Can You Believe It? The Mariners' Final Game at Shea Stadium?

Yes, the wrecking ball will demolish many Mariner memories. Not really. The M's have played just two series at Shea. Though, after yesterday's blowout, they've outscored the Mets 38-6 in games at Shea.

I'm not going to bother to check, but I'd imagine it's the only park at which the M's have six times the runs as their host.

Since there aren't many Mariner memories at Shea (except Felix's homer! YAY!), so you're going to have to bear with mine.

I went to NYU (Class of '98! Boo-ya!) and then lived in NYC for five years after that. So I had occasion to hit Shea up many times.

My first game there was the Mets' '95 home opener, their first home game after the strike. I'd bought tickets for that game before the strike had ended, back when there was still the possibility of replacement players. Suffice it to say they were pretty good seats, to what ended up being a complete shit show. About six different times, fans ran onto the field, including two guys wearing t-shirts that said "Greed", who threw a bunch of slips of paper on the field which I later learned was actual money.

I soon learned how tough NY fans could be on their own players (that's not a stereotype, it's true). Once when John Franco came in to try to finish a game that his bullpen mates had nearly blown, two fans behind me speculated that Franco had told them to pitch badly "so he could get the save." Interesting.

Not sure if this is still true, but back then you could sit where you wanted if you greased the usher's hand with a little bribe. When he asked to see your tickets, you slipped him a twenty, and he'd put you in seats where (presumably) he knew no one else was using. A nice little system, one that was also in place across the street at Flushing Meadows for the U.S. Open.

(Speaking of the U.S. Open--you get off at the same subway stop for both, and it was fun to play a game on the 7 train on the way out "Tennis or Mets fan." It was a pretty easy game, actually.)



I'd adopted the Mets as my New York team, for obvious reasons. When they added local boy John Olerud, that cemented the bond. For some reason, when Olerud batted, the Mets played "Beast of Burden" by the Stones. I never figured that one out.

In '98, the Mets were in the thick of the pennant race with newly-acquired Mike Piazza and Bobby Valentine's six-man rotation, necessitated by a selection of pitchers that were either too old or too used to bullpen work to go deep into games every fifth day.

This is where I began to cultivate my deep and abiding love for Bobby Valentine, who I fervently hope will be the M's next manager. Valentine isn't afraid to do the unexpected, and that six-man rotation kept the Mets in a pennant race both in '98 and '99--resting arms for the September push.

Valentine also got the 2000 Mets to the World Series by having a sixth sense for getting the most out of his players. The Mets' outfield for that postseason was Timo Perez, Jay Payton, and Benny Agbayani. How he coaxed an NL championship from those guys is beyond me (though certainly Mike Piazza helped).

That year I had season tickets--down the leftfield line, in the second row. Best tickets I've ever had for anything, even though the $30/game ticket price stretched my budget to the breaking point. Past the breaking point, actually--that was the summer I was regularly putting groceries on my credit card...I was paying for those Mets tickets for years and years afterwards.

I saw my first and only World Series game that year, which, like the epic 1946 game seven, featured a pre-game appearance by The Baja Men.

During the 2000 postseason, the Mets installed two rows of "temporary" seats in front of the leftfield wall. The next year, those seats were still there--and the Mets raised ticket prices to $37/game. I cancelled and bought tickets to the A-Ball Brooklyn Cyclones on Coney Island--about which, thanks to the patronage of my friend and future USS Mariner founder Jason Michael Barker, I wrote my first published sports article.

After describing the very cheap Cyclones' ticket prices ($10 for the best seats, compared to $1600 for a Knicks' game courtside) typical pre-game meal (Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs) and view (the Atlantic Ocean) at the Cyclones' park, I seemed to have it in for Shea Stadium a bit: "You can't even get in to Shea Stadium for 10 bucks. Shea Stadium -- where the seats mostly point away from home plate, where the only pre-game dining spot within walking distance is the hot dog stand in the parking lot, and where the most compelling visual beyond the outfield fence is a giant U-HAUL rental center."

One Mets game I did attend in 2001 was one of the most memorable events of my life--the first baseball game in New York City after 9/11. It was VERY dusty that day at Shea, even as Liza Minnelli stumbled through her lipsync of "New York, New York." Lots of NYFD gear everywhere. Mike Piazza hit a two-run homer in the eighth to give the Mets the lead, and I don't think I've ever heard it louder, anywhere. We all needed that emotional release.