Ultimate Baseball Road Trip (10 page)

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This East Side pub is our pick for those seeking a Mets bar in Manhattan. Hey, it doesn’t hurt that it has pictures of Ireland on its walls, but we won’t apologize for being a bit biased. Kevin is fully half-Irish and Josh’s wife is too. The crowd skews toward the yuppie end of the spectrum and it isn’t beyond the learned fans who sometimes engage in good-natured baseball arguments to invoke VORP or Zone Rating to support their theories.

With field dimensions that measure a distant 384 feet to the fence in left-center and an eye-popping 415 feet to right-center, Citi Field is certainly conducive to a National League style of play. In other words, balls don’t exactly fly out of this yard the way they do at many of the other newish parks, including the stadium in the Bronx. We like asymmetrical outfields in general, and we like the varying height of the outfield fence at Citi too. While Shea Stadium offered a continuous eight-foot fence all the way across, Citi’s fence climbs at an angle from eight to eighteen feet high in right, stands at eight in center, and climbs at another angle from twelve to fifteen feet in left. This effect certainly makes deep fly balls more interesting, though it compounds the
challenge that homer-seekers face in their search for the elusive Promised Land. We should mention that the foul poles are Mets orange, just as they were at Shea. Kevin, who’s generally open to new things, liked this. Josh, meanwhile, thought it was sacrilege to raise non-yellow poles at a ballpark.

Josh:
They might as well play with an orange ball.

Kevin:
I think Charlie O. Finley tried that back in the 1970s.

Inspired by the classy rotunda that welcomed fans to Ebbets Field decades ago, the Mets have created a similar rotunda at Citi Field and in so doing have embraced Ebbets and baseball icon Jackie Robinson—who played for the Dodgers—as their own forbears. A big blue No. 42 monument sits prominently in the rotunda, while pictures of Robinson posing with his wife, Rachel, and with Pee Wee Reese and other Dodgers hang high above. There are also quotes attributed to Robinson on the walls. Meanwhile, the virtues Robinson exhibited, such as courage, persistence, teamwork, and determination, are recalled by inspirational engravings in the marble flooring. These are taken from a children’s book titled
Jackie’s Nine: Jackie Robinson’s Values to Live By
, which was published by Robinson’s daughter Sharon Robinson in 2002. The etching about persistence reads, “Jackie and Brooklyn Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey shared a resolve to break down racial barriers and created opportunities for social change.” And the others offer similar summaries of how Robinson embodied each characteristic.

We’ll leave it to you to decide whether the Robinson Rotunda is out of place at the Mets home ballpark and would fit better at, say, Dodger Stadium. We will say this about it: It’s a beautiful entrance, especially when it’s lit up blue and orange at night. With its high ceilings and decorative light fixtures, it does much to turn what would otherwise be a functional space leading to the ballpark escalators and stairways into a grand and special part of a trip to Citi Field.

Atop the rotunda’s escalator, oversized baseball cards introduce visitors to the current members of the Mets. While we realize this is, in fact, a Topps advertisement, we have to admit it’s pretty cool. How many grown-up fans
didn’t
collect cards when they were kids? Practically none, right? And being reminded of the passion we once had for precious cardboard and stale gum put us both in the mood for a ballgame.

When Citi Field first opened, one knock on it was that its concourses were a bit drab. Another—as we’ve already mentioned—was that it went overboard to embrace the Mets’ Long Island precursors, the Brooklyn Dodgers, but did little to celebrate Mets history. To help address both tidbits of consumer feedback, the Mets installed oversized black-and-white banners of favorite Mets celebrating great moments in team history—like the World Series wins in 1969 and 1986—on the walkways.

Located on the first base side of the Robinson Rotunda, the Mets Museum is a memento-filled emporium that also includes a classy plaque gallery and some interactive kiosks. Admission is free to ticket holders before, during, and after games. You can even take pictures inside, so long as you kindly shut your flash.

We liked seeing the 1969 World Championship trophy, but the 1986 hardware—and there’s a lot of it—brought back bad memories for Josh. The endless loop video of the Mets comeback in Game Six seemed like overkill, as did the ball signed by both the Mets’ Mookie Wilson and Red Sox goat Bill Buckner. There’s even a bottle of Great Western Extra Dry Champagne from the Mets locker room after they beat the Red Sox. It’s displayed with a letter of authenticity from a clubhouse attendant who was on the spot. There’s more, too. A lot more. The only thing missing was Keith Hernandez’s jockstrap and we half-expect we would have found it, too, if we hadn’t turned away in disgust so soon.

We both liked the statue of Mr. Met and the plaques honoring favorite Mets like Tug McGraw, Cleon Jones, Gary Carter, Dwight Gooden, Strawberry, and others.

Another highlight is the extensive Mets timeline that consists of pictures, text, and artifacts behind glass. We learned a few things about Citi Field while studying this part of the Museum, such as that Tom Seaver threw out the first pitch before the first-ever game at Citi Field in 2009, and that Mike Piazza caught it.

In an adjoining room, game-worn jerseys (mostly from 1986) and other pieces of gear are displayed behind glass and are actually on sale, as are the pieces of an extensive (and kitschy) Mets crystal collection and autographed balls signed by the current members of the Mets.

