Tuesday Is Saturday At Citi Field

As you know, tomorrow is Saturday.  I know this because I bought the Saturday plan from the New York Mets, and they treat their fans with respect by not including every Saturday, but including this random Tuesday.

I tried to get just $10 back on Stubhub, but nobody nibbled.  In fact you might want to buy some cheap ones on Stubhub yourself, since it seems a lot of us Saturday owners are not able to go.  (I have something else to do, I play in a sports league on Tuesdays.  That’s why I didn’t get a “Tuesday” plan.  See how that works Fred?)

This is just one of the many little things the franchise gets wrong.  All they have to do is call the mostly-Saturday plan the “Hodges Plan” or “Plan D” and I don’t write this.  Instead they called it the Saturday plan.  (You guys should pay me $100 a year and just run stuff by me.)

Yesterday in Flushing, the New York Mets and their three month old noise polluted stadium drew 38,791 .  Meanwhile in Chicago, also a two team city, the fan-friendly (and expensive ticketed) Cubs who haven’t won in 100 years and play in a 95 year old stadium with no video scoreboards nor noise pollution drew 40,886.

Citi Field will draw crowds of 23,000 next year if this team continues to not understand the fanbase and doesn’t at least appear in the World Series.  A loss in the NLCS isn’t going to cut it, and right now this team doesn’t even look Wild Card worthy.

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Obstructed Views Mew York Mets Citi Field Section 311

DJ who sent over the Caesar’s Club pics from the other day sent these over.

I understand that there has to be a railing of some sort – but you would think that Row 1 in club level seats wouldn’t require you to lean forward the entire game.

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New York Mets Should Hang Some Player Banners Inside Citi Field

I took tons of photos of Wrigley Field last week.

One of the things they do in Chicago, and we’ve talked about this before is that they have banners of old players hanging up inside.  (Iphone quality pics, sorry).

What I really liked is that they honored long time employees…I saw one for an equipment manager (I would enjoy showing Mets Police Junior the Charlie Saumels banner and saying that’s the idiot who dresses the Mets in black).

Ever hear of Pat Pieper?  Neither had I.  He was the Cubs PA Announcer from 1916 until 1974.  How do I know that? A banner.

It’s too bad the Mets have had no long-term announcers who are and were loved by the fans.  Otherwise, they could hang a banner like this one.    

Heck, if it turns out that we had a player in the late 1990s who was alleged to be on steroids, we could hang his banner too.

One more for you, and while this one doesn’t illustrate my point – I really appreciated that not every banner had to be “Ernie Banks” or say “Tom Seaver.”

There were plenty of “Edgardo Alfonzo” or “Lee Mazzilli” types too.

The Mets should order up some banners and have them up by the next homestand.   It’s so easy to do and would go a long way with the fans.

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Mailbag: Valentine, Mr. Met, Gil

Some good stuff came in last week – I like this first one because Sparks agrees with me about the great Valentine myth:
Sparks has left a new comment on post “Jerry Manuel: Eliminating The Mets From Contention…“:

If I have to read from one more person what a pitiful roster Valentine had to work with, I’m gonna scream. Yes, the outfield lacked a “big” name, but you know what those late-Valentine-era Mets DID have? Only the best defensive infield in the history of the game and lineups that regularly featured 6 or 7 guys batting near or over .300, anchored by Mike freakin’ Piazza. Oh, the horror of showing up at the park and having to see that every day!

Sure, the Mets won the wild card twice and made the Series once. Great. They also blew the wild card a third time at the very end (1998, the original Mets Choke–remember those Cubs playoff t-shirts that still had the Mets skyline logo on them?), and were in control of the division late multiple times only to let it slip away.

Bobby Valentine was an adequate manager, but offering him up as the cure for what ails these Mets is silly, and quite frankly, ironic. 

I don’t remember such shirts.  Anyone got an image of that?


Reminds me, so when I went to Wrigley it was baking out and I needed a cap.  Screw it, I’ll go Cubs for the day, I have no dog in this fight….and the Cubs had “1984” written on the back.   I couldn’t do it.  That one still hurts.

Just got back from a game in section 502, row 4. While luckily the bar was not an obstruction, amnyone going up and down the steps would block the whole pitcher to cathcer. Extra nice with someone with a hot dog cart on his head. Avoid the 500 level if at all possible. 

Radie has left a new comment on your post “Mr. Met and Lady Met Got Married? Nobody told me….“: 

Cant recall a wedding but there was at least one other ESPN commercial with the kids. I been looking for a while, but cant find it. And I want to say that Mrs. Met was in yet another one with Mr. Met minus the kiddies.

