I was there: Mets vs. Phillies 8.23.09

I tried hard to sell these tickets – everything I tried fell through. I was running my first ever 10k race in the morning and really didn’t feel like rushing around. In the end, I did have to rush around, & left home an hour later than I normally do for a game. It was almost for the best – because we were there by 12:30 so we still got the giveaway AND they had just opened up the pre-paid lot to cash customers so I got “Princess Parking” right by the JRR. After a quick stop for some food, we were up at our seats just prior to the National Anthem. Great timing!

It was back to the “usual” seats for this one and there were no obnoxious Silles fans around me this time (thank goodness!). It was a crazy game though. Ollie! (Need I say more.) Pedro’s back in NY (with some crazy red uni on). Two three run HR’s in the first inning. The first ever inside the park HR at Citifield. (Thanks Vicky!) A disputed catch call – I watched Fast Forward at home, that catch was so obvious so I’m glad it was overturned. The Mets are rallying! They’re mounting a comeback! And then….it was over just like that. To be fair, they should’ve had two outs already before the unassisted triple play, but they didn’t and that triple play hurt.

In the “Call the Waaaahmbulance” front – someone is seriously messing around with us Mets fans. When I heard Frenchy torn a ligament in his thumb, my heart broke a little. Not necessarily for him but more for me and that fact that it seems like every single person on the team is getting hurt. Then Santana and Elbow-gate. Ugh. A lot of people are joking about how there is a curse on Citifield, and you know while I don’t necessarily agree with that, at the same time its very easy to believe it. The number of injuries is just staggering. Truly staggering.

What’s upcoming: Stay tuned some time next week for a full update on my Very Special Baseball Experience. Here’s a hint: it involves a member of the 1969 World Champion New York Mets!

I was there: Mets vs. Phillies 8.21.09

Every year there’s a bus trip or two to a Mets game at work. I was rather annoyed this year that all these people who just wanted to go to see the new stadium showed up and bought tickets that by the time I went over to buy my own (the same day they went on sale) they were already sold out! A lot of “regulars” on this trip (true Mets fans!) got shut out and we were all lamenting our sad fate.

Late Thursday afternoon I got an email telling me that one person cancelled, would I want the ticket. Well now, I’m not opposed to going “by myself” and I knew that I’d probably know some people on the bus anyway, and it was a David Wright logo-ed sports bag giveaway night, so I took the offer.

Friday found me on the bus heading off to Citifield. We passed through the darkest rain clouds I have ever seen. It turned late afternoon into night. Of course we had to sit through a rain delay, but I used that time to wander a bit. Even before I went into the stadium, I went and found the bases from Shea in the parking lot. No cars were there, so it was free & clear for walking and photos.

Since I was using someone else’s extra ticket, I got stuck in the middle of the row out in the Pepsi Porch. Someone else on the bus took my ticketed seat (boo) because up to the point where I was coming, it was the middle seat of 3 empty seats and of course he wanted his space. Now I was stuck between two guys who were total duds (not cheering or anything) and right behind 2 rows of the most obnoxious (and pretty trashy if I do say so myself) Sillies fans I’ve ever seen. Of course when the Sillies scored their first run, the comments from the group were all “YEAH WE’RE WINNING”. Well, only because WE haven’t had a chance to get up yet. The tone changed pretty quick when the Mets scored and most of them were pretty silent, except for one jerk. His commentary changed to “Well, we’re still in first place” and “Well you’ll never catch us” and “Well you’re still 14.5 games out”. I wanted to say something so bad, but I realized it was not worth wasting my time on him. However, a guy in our row (not with my group) didn’t think it was a waste of time and before you knew it, they were threatening fighting, the security guy was calling for backup and coming to yell at them, etc. etc.

It was at this point that I had to decide what to do. I really wanted to “experience” the game from the Pepsi Porch, but this was not the manner in which I wanted. After a quick trip up to the bathroom, my choices were either go stand and watch from the field level, or move down to Row 1 where there were 4 empty seats at the end of the row. I chose a seat in Row 1. Eventually the normal security guard came back from his break and I knew he knew I wasn’t supposed to be there so when he said to me “That’s a great view isn’t it?” I made sure to say “Yes, and it has the bonus of being much quieter and farther away from those Phillies fans”. He rolled his eyes and said “I know” and I knew I was good, especially since I was (1) by myself without an entourage and (2) not bothering anyone and (3) not sitting in anyone else’s seat. We had some chats every now and again, all good in the hood. Sitting in Row 1 was pretty good. I don’t know that I’d want to sit in the upper rows of the Porch, but I’d take Row 1, even if it meant that I’d miss some plays back by the wall. I still like the Big Apple seats better though….

Poor Frenchy got a bad “out” call when he was stealing second (I watched Fast Forward on Saturday – he totally was robbed that play wasn’t even close!). When he was coming back out to RF after that play, he was shaking his head the whole way. Aw.

The Sillies fans left at the middle of the 8th inning and all was right with the world again, meaning, it was so peaceful and quiet. I don’t mean that there wasn’t cheering and stuff, but some of them would just not shut up. Even sitting in Row 1 I could catch a conversation here or there and it was just annoying. The Metsies pulled out a win just in time to meet our “bus curfew” of 11:30 – our bus had to leave at that time and the game finished at ~11:20. And so, it was hooray for a Mets win.

