Master Index of Archived Threads


When Shea Became a Dump

Johnny Dickshot Feb 18 2007 09:21 PM

When did this really happen? I don't mean physically. I mean, when did the perception of Shea being "a dump" enter into the fan consciousness, and how has it become so ingrained that today you can talk baseball with the least sophisticated out-of-town fan you can find and still count on the one thing he knows about the Mets is that they play in a "dump"? It occurred to me tonight that such a rotten brand message, no matter how true, might not have penetrated so deeply if there were someone minding the brand store (not to mention paying attention to the physical plant). Then I thought about who might benefit were it true.

metirish Feb 18 2007 09:25 PM

When I first came here and talked to people about going to see a ballgame one of the first things I was told was that Shea is a dump....and you are right,it seems when people on TV talk about the Mets they mention that Shea is a dump....I remember Jon Stewart was at a game last season and Cotter asked him if he would miss Shea,Stewert said something like yeah it's a dump but it's my favorite stadium....

iramets Feb 18 2007 09:30 PM

I don't think it's happened yet. It's a fabulous stadium, a great place to watch a great game, and people who call it a dump can kiss my ass. I need a new stadium like Mr. Bayer needs another aspirin.

DocTee Feb 18 2007 09:38 PM

When the Jets left for NJ, they claimed Shea was a dump and that they needed a facility with modern amenities-- while it may not necessarily have been true at the time, conventional wisdom tells me that label stuck and can be traced to that period.

Edgy DC Feb 18 2007 09:45 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Feb 19 2007 07:36 AM

The Jets theory holds water. I'm not sure how much the Mets home crowd believed it at the time, perhaps not until 1996 when the Yanks took the crown and blahblah. It was a bad time for the Mets image, and they would have done well to address the equipment which started being "dumped" on the outside of the concourse while they were busy worrying about uniforms. How a stadium that opened with a regular joke about there always being a place to pee is going to close with a regular joke about there never being a place to pee, I can never figure right.

G-Fafif Feb 19 2007 12:41 AM

The fairest assessment I've ever read about Shea was in George Kalinsky's The New York Mets: A Photographic History, published in 1995, not a particularly fortuitous time to be a Mets fan. ]Empty, Shea Stadium isn't much to look at. Full, it's a vibrant, colorful, exciting place to be. Indeed, those words run alongside images of vibrant, colorful, exciting full Shea and, quite frankly, empty, not much to look at Shea. The pictures say at least a hundred words apiece. Taken a step further, it's full when the Mets are winning. And nothing succeeds like success. Other than physical factors like it didn't drain well and the winds were punishing (both addressed to certain degrees when renovations took hold) and the La Guardia landing strip situation (which I've either gotten used to or has been tamped down as part of a US Openish agreement I don't know about because I no longer notice the planes), I don't remember Shea being "dumped" on when the Mets were doing well. In the early '70s and the mid-'80s, Shea was the place to be, therefore Shea was fine. It was when the team went to hell that suddenly it was an easy step to look at the three-quarters empty shell and dismiss its possibilities when it's brimming to capacity. I don't remember the "dump" appellation, even the loving "...but it's our dump" rejoinder, coming along until fairly recently, like in this century. Reasons? 1) The inane YS comparison. YS '76 wasn't considered a palace or a jewel or even particularly old-timey until it was a brainless storyline to say Derek Jeter is standing in the same place as Joe DiMaggio, blah, blah, blah. It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. But success succeeds, making the current edifice holy, hallowed and historic and, by comparison (because as Mark Herrmann could tell you, nothing can stand on its own merits), Shea not that. Why, it's got orange seats and a top hat! How gauche! (Of course in the '60s, fun, colorful Shea stood as glorious counterpoint to rundown, depressing old Yankee Stadium.) In 1988's Wait Till Next Year, co-author and Yankee-leaning but reasonably Met-sympathetic William Goldman (the screenwriter) referred to Shea as antiseptic, something that's hard to believe now. It's many things, but even given its multipurpose beginnings, it's not what you'd immediately think of as sanitized for your protection. 2) The competition got tougher. As long as the Vet and its turf-encrusted cohort were on the scene, Shea's charms (or lack thereof) could fly under the radar. In a blink, no Vet, no Three Rivers, no Riverfront, no Candlestick, no Big O and so on. Shea wasn't old enough to be quaint. It was just old. My theory is the New York writers and broadcasters who travel the NL and liked the accommodations a lot elsewhere came to resent having to work in a place where the elevator didn't always rise to the occasion. I've only had glimpses inside the underbelly, but those, combined with the municipal concourses and the built-in lack of "amenities," are going to make Shea look worse next to the Phone Company Parks and such even as the Mets have done their best to spruce it up every season. 3) Younger media never experienced Shea as the antidote to the crumbling ballparks of yore. Shea was, when opened, a mega modern step up from the Polo Grounds to say nothing of Connie Mack Stadium and other ancient stops along the circuit. It probably didn't strike the beat writers of the '60s that they were in anything but the grandest of new stadia. 4) The bathrooms and the Jets didn't help.

