Saying Goodbye to Shea

I'm heading north this weekend to say goodbye to Shea Stadium with old friends Mike Crane, Alec Stais and Craig Henneberger. The demise of Shea coincides with the 30th anniversary of my graduation from high school. Waves of memories are moving across my brain like the wake from a speedboat.

Shea in the 1970s was a cold, gray, noisy, charmless and impersonal place to watch a baseball game, as if all the flaws of the multi-purpose stadium were rolled into one building. What's more, there was no neighborhood for the stadium to grace: It was built near the World's Fair grounds, a site selected more for its accessibility to highways than stores or bars. In fact, during one of the strikes, Shea's neighborhood was the least affected, because there was no neighboring area to affect.

The upgrades -- removing the sheet-metal acne, the big scoreboard -- were OK. And there were some laughable attempts to spice things up -- remember Mettle the Mets mule? But aside from the Serval Zipper sign, replaced by UHaul, and the sign guy, Shea lacked a personality. many of the stadiums built in the 1960s and 70s already are gone, with the exception of Dodger Stadium. Shea stadium is the one of the last, and definitely the least.

That said, I have many fond memories of Shea. I saw my first ballgame at Shea. My dad came home at noon from work -- I remember sitting on a chair on the front lawn waiting for him -- picked me up and took me to Shea. We sat long the first-base side. Seaver pitched. Seaver was great. He had such command, such stage presence -- and in 1969, he was at his best. He threw heat. The Mets were playing the Cardinals. The Mets won. I was hooked.

In the 1970s, Shea's accessibility from Garden City -- even if you did have to change trains both at Jamaica AND Woodside -- meant that I could go there with my friends. Shea remains a symbol of the independence my parents lent me in allowing me to travel there with the group -- independence that eventually expanded to include trips to Manhattan. On the train and in the stadium, we engaged in a rather odd form of male bonding. We even published a magazine to read on the way -- lots of it stolen from the Sporting News, to which we subscribed (this was when it was still good). On at least one occasion, we declared it to be "brother's day at Shea," and we brought along our younger siblings. On our trips home, we'd go down into the Jamaica train station to buy a knish at the hot dog stand. the Long Island Rail Road fare was half-price on Sundays, and with general admission tickets and some sort of nourishment, we rarely spent more than $10 or $15 apiece. So I guess you get what you pay for.

At Shea, we would walk up to the very back row of general admission, from which you could see the entire field. The players were very, very far away, but it gave you a bird's-eye-view of strategy. The games in early April were especially memorable -- one was bitterly cold, and we were reduced to buying hot dogs to keep warm. Another Sunday, some of the guys tried experimental french fries, which were no better than oily, friend, mashed foam. I remember Bret Watson shouting to passers-by, "Don't eat the fries!" A couple of the guys wrote to complain, and they got coupons and apologies. I don't think I ate the fries.

This was the era when the Mets slided from mediocre to really bad under Yogi Berra, Roy McMillan, Joe Frazier (who had managed Tidewater) and Joe Torre. The stadium rarely was full or even all that crowded. Rusty Staub was traded to the Tigers for Mickey Lolich. In his first game, a freezing Sunday game I went to, the first two Expos to bat bunted against him, and he couldn't field the balls. In the ultimate betrayal that haunts me to this day, Seaver was traded in 1977 to the Reds because he dared to ask for money commensurate with his future-Hall of Fame skills. Tug McGraw, Bud Harrelson, Jerry Koosman, Ed Kranepool, Felix Milan, John Stearns and John Matlack were the class of the Mets. But the team that went to the World Series in 1973 gradually disintegrated, and we ended up hoping that John Milner (this is the year of the Hammer), George "The Stork" Theodore and Roy Staiger would somehow pan out. They didn't. Players like Torre and George Foster, who were noted hitters, somehow became less-noted hitters when traded to the Mets. And then there was Dave Kingman, whose foul balls would drift as high up as we were sitting. He was a one-dimensional player, exciting to watch at bat for his occasional huge homers and his more than occasional wild strikeouts.

What Shea lacked in character was made up in part by the colorfulness of the fans who seemed to live in the upper decks. The three most recognizable were Fuzzy, Kess and Igor. Frankly, I always got Fuzzy and Igor confused, but Crane could tell the difference. Whenever The New York Times wanted a fan quote, the reporter would traipse up to the upper deck and interview Fuzzy, and referred to him only as Fuzzy. (That must have been some conversation with the editor.) Kess would shout insulting thing at the players, who OF COURSE COULD HEAR HIM. I'm sure some of my friends interacted with them, but I didn't, in part because they scared me a tad.

Of the games I remember clearly, most involved Seaver. There were two in 1977 -- one in which he was still a Met. It was a pitching masterpiece -- I believe it was a two-hitter. Then there was the one in which he returned to Shea as a Red. The stadium was almost filled. Chants of "Seaver!" filled it. It was a great homecoming. When Seaver left the game, however, the occasional chant of "Let's go, Mets!" started returning. The Mets lost, of course.