Kevin:
I can’t believe anyone’s going to pay $180 for a Jason Bay ball.

Josh:
That’s almost as preposterous as the Mets paying Bay $16 million a year.

Kevin:
Hey, he’s a Gonzaga alum. Lay off.

Josh:
You Bulldogs are loyal, I’ll give you that.

Citi Field offers six different gear and memorabilia shops, including Nike, New Era, Touch by Alyssa Milano Ladies’ Boutique, and ’47 for Men stands. But the biggest store of them all is the Majestic Mets Team Store located beside the Museum & Hall of Fame to the first base side of the rotunda.

Kevin:
Aren’t you coming in?

Josh:
I think I’m going to wait right here.

Kevin:
Still moping about the ’86 Series, eh?

Josh:
I was twelve years old—not quite a man, but no longer a boy….

Kevin:
… and they broke your heart.

Josh:
You’ve heard this before?

Kevin:
Yeah, when we visited Shea together in 2003 and when we saw the Mets play the Phillies at the old Vet and when we saw the Mets play the Pirates at PNC, and when we were on the 7 Train this morning.

Josh:
Oh.

A stroll along the first-level concourse inevitably brings visitors seeking the center-field food court across the unique and delightful Shea Bridge, which runs above the bullpens in right-center. This looks like the type of steel bridge you’d find spanning a river, only smaller. Instead of driving over it, you walk across it, keeping an eye on the game all the while. At the foot of this ballpark adornment, a plaque bearing a picture of Shea Stadium reads: “Shea Bridge. William A. Shea, a prominent New York attorney, was the driving force in the effort to bring National League Baseball back to the city after the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants left for California
in 1957. Shea Stadium, home of the Mets from 1964 to 2008, was named in his honor. Shea was inducted into the Mets Hall of Fame in 1983 and the name Shea is honored alongside the Mets retired numbers on the outfield wall.”

We thought this was a nice aesthetic touch. The bridge is visible from most of the park. And New York City has no shortage of famous bridges. So it seemed fitting.

Kevin:
Looks kind of like the Hells Gate Bridge to me.

Josh:
I’m going to defer to your knowledge of NYC bridges and take your word for it.

Banners painted onto the outfield wall above the “384 feet” marker in left-center commemorate the championship seasons in team history. And to the left of these hang the four numbers retired by the Mets.

Interestingly, only one of the team’s retired numbers honors a Met for his playing performance—No. 41, which belonged to Seaver. No. 42 belonged to Dodgers great Jackie Robinson, of course. No. 37 belonged to Casey Stengel, who spent six seasons in right field for the Dodgers before decades later becoming the first Mets manager and guiding the team to a 175-404 record during his tenure. No. 14 belonged to Gil Hodges, who was a star with the Dodgers before spending the final two years of his playing career with the Mets. As Mets manager, Hodges then led the Miracle Mets to 1969 World Series glory.

Kevin:
So why did they retire Stengel’s number?

Josh:
He was an all-around good guy who won seven World Series as Yankee manager.

Kevin:
Well, that explains why the
Yankees
retired his number.

Every time a Mets player hits a homer, a big apple emerges triumphantly from behind the fence in center field. Unfortunately, the Mets haven’t hit too many long balls since Citi opened. And some players have complained that the ballpark’s spacious outfield dimensions and high fences are to blame for this. The Mets have humored the players by reducing the height of the center-field fence from sixteen feet at the time of the ballpark’s opening to its present eight feet. But that has had only a negligible effect on the number of long balls Citi surrenders. We were getting upset about the deep fences ourselves as our game at Citi played out. The seventh inning had arrived and the Mets hadn’t even come close to clearing the wall. And then, magically, as “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” played, the apple rose like a phoenix for all to see. Kevin cheered and Josh snapped pictures wildly. We’d seen what we had come to see and it didn’t even matter to us that the Mets went down one-two-three in the bottoms of the eighth and ninth. For the record, the apple is four times the size of the one that sits outside the park that used to serve a similar celebratory purpose at Shea.

The bullpens are adjacent to one another in right-center. Oddly, the pitchers throw toward the back of the outfield fence, rather than along it, as is traditionally the case with home run territory bullpens. We suppose this orientation leaves more space for the outfield seats on either side of the pens, but it looks weird. There’s nothing traditional about the Astroturf in the pens either.

When Citi Field originally opened, the pitchers did throw along the fence. The Mets’ pen was in front, along the wall, and the visitors’ pen was behind it. Mets opponents complained that their relievers had a severely obstructed view of the game, however, prompting the Mets to reconfigure the alignment to its present perpendicular form.

Kevin:
So the fans weren’t the only ones to complain about the obstructed views at Citi.

Josh:
It’s nice to know the relievers are paying attention out there. I’ve often wondered….

In this city where patriotism took on a deeper meaning after the events of 9/11, it seems fitting that American flags fly proudly atop the entire roof of the stadium. Josh started to count these, for the sake of providing a proper record in the book, but then decided it wasn’t worth missing the events down on the field for such a trivial pursuit. Rest assured, there are a lot of flags up there. Probably somewhere between thirty-five and forty.