ScarletKnight41 Feb 19 2007 06:33 AM

I think the recent spate of new stadiums has made Shea dumpier in comparison. After visiting the new baseball palaces, Shea pales in comparison. Greg mentioned the restrooms. If you're a woman, and/or if you're bringing small kids to a game, that becomes a bigger consideration. Aside from that, there always seem to be leaks, dark corridors, broken escalators, etc. Not that it isn't serviceable. But it's no showplace, nor has it been for many years.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 19 2007 06:44 AM

G-Fafif wrote: It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. I have to disagree with this. I've always understood that it was a different ballpark, and apparently you have too. But I've been hearing forever that Yankee Stadium was "renovated" and not "rebuilt." I remember when I was in college, from 1981 through 1985, arguing that the current stadium dates to 1976, not to 1923.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 19 2007 06:53 AM

I was kinda working on the theory that the spread of the "dump" virus was an inside job, expressed as Shea's physical inferiorities when compared to newer stadiums, while actually stemming from its financial ones from ownership's perspective. That's right. Jay Horwitz told you Shea was a dump.

SteveJRogers Feb 19 2007 06:54 AM

I think the overall surrounding areas also has something to do with it, the Chop City right across the street, nothing but Robert Moses' damned highways all round, ect. I think just the fact that non-Met fans love to make fun of the fact that Shea resides in a place called "Flushing" also adds to the general perception.

SteveJRogers Feb 19 2007 06:57 AM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I was kinda working on the theory that the spread of the "dump" virus was an inside job, expressed as Shea's physical inferiorities when compared to newer stadiums, while actually stemming from its financial ones from ownership's perspective. That's right. Jay Horwitz told you Shea was a dump. Well that defeats my "Flushing area" argument since even that domed contraption was to be built in Shea's parking lot. When also did the fact that Shea actually resides on the top of an old landfill actually become common (aside from buffs of how Queens was prior to the 1960's), because I do hear that mantra every now and then.

Frayed Knot Feb 19 2007 07:13 AM

The whole 'it's a dump because it sits on a dump' theory is more after the fact rationale than it was a reason for the conclusion in the first place.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 19 2007 07:28 AM

Might be part of the legend. What I want is the moment that the notion of "Shea is a dump" became inseparable from the notion of "Shea."

Edgy DC Feb 19 2007 07:52 AM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: ="G-Fafif"]It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. I have to disagree with this. I've always understood that it was a different ballpark, and apparently you have too. But I've been hearing forever that Yankee Stadium was "renovated" and not "rebuilt." I remember when I was in college, from 1981 through 1985, arguing that the current stadium dates to 1976, not to 1923. I went to a dumb college with a dumbo Yankee roommate, but yours had dumber people, I think. (But you're smarter than me, so take heart.) I don't remember anybody buying that "This is the house that Ruth built" crap until 1996. ="Johnny"]I was kinda working on the theory that the spread of the "dump" virus was an inside job, expressed as Shea's physical inferiorities when compared to newer stadiums, while actually stemming from its financial ones from ownership's perspective. That's right. Jay Horwitz told you Shea was a dump. I'm not so sure, but I certainly think there's a motivation there. Bitch about your digs, get the fans down on it, and get new ones. It worked in other cities. I sure think the Yankees played this card, and played it well, simultaneously propagandizing that fans were sitting in a majestic piece of history and a dangerous chunk of urban blight. That's easier to do with an 80-year-old edifice (even if it's not). I'm 50% sure that a thorough investigation of the "falling beam" incident at Yankee Stadium would show that the beam was tampered with and the orders came right from the top.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 19 2007 08:20 AM

Yup. From that little paperback I "won" from KC, published in spring of 64: ]People who watched workmen putting on the finishing touches on the Stadium agreeed that new concepts of design make it the most convenient, comfortable and attractive stadium on the Eastern Seaboard. Seating for 55,000 for baseball, with a planned future capacity of 85,000, is a triple-tiered edifice with 21 escalators and two elevators to speed the customers to anbd from their seats. The seats themselves are from an inch to an inch-and-a-half wider than in any older stadium in recognition of the broader American backside. Not a pillar or post obstructs the spectator's view from any seat in the stadium and 96% of all seats for baseball games are between the foul lines...

