Tag Archives: mets

Baseball

Our House, in the Middle of 126th Street

workout_day.JPGMy first review of CitiField was inconclusive and ambivalent. But I made two trips back this weekend: once for an actual Mets game (well, not actually actual, but close enough after a very long winter), and once for a Workout Day, a fun event where plan holders can watch the team stretch and run and take BP (Scratchbomb Flashback!: I chronicled the Mets’ first ever Workout Day way back in 2006).

After this weekend, I still don’t feel comfortable making conclusive assessments about everything in CitiField. But I’m pretty sure I love it.

The first exhibition against the Red Sox, which I attended, was a much better test for how the stadium will feel during a real game. There were lots of Mets fans pumped to see a game, and there were enough fans of the the other team to approximate an in-season opposition.

So even though the weather wasn’t much better than during my first visit (worse, actually, thanks to a 1+ hour rain delay), the atmosphere was decidedly livelier. There was an energy to the place lacking during the college exhibition dress rehearsal. The Red Sox games were about as close to Game Conditions as we’ll get until Opening Day, and CitiField cleaned up well in this light.

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1999 Project

The 1999 Project: A “Humble” Introduction

mora_cedeno_rocker.jpgToday I unveil The 1999 Project. Not to be confused with the Manhattan Project, the Montauk Project, or–god forbid–the 9/12 Project.

In case you hadn’t peeked at a calendar lately, it’s the year 2009. That means it’s ten years since the year 1999. That may or may not mean much to you. To me, 1999 means a lot. It was the year I finally dove headfirst back into baseball.

I loved baseball as a kid, but drifted away from it in high school and most of college. I dipped my toe back in the water a few times in 1998. That was the year the Mets acquired Mike Piazza and Al Leiter, and the first year they seriously contended for a playoff spot in many a moon. It seemed a good year to reqacquaint myself.

It was also, unfortunately, the year where they lost their last five games–when even one win would’ve meant a three-way tie for the wild card–and finished one game out of the postseason picture. The newspapers, and many fans, called it a choke job, a collapse. Oh, if they only knew what a real collapse looked like…by having the definition drilled into their heads two years in a row…

But 1998 was almost worth it for the insane, monstrous glory and agony that was 1999. If any year of Mets baseball was going to bring you back to the fold, this was it. 1999 remains my favorite season.

I wasn’t born in 1969 or 1973. I wasn’t old enough to appreciate 1986. But in 1999, I was fresh out of college, on my own, entering the workplace, and rediscovering a team that made itself impossible to not like. The fact that they didn’t win the World Series, or even get to it, almost seems beside the point.

For a while, I thought 2006 would take the place of 1999 in my heart, but Yadier Molina, Adam Wainwright, and Guillermo Mota conspired to take it out of the running. 1999 still reigns supreme.

And Bobby Valentine remains my favorite Mets manager of all time. Probably the only true genius who ever helmed the team. He had one sort-of ace (Leiter) and one bona fide slugger (Piazza), and that was pretty much it. He built the 1999 Mets into a 97 win team with a great bullpen and solid defense (The Best Infield Ever), while dealing with fair-to-middling starting pitching and a completely anonymous outfield.

Several years later, once the 1999 Mets had scattered to the four winds, I made a concerted effort to get jerseys of all members of its vaunted infield. I only got halfway there: Robin Ventura and Edgardo Alfonzo (my favorite all-time Met). I can understand not being able to find a Rey Ordonez jersey, but no eBay love for Jon Olerud? That still shocks me.

So as I noted the passage of time this New Year’s, I said to myself, “Self, why don’t you do a retrospective of your favorite season?” Methought, with the assistance of Retrosheet.org and a few newspaper archives, I could reconstruct the season from beginning to end.

I’ve played around with this idea in my head for months. Seriously, for months. I weighed the pros and cons of this project endlessly. I considered the glory of success, the ignominy of failure. Because if I say I’m going to do this, I have to do it, for all 162 regular season games (technically, 163) and beyond.

What put me over the edge was my recent devouring of Faith and Fear in Flushing (which I promise to give a proper review very soon). Greg Prince’s breathless account of that year was enough to convince me that this project should be done–nay, must be done. Particularly his description of Game 6 of that year’s LCS as the best game he’d ever seen, even though the Mets lost it–and thus the series–on a bases-loaded walk.

(Pause here to bite your knuckle and curse the memory of Kenny Rogers.)

I will probably do one post a week, chronicling the games that were played during that 7-day period (I realize that the weeks probably won’t line up the same way, in Sunday-to-Saturday terms, but if I don’t mind that detail, neither should you). But I also reserve the right to concentrate a daily post on particularly awesome or heartbreaking games.

I also figure this will help me keep perspective and not worry too much about the state of the current Mets, which I otherwise would have great difficulty doing. I have certain thoughts about this year’s team that I’d rather keep close to my vest, having been burned by two years of…

Jesus, how can you even describe the last two years? It’s like the famous banner lofted by the original Sign Man at Shea after the conclusion of the ’69 Series: THERE ARE NO WORDS. No, there are not, but for all the wrong reasons.

Without further ado, let the pain begin!

Baseball

A Completely Compromised and Barely Informed Review of CitiField

citifield_front.JPGAs this title implies, what follows barely qualifies as a review of the Mets’ new ballpark, CitiField, aka TARP Memorial Grounds at Bernie Madoff Stadium, which I visited on Sunday for its first event: a college baseball game betwen St. John’s and Georgetown. There are several reasons for this.

The first was my not-very-smart notion to bring The Baby with me. In an ideal world, she can say she saw the first ever game that took place at this stadium, if she grows up to care about such trivial nonsense (and if she grows up to care about trivial nonsense, she is definitely my daughter).

But in the real world, she’s two-and-a-half years old, at a stage where her every whim must be catered to or a complete thermonuclear meltdown ensues (and sometimes occurs even when her every demand has been met). So The Wife and I spent much of our time trying to stave off the inevitable freakouts. This left little time to make detailed observations.

Second of all, the stadium was clearly not quite finished yet in many respects. For instance, several large tile spaces in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, which should have been filled with portraits of its namesake, were instead filled with slabs of sheetrock. Nearly all the concession stands were manned and serving customers–however, nearly all of them were either missing some of the juicier new food items promised to fans, or experiencing some kind of technical difficulties. I saw no fewer than three escalators out of service (I took this to be a subtle homage to Shea).

Finally, crummy weather depressed attendance to begin with, and most of the folks who showed up were clearly there to check out the new joint rather than see the actual game being played (myself included). So CitiField did not have the energy it would during a Mets game. An essential part of the fan experience is being around other rabid fans, high-five-ing complete strangers and second-guessing bullpen moves with them. In the absence of that atmosphere, it’s a stadium trip in name only.

For all these reasons, I can’t judge CitiField in any definitive way. I don’t think I could judge any ballpark unless I’ve been there at least twice, and under optimal conditions. But I did want to post some pics for the curious, and record my initial thoughts for posterity.

If I had to sum up the feeling of a Mets fan visiting CitiField for the first time, it’s akin to buying a brand new car. You got sold on all the new fancy features, but when you finally take delivery, you don’t know how to use half of them, and owner’s manual is no help, and this one light keeps blinking on the dashboard and you have no idea what it means. You figure that once you get used to the new car and learn how to use it better, you’ll love it, but for now you’re kind of nostalgic for the old beater you used to drive.

More pics and attempts at detailed analysis after the jump:

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