New York Nine

Well the suspense is over for Mets fans, their dump Shea Stadium has finally been closed and in its place they have this wonder of a baseball park, Citi Field, and what a stadium it is. I attended the Saturday pitchers duel, a game that went way too fast for my liking because I left the park wishing I had more time to explore and investigate all over this place, its truly a wonder. That said, I think it is flawed in some regards in that the makers succeed in making seeing a game at Citi Field a memorable experience with lots to do and see, but not as much emphasis on the game.


Sorry I didn't get pictures of it because its really a sight, perticularly the entrance of Citi Field above when you walk into the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. Now when I first heard of this, the baseball historian in me kind of wanted to vomit. I mean come on, last time I checked Jackie Robinson was never a Met guys, he was a Dodger, and he played in Brooklyn, not Queens. What about the Mets own history, is that not good enough? Indeed I had a problem with the whole idea of Citi Field when I heard of it taking its architectural cues from Ebbets Field because I thought it was kind of cheap that they were borrowing Dodger history and claiming it as their own. But when I got there I felt very differently about the whole design. Sure, Jackie's playing days were long over when the Mets started, but the Mets have embraced their mantle as the Protectors of the history of New York Baseball. The Dodgers and Giants are gone long ago, but they represent an important part of New York history and with Jackie Robinson cultural history, and the Mets and their designers are ensuring that this history is not forgotten by honoring it in a tasteful and memorable way. As most new york baseball fans will tell you new york city is a National League town, always has been, and the mets have stepped up to be the standard-bearer to that history. Adorned with pictures and quotes on the walls of Jackie and Branch Rickey the vistor is surrounded by this momentous event in American History while not being overwhelmed. Indeed, the vistor can appreciate the design and the homage, but it is not too in your face or preachy, its there, but you can easily just take the escaltor up to your seats without even noticing. In this regard I give the Mets high marks.


From here you make your way to your seat and on the way its hard to not be impressed by all the conessions readily available at every turn. For sure, for someone who loves eating like me this was fantastic, with plenty of areas to get your standard ball park food quickly and easily. The prices were about on par with what you'd expect with every park, overpriced, but nothing that you wouldn't expect. This was pretty good by itself, but that evidently was only the beginning. I asked one of the guys walking around who worked there (everyone who I spoke to was very helpful and friendly) and I made my way to the main attraction, the big attraction of a food court in center field. I've been to my share of baseball parks, but I had never seen a spread like this place. Fresh seafood, oven baked pizzas, barbeque joints, mexican food, a Shake Shack, this was like a mall food court on steroids. I made my way to Blue Smoke, a place that I had never heard of, but my friends who know the City better than me assured me this was an awesome barbeque place in New York and they weren't kidding. I got the pulled pork sandwich fries and a beer and this stuff was restuarant quality, and not so surprisingly with the restuaruant price of over 20 bucks, that hurt, but it was worth every penny. Overall, I thought the food was easily the best I've ever had a ballpark, but I had a big problem with the lines. Sure it was still one of the first games there, but it was a fucking disaster there, Blue Smoke had the shortest line there and I still spend a solid inning or so waiting in line, places like Shake Shack were twice as long. As much as I love good food, I'm there to watch a game, so if you're going to improve the quality you can't sacrifice speed, I'm paying a lot of money to sit there and watch the game, not stand in line.


Finally the park and actual watching of the game was excellent. I hear the seats in the top deck aren't quite as nice, but I had seats in the right field section in the lower bowl and it was enjoyable. The seats weren't exactly like sitting on my couch, sitting next to my friends who nearly as tall as me made it kind of hard to eat my 21 dollar meal, but I've been in a lot worse and the seats were comfortable enough. The sight lines were great making it very easy to see whats going on, and even if i couldn't there were flat screen TVs everywhere making it easy to what's going on or the stats. Probably the only thing I could really complain about, which I saw Peter King of SI had the same complaint, is the stadium is like one big ad, everywhere you look is another billboard, but when stadiums cost so much its the nature of the beast.


Overall, I really loved what they did with Citi Field, a dramatic improvement from Shea Stadium, but I wonder if it just too much. Of course, you're spending a lot of money and I felt like I got my money's worth more here as opposed to the Old Yankee Stadium or Shea because there was so many ammenities and whatnot, but at what point do the ammenities overshadow what you're really there for, baseball? Sure those places sucked, but it was all the more reason to sit my ass down and watch the game, they were places engineered for one reason, to watch a game. Citi Field, and I'm sure the New Yankee Stadium will be even worse, feel like a mall or something that happens to have a baseball field in the middle, in case you're interested in that stuff. Sure it wasn't the most interesting game, a complete pitchers duel, and its probably the first time going there for most people like me, but people were hardly sitting down, it was a constant wave of people getting up and sitting down, walking around doing whatever as if the game was hardly going on. Even I fell victim to that, spending most of the first five innings walking around or standing in lines, I looked up at the scoreboard and just was floored how much time had gone by, the game was pratically an afterthought. Of course it is the first week and people are interested in seeing what all the fuss is about, and probably as time goes on it won't be quite as chaotic, but I found it troubling. Regardless, I give the field high marks all around, the designers did a wonderful job and even though I can't say I'm a huge met fan I can defintely see myself going to a few more met games in the coming years with the spread they got there.