Frayed Knot Feb 19 2007 08:23 AM

"Not a pillar or post obstructs the spectator's view from any seat in the stadium" Only overhangs

Willets Point Feb 19 2007 10:59 AM

I remember in the 80's that Yankee Stadium was a dump in the common wisdom and the one thing that Yankees fans would concede to Mets fans is that we had a better stadium.

Edgy DC Feb 19 2007 11:13 AM

It would be pretty wickit if that was documented somwhere.

vtmet Feb 19 2007 11:18 AM

Willets Point wrote: I remember in the 80's that Yankee Stadium was a dump in the common wisdom and the one thing that Yankees fans would concede to Mets fans is that we had a better stadium. I think part of that changed when they made parking garage(s) next to Yankee Stadium and it became semi-safe to park there...I remember when I was a teenager driving there and there was absolutely no place to park...where we parked looked pretty seedy and nowhere near the stadium...the stadium was nice but getting there and leaving appeared dangerous...later on, we drove down after they had a parking garage right next to the stadium and even had signs telling you how to get on I-87 North, which took a bit of the "dump" image away, at least for upstaters...Shea hasn't had good parking in awhile, but at least it has better access to major artery roads to leave the city...hopefully in the long run they will fix the messed up parking situation...

Willets Point Feb 19 2007 11:29 AM

Edgy DC wrote: It would be pretty wickit if that was documented somwhere. Just my neurons sadly, but I do remember having the conversation.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 19 2007 11:37 AM

I was once able to convince a Yankees fan that Hubie Brooks was better than Graig Nettles, but that was never the common wisdom. You may be remembering one fan who liked Shea better than "The Stadium" but I'm sure most Yankee fans felt that they had the better ballpark, especially after 1976.

ScarletKnight41 Feb 19 2007 12:14 PM

Yankee Stadium IS a dump. Those narrow causeways are horrendous!

G-Fafif Feb 19 2007 12:44 PM

I wish I had saved my Baseball Digest collection from the '70s and '80s because whenever they printed lists of stadiums by age, YS was always noted as having opened in 1976. No asterisks, nothin'. Royals Stadium 1973; Yankee Stadium 1976; Olympic Stadium 1977 (along with Exhibition Stadium and the Kingdome, I suppose). It wasn't considered a bad thing. New was good. Yankee Stadium was new. Somewhere along the way it became more appealing for the perception of it to be old. The Mets have wanted a new ballpark for more than a decade but they've never completely run down their setting the way the White Sox did when they were seeking a replacement for Comiskey or, for that matter, Steinbrenner with that awful place and that awful neighborhood when he wanted Taj Mahal on the Hudson. Once Wilpon unveiled his model in 1998, it was certainly implied that Shea had to go. If management wanted a new stadium, something must be wrong with the old one. But they never told the fans you're taking your well-being into your hands if you show up at Shea (and no accompanying threat to move elsewhere). Though it wasn't as dramatic as that chunk of YS that fell on the MFY fan in '98, I had a few dabs of concrete drop into my lap from the upper deck when I was in the mezzanine in 1999. It wasn't bat day or anything, it just came off. I turned it into security/maintenance who helpfully told me "that's why we need a new stadium." Always regretted not keeping the souvenir.

KC Feb 19 2007 12:51 PM

I'm having trouble buying that "shea is a dump" being PR ploy. Sometime in the early 90's, when the team sucked, I became aware of sneakers sticking to bathroom floor and vomit in the stands from the night before not being re- moved, the whole team and place just sucked. Shea was a dump, and the team was in the dumper. That dump seemed less dumpy that night after 9/11, say, or during the 2000 playoffs, but it's still a dump and we didn't need Jay Horowitz to tell us that (straight out or out the the side of his mouth).