When I went away to college, my trips to Shea grew more and more infrequent. My family, including my mother (a rabid Met fan from 1973 onward) went to Met Medallion day in 1980. Yes, I still have my Medallion. The stadium was sun-soaked and almost full, and Steve Henderson, one of the guys who came in the Seaver trade, hit a three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth (his first homer of the season) to win the game. By then, the Mets had started to recover -- I think the team had Mookie Wilson by that time, perhaps the luckiest player in World Series history. I went to a few games now and then through the 1980s, and celebrated their World Series win in 1986, but later on I drifted away from following the Mets in the 1990s. I was living in Missouri, Kansas, Florida and Nevada; I had gotten married (to a Cardinals fan) and had kids.

In 2005, when my mother died, I decided I was going to start following the Mets again. They had exciting young players, particularly David Wright. Now they were just good enough to break my heart, which they did in 2006 (you could have swung and missed and everything would be forgiven, Carlos) and 2007 (no need to go into that). And now, I'm returning to Shea for the last time to see a team that desperately needs something (Ryan Church to get healthy). They will be playing the Dodgers, now led by Joe Torre on his return to New York. Shea will be no more intimate than it was in 1976. For intimacy, I can go to the AA ballparks in Alabama where the Birmingham Barons and the Montgomery Biscuits (the all-time worst sports team name) play. (The Montgomery stadium, built downtown in a former train station, is particularly fun.) Mets fan are far more unruly than they are in St. Louis or Phoenix, where I've also seen games. Shea's demise has been a long time coming, and one that needed to happen, but I'm happy I get to be there once more before it goes gentle into that good night.

More things that suck/don't suck, 1978-2008

Things that don't suck:

A Prairie Home Companion
The Joshua Tree
Bono
Internet Movie Database
Facebook
Heifer International
Saturday Night Live about half the time
Best Week Ever/The Soup
South Beach
Amazon.com
Philip Glass
Honda Accords
History Channel

Things that suck:

Challenger shuttle disaster
Columbia shuttle disaster
Arthur 2: On the Rocks
National Lampoon's just about everything (a matter of taste, I know)
The fact that New Orleans still looks like a war zone three years after Katrina
Malls

Things that I thought would suck but didn't turn out to suck as much as I thought they'd suck:

Independence Day
Nevada
Reagan

Role reversal

When you're a kid, you love to get taken places by your parents -- like when my dad took me to my first Mets game (1968) and my first Broadway musical (1970), or when my mom took me to see "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Now, I get to take both my kids AND my dad to things. Just this year, since we moved to Alabama, I was able to take my dad to the opera ("Cold Sassy Tree" at the Atlanta Opera), the Tuscaloosa Symphony and my middle daughter's dance performances. This summer, I'm going to try to take my dad to a Braves game, and maybe this fall a Falcons game, as getting tickets should be pretty easy. This is sweet payback.

Ways 2008 is like 1978: Volume 1

The New York Mets

Gee willickers -- the Mets are in fourth place and below .500. The 1978 Mets, one of the worst teams in franchise history (and that's saying something), was below .500. Of course, the payroll was nowhere near as big, and there's no Lenny Randle. I'm hoping the May 31 game will not be rained out, as I'm going. Still, this team does take me back to the late 1970s.

Things that don't suck, 1978-2008

Things from the last 30 years that don’t suck:
World Wide Web
Lord of the Rings
E-mail
Pixar
Interviewing celebrities
Weddings
Blogs
Fall of communism
X-Files
Cal Ripken Jr.
Personal computers
Lemony Snicket
Spellcheck
Indiana Jones'
Children
Kronos Quartet
Asian Tiger economies
Babette’s Feast
End of apartheid
So
West Wing
Bill Buckner’s glove (Mets fans only)
Yankees
Getting rid of dictators in Argentia, South Korea, Chile, Philippines and other places
R.E.M.
Talking Heads
Dogs
Euros
Even-numbered Star Trek movies
NY Giants
The Corrections
Peace in Northern Ireland
August Wilson
Galaxy Quest
Some of the 1980s
Most of the 1990s
Graceland album
College
Harry Potter
Schindler’s List
Joe Montana
Barack Obama
Anthony Hopkins (in just about everything except “Freejack”)
Sondheim
Agricultural revolution
Spalding Gray monologs
Buckaroo Banzai

Things that suck, 1978-2008

In honor of my 30th high school reunion, I'm going to start blogging about the past 30 years, that is life from 1978 to the present. So to get things started, I made a list of things in the past 30 years that suck. This list will be expanded:

9/11
Iraq
Iran
Iran-Contra
Islamofascism
Jonestown
Olympic boycotts
Putin
Bill Buckner’s glove (Red Sox fans only)
Deaths of family members
Most movies and TV shows
Natural disasters
Reality TV
Arafat
Mets (most years, including the Collapse)
Jets (all years)
Global warming
Divorces
W
Tibet
Death of newspapers
Steroids
Crack
Meth
Speedballs
Dot-com bubble
Housing bubble
Times Square pre-Disney
Times Square post-Disney
Deaths of friends
Infomercials
Hair bands
Rwanda
Star Wars I, II and III
Hardee’s getting taken over by Carl’s Jr.
Bosnia
Garden City property taxes
Kims (father and son)
Self-destructive celebrities
AIDS