 
Faith and Fear in Flushing made its debut on Feb. 16, 2005, the brainchild of two longtime friends and lifelong Met fans. Greg Prince discovered the Mets when he was 6, during the magical summer of 1969. He is a Long Island-based writer, editor and communications consultant. Contact him here. Jason Fry is a Brooklyn writer whose first memories include his mom leaping up and down cheering for Rusty Staub. Check out his other writing here. Got something to say? Leave a comment, or email us at faithandfear@gmail.com. (Sorry, but we have no interest in ads, sponsored content or guest posts.) Need our RSS feed? It's here. Visit our Facebook page, or drop by the personal pages for Greg and Jason. Or follow us on Twitter: Here's Greg, and here's Jason. |
Deep Blue Something
There once was a place called the Loge Boxes. I’d know them anywhere. Couldn’t tell you who did the paint job upon paint job, but I can tell you our talented friend David G. Whitham captured this little slice of Shea Stadium life last season back when you could still do that sort of thing. See more of Dave’s Shea shots at the dgwPhotography blog here. 17 comments to Deep Blue Something |
Piazza: Catcher, Slugger, Icon, Star by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. 
Amazin' Again: How the 2015 New York Mets Brought the Magic Back to Queens by Greg Prince is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. 
Volume I of The Happiest Recap: 50+ Years of the New York Mets As Told in 500+ Amazin' Wins by Greg Prince is available in print and for Kindle on Amazon. 
Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History by Greg Prince (foreword by Jason Fry), is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online booksellers. |
|
Copyright © 2024 Faith and Fear in Flushing - All Rights Reserved |
||
Probably the thing I'll miss most about Shea is how you can describe the quality of seats by stating their color.
MSG used to be the same way. Now, nevermore.
Beautiful shot. I'm just glad I had the foresight to take a picture of my name proudly displayed on my (orange, when they were affordable) seats.
God, I miss that place. The idea of showing up and finding it… gone just wrenches at my insides.
I was in Flushing on Dec. 15th and just had to swing by the old place-such as it still is…
The place has been gutted-out. All the concrete that the rows of seats sat on is gone- with the exception of the last 10 rows of the mezzanine and the upper deck. So essentially its just girders.
To see the place from the grand central you would not get the impression that that much has been done. The only indication is on the extreme right field corner- the banks of lights have been removed and the and the upper corner as well..
In fact I was so caught up in the sight of it all that I didn't notice the scoreboard and batters back drop where no longer there!!
It was too much to take..
Destruction has not had this impact on me since 9/11…
Rich
I have regular “Shea reduced to rubble” nightmares. No joke. And also ones where I go to a Met game and I'm lost… everything is unfamiliar, I feel like a stranger and I panic and try to leave, only I can't even find my way out.
For the first time ever, I have no real wish to attend Opening Day. Except of course if #31 is finally retired (as I hoped it would be on Sept. 28th). Then I'll go even if I DON'T have a ticket. “If,” what am I saying, “if”? I will not have a ticket.
I thought I was the only one who had re-accuring dreams about Shea.
Mine would also be that Shea appeared unfamiliair or we couldn't find our car when leaving. Then they get really wierd. We'd be sitting in front of a screen (like in a movie theater) instead of seeing the field or sit in “rotating “seats (i.e., entire rows of seats from left field to right would suddenly pull out and drive a few blocks before settling back in).
“For the first time ever, I have no real wish to attend Opening Day.”
You're not alone. I almost feel like it's cheating on Shea, and missing Opening Day can be my last futile protest / small tribute to the old place. Considering I've missed like 2 of the past 25 openers, including the post-strike period when I was mad at baseball for three years, that's no small thing for me.
Family opinion varies: the Missus thinks I'm nuts and has demanded we get tickets; my insanely stubborn 13-year-old daughter is still angry, has no use for Citi Field, and plans a season-long boycott.
my insanely stubborn 13-year-old daughter is still angry, has no use for Citi Field, and plans a season-long boycott.
Teach…your children well…
I'm with the kid. I don't want to go. Even if I talked myself into going, I'd be a complete shrieking, sobbing basket case by the time the 7 pulled in and I saw the Shea of my nightmares… either a shell or gone entirely. That is something I just plain old do not want to see.
Not to mention that there would be no difference to me between watching, say, Mets/Phillies there and watching them at Citizens Bank Park. The atmosphere would be roughly the same in either place–the Mets getting booed in an alien ballpark with no soul. No thanks.
I'm too curious about the new place to find myself without desire to go to Opening Day (not that that's on my docket at the moment). But some people have always found me a little curious.
Kind of a naive question but was there any consideration to have Shea renovated ala Anaheim and Kansas City? Like in KC, renovations could have been done in stages over two or three seasons so not to disrupt the schedule.
When Nelson Doubleday was still in the picture and a new ballpark was still off on the hypothetical horizon, he said a renovation would be fine with him, that a lot of great things had happened to the Mets at Shea, why leave? Wilpon cringed.
Then again, Doubleday wanted to make Steve Phillips “king of the Mets”.
You've already been to the new place. It's pretty much the same ballpark that's opened all around the country over the past 10-12 years or so. I'm guessing that if you've been to Citizens Bank Park, you've been to Taxpayer Field.
Although I do have to admit that charging $35 to sit in the outfield under the scoreboard, and $14 to STAND, is probably an unmatched level of unmitigated gall. And that's saying a lot for this team, for which unmitigated gall is a hallmark.
Shea could have–and should have–been renovated. But Wilpon's Dodgers fetish took over, as it always seems to do. The Cyclones should have been enough to sate him, but no. God forbid he should even consider that a) it's not about him, and b) not all of us share his fetish.
Take me out to the gallgame…
Heh. Like my niece always sings, “buy me some peanuts and caaaaviar…”
That's a pretty spot-on assessment of CitiField. Even if it is really nice, it's the same as CBP/Camden/New Comiskey/PNC/etc. I still wish they had gone in a totally different direction, and done up a stadium in the early-60s-“futuristic” look like the World's Fair, or Tomorrowland in DisneyWorld. Could have been fun, and different. But I guess it wouldn't have looked like Ebbets. Well, maybe next stadium. If they replace on the same schedule, hopefully I'll still be ambulatory in 2053.
Kong, what an awesome idea. LOL! And then we could bring back the Mercury Mets!!