Edgy DC Feb 19 2007 01:11 PM

I guess it's somewhat worth saying: bad maintenance can happen in new stadia also. I don't remember if it was noted, but at the Police show, the upper deck was bouncing up and down with the revelers during "So Lonely" and eventually a pipe suspended underneath it burst and showered patrons in the lower level. With the mob psychology of concert-goers, we cheered the dubious-in-retrospect accomplishment of our sisters and brothers in the upper deck. I hope it wasn't a sewage pipe.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 19 2007 01:13 PM

There's only one thing seriously wrong with Shea that can't be easily fixed: the rear seats in the Loge and Mezzanine that are obstructed by the overhang. The other main problem is that at first and third base, even the front row seats are far from the action. Beyond that, if you're in some of the outfield seats you have to sit with your head turned for the entire game because the seat faces the outfield grass and not home plate. Plumbing can be fixed, though, and vomit can be mopped up. Restrooms could be improved and expanded. They found room to add a lot of retail selling space at Shea. I'm sure they can add restrooms as well. I wish that Shea was staying around. I'm not in favor of the new stadium. However, I suspect that if I was still living in New York and going to more than one or two games a year (at the most) I'd feel differently. At this point in my life when I go to Shea it's as much for nostalgia as for any other reason. Citi Field won't do that for me. In fact, I think that once they're in the new stadium I'll be less motivated to make the trip to Flushing. If I was still going 20 times a year, I'd probably be excited about the new place. I remember when I moved out of the house I grew up in, every time I went to visit my parents I felt like I was at home. Then my parents moved to a new place, and now when I visit them, their place is comfortable and familiar, but it's not home, and never will be, unless I inherit the place and decide to live there. Citi Field will be like my parents' new place, while Shea Stadium is the home I grew up in. Unless I move back to New York, Citi Field will never be my baseball park like Shea has been.

KC Feb 19 2007 01:41 PM

The upper reserve seats are obsolete. The whole upper deck sucks. Sometime back in one of these discussions I wondered aloud why the who upper deck couldn't just be removed and the stadium be expanded in other ways like towards the outfield. Don't mean to get away from Johnny's underlying question of when it happened, I'm saying it happened in the early 90's after glow of the late 80's was deader than discomania.

Frayed Knot Feb 19 2007 01:50 PM

"I'm having trouble buying that "shea is a dump" being PR ploy. Sometime in the early 90's, when the team sucked, I became aware of sneakers sticking to bathroom floor and vomit in the stands from the night before not being re-moved ..." Which, one could surmise, was a semi-deliberate attempt to plant the idea in patrons' heads that the place is a dump.

KC Feb 19 2007 02:00 PM

You know as well as anyone that I was never big on the Mets management conspiring to fool the fans. Whether it be building a team that is just good enough to appear like they're spending (but withholding just enough to be thrifty) or intentional poor bathroom maintenance ... sounds kinda paranoid to me ... Johnny Lunchbucket bilkin' flashbacks.

Frayed Knot Feb 19 2007 02:04 PM

I don't go in for many conspiracy theories either, but I do think an attitude can creep in where stadium brass starts to cut corners on things like cleaning and other types of preventative maintenance figuring that making the place shine as much as possible is, in a way, counter-productive to their long term aims.

Farmer Ted Feb 19 2007 02:41 PM

Legend has it Todd Pratt said in 2003 about Shea, "Yeah, it's a dump, but it's OUR dump."

KC Feb 19 2007 02:45 PM

Time's flyin' by ... it was longer ago than 2003.

Edgy DC Feb 19 2007 04:22 PM

Pratt was gone by late 2001. In 2003, his dump was the Vet. I think it became a dump when the HVAC guy started slacking off.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 19 2007 05:28 PM

I just referred to my collection of Sporting News Baseball Guides. In 1992 they switched to a new format, and started listing ballpark information. For Yankee Stadium, it says: First game played: April 18, 1923 (Yankees 4, Red Sox 1)

SteveJRogers Feb 19 2007 06:22 PM

Uncoincidentally enough, around that time the Yankees continued to commemorate the anniversaries of the "venerable old" ballpark with the 70th anniversary and a big 75th anniversary bash in 1998 that actually included a nifty 360 panoramic spin through the years video where a black and white of Yankee Stadium circa the 20's morphed into the Yankee Stadium circa the 90's.

metirish Feb 19 2007 06:54 PM

This is all very usefull information for me on YS,the next time a fool of a yankee fan annoys me about "historic" yankee stadium I'll put them in their place,of course a lot of these fans think the yankees were founded in 1996.

