Once in a Lifetime

I was blessed this year with the opportunity to attend the All-Star Game Home Run Derby at CitiField. A good friend of mine has connections throughout Major League Baseball and was able to hook me up with tickets. At first he offered me a pair of standing room only tickets but because of Papa Poop's advanced age I elected for a pair of seats. He warned me the seats would be high, but I graciously told him I was just going to be happy to be there. And I was. I was thrilled to be going, until I got to the parking gate.

$35 to park! An outrage! But I was too late to get a spot under the overpass, I didn't want to use Nails's trick and drive into downtown Flushing, so I paid my money and took my spot.

The first thing I discovered was a huge popup Modell's store in a tent in the parking lot. They really did a good job with merchandising, thinking of everything, including an All-Star Game case for your iPhone.

Of course they had All-Star game jerseys and t-shirt jerseys for the local players (Harvey, Wright, Cano, Rivera) and a few other stars (Harper, Cabrera, Davis and surprisingly, Domonic Brown).

I bought the Matt Harvey ($25) shir-zey and immediately changed into it.

On the way out of the store I saw Cecil Fielder signing autographs, but elected not to wait on the long line that was developing.

Eventually I took my seat in the 500 level, midway down the left field line and had a pretty good view of the entire field.

Because I wanted to get there early, I ended up sitting for a while, we saw some players take batting practice, but mostly nothing was going on, so by 7:55 we were anxious for the Derby to get started. But for some reason we had to listen to Pitbull perform. First he did "Don't Stop the Party" and then after 8:00 PM, when we were expecting to get started he performed "Feel This Moment," better known as the song with the "Take On Me" sample.

This is how his stage and pyrotechnics looked from my seat.

And he sounded even worse. It was as if his microphone wasn't hooked up to the speakers, couldn't hear the lyrics, just the pre-taped music they were pumping in.

Finally the Derby started and it was awesome. Sure, it would have been cool to be in the outfield with a chance to catch some homers, but our seats were actually pretty good. It seemed like every homer by a righty was flying right past us. We had a great view of each one of the bombs blasted by Yoenis Cespedes in his amazing first round performance.

I will admit that the Derby did drag on a little in the middle especially because it is a made-for-TV event and the commercial breaks were very long. Also adding to the lull, Cespedes had to hit in the second round (to raise money for charity) even though his first round total was higher than anyone else combined number.

Luckily they did have cool entertainment like a Home Run Derby between two top high school players. These kids were jacking bombs. And aided by their aluminum bats they were pulling more than the Major Leaguers with the wood, the kids were ripping shots high, and straight down the lines. They also had other diversions including Frisbee-catching dogs.

Other than the mid-Derby lull, and the parking fee, there was one more negative to the Derby (and not the heat, which actually wasn't much of a factor after 6pm), the in-stadium announcers, Mike (Greenberg) [corrected] and Mike (Golic). I agree that it's hard to say something interesting about 100+ home runs, but though I dislike their daily schtick, it was turned up even more for this event, with these two saying the dumbest cheesiest shit, including imploring the crowd to cheer at least three times during each player's round.

So we had a transcendent performance in round one, doldrums in round two and then a stirring finale. Bryce Harper put up a decent 8 in his turn then Cespedes blew right through, saving the best for last, with a monster shot to center to clinch the victory.

Though I doubt anything could top Cespedes's performance, I enjoyed the event so much I would gladly go again, even if I have to wait until I'm 85 for it to be back in CitiField.

First Visit to CitiField

It was a long time overdue but on June 20th, I finally made my first trip to CitiField which in itself was long overdue.

Long overdue is a phrase that could easily be used to describe CitiField itself.

After years of suffering in Shea Stadium Mets fans are finally able to go watch our team in a beautiful ballpark with character.

The first key monument is the Jackie Robinson Rotunda just inside the stadium's entrance. But before that, you have to traverse the CitiField fanwalk a huge collectrion of bricks inscribed with personal messages. Because the bricks were't outrageously expensive, we decided to buy one for Papa Poop one Hanukah, so we located that before we went inside.

One disadvantage of the Fanwalk, there are so many bricks you'll never find the one you're looking for if you don't know exactly where it is. But since the Mets weren't greedy and donated most of the proceeds to charity, that's a good thing.



Inside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda (reminiscent of Ebbets Field), is a huge number 42 which is cool to be photographed in front of.



One of the great things about CitiField is the access, you can walk around the lower bowl of the stadium and see the field the whole time. The centerfield bridge is a great attraction during or even before the game.




On the other side of the bridge is the much ballyhooed food court area. To be honest, I was a little disappointed, the Shake Shack, Blue Smoke and even the Taqueria provide a nice variety to the traditional ballpark food, but at each place the variety was actually limited. Not wanting to eat ribs at a ballgame or wait half an hour for a $10 hamburger, we instead opted for the hdiden jewel of CitiField, Box Frites. A decent-sized box of delicious fries for a reasonably priced $6. But the best part was the dipping sauce, we had smoky bacon. And it actually tasted like bacon.



While I'm discussing food I should mention that a few rows in front of us someone was eating french fries and topped them with so much ketchup we felt we had to take a picture.



I also had the boneless buffalo bites from Nathan's which were good, but a little dry. Mrs. Poop enjoyed the sausage, the stands for which are located everywhere, but also said it was good, but not great.

When it came time to sit in our seats and watch the game, the one flaw of CitiField was revealed. In an effort to bring the fans closer to the game, there are some awful sight lines. Because the stands are so close, the farther back you go in each the more of the field you cannot see. From our seats halfway up the upper level, any deep fly ball to left field completely left our line of sight. I can see why people have been complaining about this, but there really is no way to fix it. It will likely just drive up demand and cost for lower, closer seats.



Despite that flaw, I am in love with CitiField and can't wait to go back and explore the other areas I missed (the old apple) and taste the foods I didn't try (Mama's though I don't like their exotic sandwiches). I can't wait to take Chase to his first game there, and to spend the next 30 - 40 years at least attending games there.

But right now I sort of feel like a Pittsburgh Pirates fan, beautiful stadium, horrible team.

First Streaker at CitiField

The first streaker at Citi Field showed Mets fans how to get a major league wedgie Tuesday night.
The nearly-naked doofus dashed from the first-base seats and slid into second with "Let's Go Mets" painted on his back and wearing only a stuffed animal wrapped like a thong around the middle of his strike zone for modesty.
As security guards came after the 29-year-old Queens man and more than 39,000 fans whooped and hollered, he got up with a raspberry flourishing on his right buttock, adjusted his stuffed animal and ran into center field.
The performance ended badly when he fell and the guards dragged him away through a tunnel on the third-base side.
The Braves were leading 1-0 when the streaker, identified as Craig Coakley, made his appearance in the fifth inning, but the Mets won 4-3 in 10.
Coakley was charged with interfering with a sporting event and trespassing. He is expected to be arraigned this morning.



And there's even video of the CitiField streaker:
Note: someone shouts out the N-word so be careful playing this at work



As you can tell from the video this was clearly prearranged and well thought-out, the guy may not even have been drunk.