prepared to pay a little extra if you show up hungry. Most items h, ere are anywhere from fifty cents to a dollar more than what you’d find elsewhere. It’s not bad, just pricey. ***
Beer Selection:
You know whenever someone in a movie orders a beer, all they say to the bartender is to give them a “beer?” It’s like that at Shea. And like the movies, it was yellow, slightly bubbly and drunk by people who just want something alcoholic. **
Intangibles:
Despite all of Shea’s shortcomings, there’s still something cool about watching a baseball game in New York City. The place was quite barren for our midweek day game but the people who were there, at least in our section, were cheerfully rowdy. The fans certainly knew the game and the heckles thrown down upon the visiting team reflected that. There was even a particularly diehard Mets fan who started chants of “Yankee’s suck!” Never a bad thing.
There isn’t much to do before or after the game once you’ve checked out the stadium and even that isn’t very interesting. Shea is enclosed in a labyrinth of streets and freeways and if not for our mapquest directions, we would have easily gotten lost coming and going. It does have a nice view of the Arthur Ashe (tennis) Stadium across the highway.
From what we experienced, it was clear that we came on the wrong day. One can only imagine just how fun it might be to see a game against the Yankees or the Atlanta Braves. But I can’t judge it on what might have been. And the best I can say about it is that it was better than I expected. ***1/2
:: Miscellaneous Ramblings by Dan-E at 11:26 PM [+] ::
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