Gwreck Feb 19 2007 07:01 PM

="Yancy Street Gang"]I wish that Shea was staying around. I'm not in favor of the new stadium. However, I suspect that if I was still living in New York and going to more than one or two games a year (at the most) I'd feel differently. At this point in my life when I go to Shea it's as much for nostalgia as for any other reason. Citi Field won't do that for me. In fact, I think that once they're in the new stadium I'll be less motivated to make the trip to Flushing. If I was still going 20 times a year, I'd probably be excited about the new place. I'm not sure you would. I am someone who lives in NY and goes (more than) 20 times a year. I personally care far less about nostalgia than I do about economics but also am not excited about the new park. The seats at Shea might be far from the field, but I somehow doubt that I'll be able to sit anywhere closer at the new park than where our ticket plan puts us now at the price we pay.

SteveJRogers Feb 19 2007 07:33 PM

To be fair though, in their media guides they do make the distinction of attendance records for remolded Yankee Stadium and list Firsts and Lasts for "Old Yankee Stadium"

Nymr83 Feb 19 2007 10:31 PM

]Shea hasn't had good parking in awhile if you know where to park you are in and out in 5 minutes, try under the highway.

iramets Feb 20 2007 05:13 AM

I show up a few hours before BP and always get a spot outside BV's old restaurant, a block from the Grand Central. It seems the more important meme we're uncovering here is not so much the one that says that Shea's a dump, but the one that says that Mets' owners have treated their clientele with such gross (and needless) disrespect over the years that many fans have read cheapness, short-term profitability covered by doubletalk, cluelessness, long-term blindness, incompetence etc (you name it) into the baseball operations as well as the plant management issues-- not unreasonably, since the only thing they can absolutely know is that they sat in dried-up puke for three hours last Tuesday which a guy with a wet rag could have taken care of if management had felt it was worth paying him a nickel to swipe over the seat. If management prefers keeping those nickels in their jingly pockets, it's fair to extrapolate, as many Met fans do, that other unwise decisions are similiarly being justified by liars and spinners in the front office, though they can't prove that point so well. Puke doesn't lie.

Benjamin Grimm Feb 20 2007 06:14 AM

Definitely agree. You can certainly make more money by chasing fans away with piles of vomit than you can by selling them tickets, parking, hot dogs, and beer. It costs more to clean a mop than you'd get back in revenue from paying customers.

MFS62 Feb 20 2007 07:00 AM

I don't think the image of Shea as a "dump" was helped any by the old camera angles. The primary camera locations were behind home plate. From them (both the field level and upper deck cameras) the heavy industrial area beyond the outfield walls was pretty discernible. Later

silverdsl Feb 20 2007 07:20 AM

I don't think Shea is that bad. Nor is Yankee Stadium. They are what they are, which are stadiums that were built years ago and aren't as fancy as some of the newer stadiums. That said, there was the concrete falling incident at YS, and a number of years ago I was at Shea sitting under an overhang, when a rather large lightbulb fell and hit a woman in the head, then when it shattered glass went everywhere. That was kind of scary, but luckily there were no serious injuries. But ever since because I'm a nervous-nellie about stuff like that I've been known to look above me at both stadiums for things that look loose ever since.

Edgy DC Feb 20 2007 07:51 AM

MFS62 wrote: I don't think the image of Shea as a "dump" was helped any by the old camera angles. The primary camera locations were behind home plate. From them (both the field level and upper deck cameras) the heavy industrial area beyond the outfield walls was pretty discernible. Later Really? I don't think what is on camera is an issue at all.

MFS62 Feb 20 2007 07:59 AM

I'm just saying that to the occasional fan seeing Shea on tv, it didn't help. I also remember the shots from the roof camera behind home plate every once in a while that panned the neighborhood. Didn't exactly portray a pastoral setting. It may not have hurt. But I feel it didn't help. But since it can't be proven one way or another, chalk it up to opinion. Later

