The Mets ushered in a new era in the history of their franchise when the gates were finally opened for the first regular season game at the new $ 800+ million dollar Citi –Field this week. The new Mets’ home is beautiful and has many of the modern amenities now found in the new “modern retro look stadium”. Wide open concourses, every concession from hot dogs, to sushi, to “five-star” restaurants. HD televisions are everywhere. Brand new bathrooms into which one may enter and use without fear of contracting an illness are now available.
To be sure the stadium is a huge upgrade and big difference from Shea Stadium. Ebbetts Field was used as a starting point to design the new digs. Citi-field is a place that Met fans can be proud of—that’s if they can afford a ticket a snack and maybe a souvenir. With an average cost of a family of four of almost $260, or an increase of over 3% from last year, one has to wonder how many families in an economic downfall will make such a commitment of their entertainment dollar. Sadly, even the home opener against San Diego was about 1000 short of a sell out. Opening day, in a new park, and not even a sell out? What does that say about the economic conditions and ticket prices?
I had an opportunity to be at Citi-Field for the first of two exhibition games versus the Red Sox.
A beautiful facility to be sure but there are many new features to the park that have this writer scratching his head.
Fans enter the park through the Jackie Robinson rotunda: a beautifully designed homage to the first African American to cross the color barrier in MLB. Pictures of Robinson adorn the walls and a huge “42” is on display in front of which many fans have their photo taken. I think remembering Robinson’s feat- as MLB has done by retiring his number throughout the majors - is a tribute which Robinson has obviously earned. Robinson’s achievement was truly remarkable and its impact on baseball and American culture cannot be ignored nor overstated. My question is: why would the Mets have the entrance of their new facility dedicated to a player who never played in a Met uniform? Where are the tributes to the likes of Gil Hodges, Tom Seaver, Tommy Agee, Darryl Strawberry, Doc Gooden and other Mets who actually contributed to World Series championships? The only tribute I saw to actual former Metropolitans was a series of banners hanging from the wall outside of the park to the right of the rotunda entrance, shown in the photo above.
The park has an inordinately high number of seats with “blind spots” or obstructed views of the playing field. One would think with the all the modern technology used such as CAD ( Computer Aid Design) to design new buildings, that each seat would have a view of the entire playing area. For the price a fan pays, shouldn’t the whole field be in view?
Another problem I have with the Stadium is that nothing really “brands” the park as the home of the Mets (except if you want to count the new HR apple and portion of the old score board which is located atop a concession stand in deep center field.)
All the seats are green. One sees orange and black on the outfield wall – the colors of the former NY and current SF baseball Giants. No-where does one see the colors of orange and blue- the Mets colors.
Nooks, crannies, and planned peculiarities of the playing area are now part of all new parks and Citi Field is no different. The right field area ( check out the video) where the field juts out and the wall rises at about a 40 degree angle goes straight then falls about 40 degrees as well as the color of an advertisement matching the color of the orange line trimming the top of the wall will make HR calls a challenge! There are also many small poles in that area which the ball can hit and carom in a million different ways. To me it’s too much “trickeration”. The right field second level harkens back to the old Tiger stadium where porch actually hangs over the field of play. A ball hitting the façade in that area can bounce off and back into play – it is not a HR.
I did not have the chance to buy any concessions as the lines for food were waaay too long. The five star restaurant looked like it had empty seats though. By the way, when did the American pastime go from $10 seats and a hot dog to $250 seats and five star restaurants?
Is Citi-field an upgrade over Shea? Of course – at a cost of over $800 million much of which is taxpayer dollars—it should be. Could it have been designed better with the average fan, the backbone of baseball in mind? Absolutely!
To that we say: "Pay ball"! Errrrr Play Ball!
-- Steve
No comments:
Post a Comment