Goodbye, Shea Stadium ...

Some folks like to get away,
Take a holiday from the neighborhood.
Hop a flight to Miami Beach or to Hollywood,
But I'm takin’ a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line.
I'm in a New York state of mind.

And so the lyrics of Billy Joel's "New York State of Mind" met my ears moments after the game between the New York Mets and the Seattle Mariners ended on Monday, July 23, 2008. As the song continued to play, I took a few moments to take in Shea Stadium and reflect on memories of trips to New York to see the Mets. This would, barring some dramatic surprise between now and October, be my last game seeing the Mets in Shea Stadium. The Mets are moving into Citi Field in 2009 and, at some point in the near future, Shea Stadium will be torn down.

I have written on this site about some of the changes through which my fan interests in sports franchises have changed throughout the years, particularly with my move to Arizona in the late 1990s. Still, I think, even when the Arizona Diamondbacks became my favorite team for awhile, I have remained, at least in part, a Mets fan since I developed an attachment to the team alongside my growing attachment to baseball in the early to mid-1980s. As I became a baseball fan in the early 1980s, I bounced around a bit: a couple years as a Los Angeles Dodger fan (in line with my uncle, who has been a Dodger fan since their days in Brooklyn), a year or so as a Milwaukee Brewers fan (mainly since my family took yearly trips to visit family in Milwaukee and always went to a Brewers game while we were in town), about a year and a half or two years as a Baltimore Orioles fan (again, because of family trips, this time after we visited my mother’s brother and sister in Baltimore and went to some games). Some of my grade school classmates saw me as a bandwagon fan, since I always seemed to be changing my loyalties to teams when they were having high levels of success (the Dodgers in 1981, the Brewers in 1982, the Orioles in 1983). I suppose the success these teams had at the time played a role, but it was, at least in part, coincidental. I happened to be making other personal connections at the same times as the teams met with their successes. Still, about 1984 or 1985, I hooked onto the Mets. Again, it corresponded with success, as the Mets moved from perennial cellar dwellers to division title contenders at the time; however, it was largely because I finally decided that I valued having a connection to my dad’s team. He had been a Mets fan since growing up in New York in the 1960s, after initially being a Brooklyn Dodger fan before they moved to Los Angeles when he was 7 seven years old following the 1957 season. I latched onto the Mets and they remained unchallenged as my team until the late 1990s/early 2000s, when I attached myself to the Diamondbacks.

So, when I found out that this would be the last season in Shea Stadium, I told my dad that we had to go. This past Monday was the day, as my dad, my mom, my wife, and I all went to the game. We stayed in Manhattan Sunday night, took in some sights in Manhattan Sunday night, went to Central Park during the day on Monday, and took the 7 Train to Flushing a few hours before the game. We saw the new stadium being built on our way in, we ate overly priced ballpark food, and we even ran into a family from, of all places, the Phoenix area, decked in Diamondbacks gear while in the midst of an East Coast family baseball trip that had taken them to Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Yankee Stadium and would take them on to see the Diamondbacks play in Boston.

We saw an exciting game. Monica (my wife) later said that she really enjoyed it and that she may have “caught the fever” of baseball at this game. I don’t think we’re alone in our assessment of the game. ESPN contributor Rob Neyer has expressed similar sentiments about the game. Johan Santana pitched well for the Mets, except for the second inning, when, after an error by third baseman David Wright allowed the inning to continue, Santana gave up four unearned runs on a grand slam home run with two outs to, of all people, Mariner pitcher Felix Hernandez. It was the first grand slam by an American League pitcher since 1971. For Hernandez’s part, he pitched an even better game, no-hitting the Mets for the first few innings, but he didn’t get the win. With two outs in the bottom of the fifth and two strikes on Ramon Castro, Carlos Beltran scampered for home plate from third on a wild pitch. Beltran scored, but in the process, ran into Hernandez’s ankle and Hernandez was unable to continue to pitch. Mariners relievers finished out the inning with only Beltran’s run scoring and held the Mets to that one lone run until the bottom of the ninth, when the Mets scored one run and had the tying run at the plate when Arthur Rhodes struck out Damion Easley to end the game.

In the end, I thought the game was emblematic of so much of being a Mets fan and following the Mets at Shea Stadium. The Mets can be incredibly exciting and they have had moments of, to borrow a word from their history, amazin’ success. I still smile as widely as I can when I watch the baseball go through Bill Buckner’s legs in Game 6 of the 1986 World Series (which, by the way, my parents attended at Shea Stadium) or Jesse Orosco throwing his glove in the air as the Mets won Game 7 that year to win the World Series against the Boston Red Sox. Robin Ventura’s grand slam, which turned into a single because he only made it to first base before getting mobbed by teammates, to win a game against the Atlanta Braves in the 1999 National League Championship Series ranks up there, too. I’m sure for older fans Ron Swoboda’s famous catch in the 1969 World Series and the last out of that series rank up there, too.

Meanwhile, though, the Mets could be incredibly bad. Their 40-120 record from their inaugural season in 1962 remains a modern record for losses. Just last season, they suffered the biggest collapse to miss the playoffs in major league history. In 1993, with one of the biggest payrolls in baseball, they finished with the worst record in the majors, even below expansion teams in Florida and Colorado. To this day, after more then 46 full seasons, they have yet to have a pitcher hurl a no-hitter. Perhaps some folks would lose interest in the team or, at the very least, be embarrassed by such things, but I’ve contended for awhile that part of the mark of a Mets fan is one’s attitude toward how bad the team could be. I take it as a point of pride that my team can be so damn crappy. In 2003, when the Detroit Tigers threatened to lose more than 120 games, I rooted for the Tigers to win as they ended the season with five victories in their last six games to finish at 119. In 2007, with my allegiance at a crossroads, as I felt myself drifting away from the Diamondbacks and back toward the Mets after my 2005 move back east from Arizona, I could have decided to give up on the Mets when they blew their lead over the Phillies and to stick to the Diamondbacks, who went to the National League Championship series. Instead, the Mets’ collapse only endeared the team to me even more.

My last game at Shea Stadium seems to fit with these associations that I have with being a Mets fan, including the hopefulness of the ninth inning that didn’t come to fruition; the craziness of the Mets ace, Johan Santana, giving up a grand slam on his first pitch to a pitcher who had not even swung a bat in a major league game in over a year; and the even more crazy moment of that pitcher, Felix Hernandez, who had pitched so well, leaving the game with an injury one strike from earning a victory.

Despite the fact that I momentarily considered denouncing the Mets and yelling at the asshole fans in the stadium who cheered when they realized Hernandez had been hurt, I’m quite happy to be a Mets fan and it sounds like Monica is starting to feel that as well. Her enjoyment of the game and new appreciation for baseball came despite the fact that the star pitcher of her fantasy league team is Santana, who gave up the grand slam and suffered the loss in the game.

Writing for MLB.com, Marty Noble began his article on the game, with particular reference to Felix Hernandez’s grand slam, as follows: “The plan sometimes is flawed. Other times, the execution is lacking. Instances exist, though, when the plan is well-conceived, its execution is proper and the results are quite acceptable. Then there are those instances when the implausible joins hands with the absurd, and they make a moment that convinces any skeptic that someone other than Commissioner Bud Selig is running the game.”

Noble’s characterization seems very close to another couple of lines from Billy Joel’s song—a couple of lines that also seem to fit my feelings as I say goodbye to Shea Stadium:

I don't have any reasons;
I left them all behind.
I'm in a New York state of mind.