Johnny Dickshot Feb 20 2007 09:14 AM

iramets wrote: It seems the more important meme we're uncovering here is not so much the one that says that Shea's a dump, but the one that says that Mets' owners have treated their clientele with such gross (and needless) disrespect over the years that many fans have read cheapness, short-term profitability covered by doubletalk, cluelessness, long-term blindness, incompetence etc (you name it) into the baseball operations as well as the plant management issues-- not unreasonably, since the only thing they can absolutely know is that they sat in dried-up puke for three hours last Tuesday which a guy with a wet rag could have taken care of if management had felt it was worth paying him a nickel to swipe over the seat. If management prefers keeping those nickels in their jingly pockets, it's fair to extrapolate, as many Met fans do, that other unwise decisions are similiarly being justified by liars and spinners in the front office, though they can't prove that point so well. Puke doesn't lie. Well, I just see there being less to gain by intentionally shortchanging the fans on product (while spending the same $$!), whereas relaxing upkeep on the physical plant -- or my argument, sitting there with arms folded as the perception that the Stadium needed replacing virused its way across the sport -- would lead more directly to substantial benefits and enrichment. My question, now as always, is where's the benefit of spending $100 million and losing as opposed to spending $100 million and winning?

Vic Sage Feb 20 2007 09:19 AM

i remember sitting behind home plate in 1979. I had taken the train in from SUNY Stony Brook to catch an afternnoon game with my then-girlfriend, Debbie (she was a Phillies fan, and the Phils were in for a series). the Mets, as you'll recall, were in the 6th year of that cycle of suckitude and we were able to walk into the parking lot 1/2 hour before gametime and scalp seats right behind home plate for HALF price. So, we're sitting there with what seemed like a total attendance of 300 people, watching them lose again. Debbie had never been to Shea and, as she looked around, said "its not much, is it?" At first i got defensive but, as i looker around, i had to agree. "No", i said. "its pretty much a dump." That was 1979. My view of the stadium hasn't changed much since. Location: the stadium is located in a shithole area, surrounded by chop shops and highways, and under LaGuardia's airspace. Parking: The parking is spread out for miles; for a sold-out game you need to take a bus from distant lots to the LIRR platform which is still a hike from the stadium. After a game, trying to get back through the bottleneck of the single stairway up to the LIRR platform to cross over to the bus area is dangerous and frustrating. Exterior: Shea's symmetrical dimensions are dull. The corrugated orange and blue steel plates have been replaced by neon sculptures, but its still ugly. It lacks even the slightest hint of grace, or pastoral touches, or baseball history or nostalgia. Its not even ironically, post-modernistically hip. Seating: The seats are hard and narrow (unless you're sitting in the luxury field boxes behind the dugouts); many face in the wrong direction; rear loge and mezz have horriblely obstructed sightlines; the upper deck is in another time zone. Interior: A concrete bunker with ramps, it evokes a Soviet-style apartment complex-version of the guggenheim. It has no hub, no promenade, no open areas. It is dank, claustrophobic and ugly. Amenities: In yearly polls, Shea is consistently voted amongst the worst ballpark food and food value in the majors. The bathroom issues have been discussed, but standing in 2 inches of standing water (of unknown origin) while waiting online to pee is a situation that bears mention. There are no views of the game from the promenade areas or any restaurants. In fact, there are no sitdown restaurants available at all, unless you have season tix or box seats, and the "Diamond Club" isn't a gem to begin with. There are no activites or areas for kids (all of whom get bored at some point). "Fanfest" is a bad carny joke. The Mets "museum" is a trophy case in the Diamond Club lobby. Look, i've been to a bunch of ballparks in other cities... majors and minors. Some new, some old. And i've enjoyed every single one of them more than Shea. Every. Single. One. I'm not saying i've seen them all or even alot, but Shea pales in comparison, and becomes more pathetic with each passing year. Yes, i've had some amazing times there. But that was created by the team and the crowd, not by the stadium. I'm perfectly happy for them to build me a more compfortable, cozy, enjoyable ballpark to watch a game in. Memories are forever, but concrete crumbles.

Nymr83 Feb 20 2007 09:40 AM

]Seating: The seats are hard and narrow I've never found the seats to be too narrow, and i eem to recall reading that when Shea opened they were considered wider than other parks at the time. Maybe Americans are just getting too fat.