I was there: Mets vs. Braves 8.18.09

This was one of those quintessential nights where I sit at the ballpark and say “This is why I love watching baseball”.

I was on a bus trip for “Polish Night” at Citifield. These ethnic nights are such a ploy for ticket sales, but hey, they gotta do what they gotta do. A half hour dance & song pre-game performance gets a bunch of people in the house – well that’s what we’ll do!

Our seats were out in the Big Apple section and I have to say I enjoyed these seats thoroughly. I totally forgot about bringing my better camera thinking it wasn’t going to do my any good, and I just brought my point and shoot, but I could’ve gotten some good pictures from that vantage point. D’oh! I liked these seats much better than my “usual” upper deck ones, that’s for sure. I don’t usually like the deep outfield “bleacher” type seating. My friends have had bleacher seats at Al-Yankzeera I and II for a few years now and whenever I’ve picked up one of their extra tickets, I was never impressed with the view. I think the Big Apple seats (at least in Row 10 where I was) are closer to the field than the Bleachers at Al-Yankzeera. So that helped. I would totally swap out my upper deck plan seats for seats here all the time in a heartbeat. Unfortunately that’s the designated “group area” (at least for this year) so that’s out.

The Mets were down quickly 4-0, but then the bottom of the 4th rolled around and it kept going and going and going. It was impressive. Even Ollie got in the act with a nice hit out to RF. Before we knew it, the Mets were up 8-4. I will admit that I was nervous about the Braves coming back – with this team, how can you not be!

I finally got to complete my Brooklyn Brewery Specialty Beer taste test of all 4 beers that the brew especially for Citifield. I waited on the ridiculously long Shake Shack line to finally get the Shackmeister Ale. I’d rate this one 2nd of the 4 offered. Good enough to drink, waaaay better than the awful beer that exists at the Box Frites. It doesn’t beat the Sabroso Ale from the Taqueria though. There’s just something about that beer that is darn good. Congratulations Sabroso Ale, you win the taste test.

Other random musings:
Frenchy’s country music for his at-bat songs make me laugh. It’s so out of place here in NY. The fact that country music is being played in a big stadium in NYC boggles my mind and I giggle every time.

I never noticed it before, but Ryan Church has some serious OCD out in the outfield. (I still love you though Churchy!) He was always bending over and fiddling with either his left pant leg or left shoelace, over and over again. Even my dad commented on it (“What’s he keep doing?”) He was pretty much right in front of us in CF so it was pretty distracting. (“He’s bending over again?”) 🙂

And so the Metsies pull out a good win.

But then “disaster” struck. The timeline:
(1) Game Ends
(2) I turn around to take a picture of the “Mets Win” sign on the scoreboard
(3) I feel about 4 drops of something on my left arm only
(4) I’m mad that some jerk is throwing around a beer/water/beverage and start looking for the culprit
(5) An announcement is made “A severe thunderstorm is in the area. Please everyone evacuate the seating area immediately
(6) Ushers run around yelling “Move move move!”
(7) It starts raining
(8) We get under the overhang out in LF/CF on the field level and look into the field and there is utter chaos – total downpour. The wind is blowing. It looks like a monsoon.
(9) Looking out to the parking lot, there are lightning bolts all over the sky
(10) A wind gust comes and knocks over two garbage cans full of garbage (they had to be pretty heavy, so you know the wind was strong
(11) We wait for the rain to subside a bit before running out to the bus

The timing of this storm was seriously impeccable. I’m sure the powers-that-be were sitting watching the radar thinking “come on come on, get this game over with!”

I was there: Mets vs. Diamondbacks 8.2.09

I know, I know, I’m horribly behind the times here (it’s a week + a day after the game), but that’s the way it goes!

This game was best summed up by one word: Rain. Despite the fact that when I checked the weather forecast at 9am and it said there was only a 20% chance of rain at 1pm and 2pm, then increasing to 50% at 3pm, it was pretty much the exact opposite. It started raining while we were eating our chicken mole tacos from the Taqueria at a table under the overhang, and continued until just before game start. My friend called the game starting at 4pm. I said 3:30. We split – the official start time was 3:45.

As my seats are conveniently under the overhang from the top of the stadium, we went up and sat and watched the rain fall. Then there was a lightning bolt across the sky and the sign out on the tv board changed to “Please make your way to a covered concourse for your safety”. They also made a verbal announcement. Despite all this, a lady about 3 rows in front of us took this moment to open an umbrella that had about a 3-4 inch metal spike on the top of it. We were debating if we were close enough for the fallout if she got hit by lightning, when they decided that they were going to move over a section to move further back under the overhang. Whew. We were safe.

This game was super poorly attended. It was great to have space all around us and no one sitting in the row in front of us so that we didn’t have to sit leaning forward the whole time to be able to see. That was about the only good part.

Of course, it was another loss, this time 5-2. While we were sitting during the rain delay, they were flashing a bunch of random trivia facts, and at that time the Mets record on Sundays was 5-10. Great thing I have the “Somewhat Sunday” plan because I only saw one of those 5 wins. The best day is Saturday when they are 11-5, so all the “Somewhat Saturday” planholders are actually getting a good deal!

Coming soon: I know I’m awful about updating, but definitely come back in September for some hopefully good stuff. I recently found out I won a contest that gives me an epic baseball experience that any baseball fan would love to be a part of. It is sounding like it is going to be a ton of fun!