For a while over at HotFoot we were trying to get the Mets kids and Mrs. Met to come back and be at the games… There is NO WAY that people wouldnt go nuts over them.

Plus with the family friendly Citi Field, I can see tons of Families having picture taken with the Mets Family. 

Gil Dodges has left a new comment on your post “New York Mets Uniform Survey Part 2“:

Uniforms: originally designed to recognize the Bklyn Dodgers (neck thread) and NY Giants (NY hat logo). Black is trendy & stupid. If you must do a color, do blue or orange jerseys – those Mets colors are 1964 NY World’s Fair/Opening season at Shea colors. makes sense. Pinstrips were an important Met fan favorite in the 60s b/c they showed the damn yankees that they don’t own the pinstripe franchise.

and oh yeah – it’s beyond time to recognize Gil Hodges, even if the Hall of Fame won’t. Since the Metro NYC traffic reports refuse to acknowledge the Mill Basin Bridge as the officially renamed Gil Hodges Bridge, we should. Put a “14” on it and say “Thanks to the miracle 69 Mets.” 

And yet they have bought into the nonsense renaming of the Triboro.   That’s not a political statement, I just hate when things get renamed, like I will when Citi Field gets a new name some day after a bank merger.

Posted by Gil Dodges to The Mets Police at June 16, 2009 10:55 AM 


Posted by Radie to The Mets Police at June 16, 2009 3:16 PM 


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Mailbag: Noise Pollution At Citi Field And The Alternate Lets Go Mets Chant

Catching up on comments…this one came in and deserves to be a post.  I touched on it yesterday but the variant Lets Go Mets chant really troubles me.

I was at today’s Father’s Day Game, and while there seems to be an organ, or a computer organ, and maybe in a way the noise today was toned down, it’s still sooooooooooo nice when the visiting team is up.

If the Mets get a hint of a rally, get one guy on base, forget it, Vito and Make NOISE Department goes beserk.
When the Mets have a man on base, we are prodded between almost EVERY pitch to make noise or cheer. And as state previously, I find that the Make Noise Meter cheeers end up with a thud of dud or are just duds, they leave everyone flat.

On a separate note, today’s game was great (except for the outcome), and I even got to taste Shake Shack at the end of the rain delay, very cool, of course my Shake-Cago hot dog was slightly warm, but that’s what happens when the concessions put everything under the heat lamp, everything is already made waiting for a buyer, and Shake Shack is not the only place where this happens, I’ve had to ask for hot dogs made within the last hour several times, as they sit and sit, but what does that have to with noise? Uh, nothing.

Finally, today I realized that many fans focus on the following, free fleece blankets, launched t-shirts, and balls tossed by third base coaches, and waves…

Get off the phone, stop with the damned t-shirts from Pepsi (which will get sued eventually when someone goes overboard trying to catch the mediocre t-shirts which used to promote 718- mets -tixx) and finally…

I heard a new intonation of Let’s Go Mets, was rather upsetting.

Used to be Let’s Go Mets! Today I heard Let’s go meh-ehts. Hard to recreate it here, but it was giving mets two syllables, a la Let’s Go Yankees, two syllables…

BEWARE!

By the way, today was a great FAther’s Day for me at the game with my daughter, priceless! 

A few readers have mentioned this Vito and the Make Noise Department.  Does anyone have any more info about him/them?  I think we will make it a point around here to regularly call them out.

Someone else wrote in:

That singsong Yankee chant is tough to eradicate, but eradicated it must be. It’s the same chant as “Let’s Go Rangers” basically. The cant and intonation bled across to the “Let’s Go Islanders” chant years ago. Now they’re infected too. There was a time when the Islanders chant would NEVER be confused with the Rangers one.

Let’s Go Mets is sacred in my house. Three sylables, not four. It was bad enough when the extra “Hoo!” was added during the silent beat at the end. The Wilpons had better get on this fast. Oh wait… they’re probably behind it.


How could this happen?  Who are these people?  Yankees fans visiting?  Idiot Ranger fans?

Howie Rose this is another one for you to police on the radio.

One last comment on  “Of Noise And Mets“:

Glad you fathers who went had a nice day.

They’re trying to gimmick up the whole operation now. From PA ads to ‘How Bout Some Noise?’ to alternate uniforms for no reason other than to sell jerseys. The BASEBALL has taken a back seat. Makes you wonder if Fred and Paris even care about the Met fans. I think they care about the dollars in the fans’ wallets and how many of them they can extract. Aside from that I think the Wilpons actually disdain the fans. I really do. 


So I feel like I’m cheating on my girlfriend by saying nice things about Wrigley, but boy I wish someone from Flushing could do some research.  I’m going to start sharing the pics on the site once i catch up.

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