Edgy DC Feb 20 2007 10:08 AM

Location: Few stadia were the centerpieces of urban promenades in 1979. And in 1979, better to be in an unpopulated part of New York, as dozens of urban gangs were out trying to kill the Warriors. Parking: The huge lot was far more convenient than the old stadia nestled into neighborhods, and there weren't too many sold-out games to worry about in 1979. Exterior: The league in 1979 was filled with poured concrete buildings. Now it's filled with poured concrete with brink exteriors. That hardly distinguished it in 1979. The tiles were great. It was and is post-modern, or future modern, developed in conjunction with the World's Fair architecture. That that wasn't done ironically, I think, is better. Seating: It was conceived with extra-wide seats, and they were likely still wider than average in 1979. Interior: I'll give you dank and ugly, but I don't know where clustrophobic comes from. Ceilings on the concouse aren't cathedral arches, but neither are they scraping my head. Amenities: This isn't an architectual issue. Better bratworst can be fixed easily enough. What sucked about the Mets in 1979 was that they were 66-96 and run on an austere budget. I'm sure the Vet would have been no more pleaseant.had the Mets played there. Shea isn't the Ritz-Carlton, but we've built up a mythology about it.

Vic Sage Feb 20 2007 10:17 AM

]What sucked about the Mets in 1979 was that they were 66-96 and run on an austere budget. I'm sure the Vet would have been no more pleaseant.had the Mets played there. i agree. my preamble about 79 was not intended to be the source of my thoughts about shea. only to put a date (as JD asked) as to when i personally started thinking of the place as a dump. My list of shea shortcomings are thoughts that occur to me NOW, about Shea in its current situation (which shortcomings started accumulating as other stadia passed it over the last 10-20 or so years). Nothing you've said contradicts any of my observations, beyond saying they may not have been valid in 1979, which i concede. On the other hand the mythology of Shea exists in this thread, with so many of you investing this crap hole with emotional resonance that belongs only to the team and to your memory, both of which will continue on in a new home. They could blow the place up tomorrow and i'd smile.

Johnny Dickshot Feb 20 2007 10:20 AM

Screw ugly stadiums. Let's hear more about Debbie.

metirish Feb 20 2007 10:29 AM

Shea is historic,remember that on this very field some of the greats of the game played, Thurman Munson,Graig Nettles ,Lou Piniella and Catfish Hunter to name a few.

iramets Feb 20 2007 11:27 AM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: ="iramets"]It seems the more important meme we're uncovering here is not so much the one that says that Shea's a dump, but the one that says that Mets' owners have treated their clientele with such gross (and needless) disrespect over the years that many fans have read cheapness, short-term profitability covered by doubletalk, cluelessness, long-term blindness, incompetence etc (you name it) into the baseball operations as well as the plant management issues-- not unreasonably, since the only thing they can absolutely know is that they sat in dried-up puke for three hours last Tuesday which a guy with a wet rag could have taken care of if management had felt it was worth paying him a nickel to swipe over the seat. If management prefers keeping those nickels in their jingly pockets, it's fair to extrapolate, as many Met fans do, that other unwise decisions are similiarly being justified by liars and spinners in the front office, though they can't prove that point so well. Puke doesn't lie. Well, I just see there being less to gain by intentionally shortchanging the fans on product (while spending the same $$!), whereas relaxing upkeep on the physical plant -- or my argument, sitting there with arms folded as the perception that the Stadium needed replacing virused its way across the sport -- would lead more directly to substantial benefits and enrichment. My question, now as always, is where's the benefit of spending $100 million and losing as opposed to spending $100 million and winning? I didn't say it was beneficial. I didn't say it was smart, either. I characterized the disrespect as both "gross (and needless)." Can you blame a fan who thinks, "Hey, making me traipse through piss, blood and vomit every time I walk from point A to point B in this dump doesn't even save the Mets money, so whoever's deciding that saving money on keeping the floors mopped is probably the same person who's deciding to pay Vince Coleman millions to play LF. This whole organization, as best as I can tell, is fucked up."

G-Fafif Feb 20 2007 11:27 AM

On the day Derek Jeter was born, the Yankees hosted the Cleveland Indians at Shea Stadium and lost 3-2. But because he was born that day, June 26, 1974, Shea Stadium was actually Yankee Stadium and the spirits of Joe D and the Bambino merged with The Future Captain's and made the grounds sacrosanct. Bet it says that somewhere. Regarding the Pratt quote from 2001, it was uttered in advance of that year's home opener (following a foreboding sweep in Montreal): ]Anybody can say whatever about Shea -- I love it. When it's full and the fans are behind us, it's the best.

Vic Sage Feb 20 2007 12:12 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: Screw ugly stadiums. Let's hear more about Debbie. not on a public board, JD.