Shortly after Shea Stadium completed its sixteenth season of operation as home of the New York Mets, it was busy being the home of the New York Jets. The Mets were done for the year by October. This was 1979. Competitively, the Mets were done for the year by April.
Citi Field is currently in the Shea equivalent of 1979 chronologically and in no other way. Citi’s sixteenth season, 2024, turned into the sweetest sixteenth imaginable. Beyond the Mets fan imagination, really. Opened in 2009 to high anticipation, the facility became known among frequent visitors as home of the meh. The aesthetics sparkled. The baseball wasn’t much to look at. Gleaming doesn’t cut it for very long if the team in residence doesn’t extend its seasons very often.
It took until Citi’s seventh season, 2015, to get Shea up in here. By the time Shea had been around seven seasons, Shea had established itself as the home of miracle and wonder. Season Six was 1969. The World Series came to Shea. The world championship, too. Three clinching celebrations in a span of just over three weeks trampled the grass. Maybe the groundskeepers minded. Surely the Jets — contractually dispatched to a lengthy away schedule — weren’t thrilled. But Shea, from 1964 forward, was where we had fun even before we won. Then we won, and there was no place on Earth like it. Could you blame us for digging up some earth?
Citi needed a modicum of success to tap its potential. That’s where 2015 came in. That’s where postseason baseball came in. That’s where fun came in. The Mets have never clinched anything at the ballpark that succeeded Shea, but starting in 2015, they began to get the hang of keeping it open in October. Seven postseason games that fall; one the next fall; three two falls ago, when there was a very hard fall. Victory at Citi has been intermittent in autumn (statistically speaking, 5-6 might belie the concept of home field advantage), but save for the San Diego finale in 2022, the vibes have been immaculate.
Nobody was shocked when Shea rocked. I think we were all taken aback that Citi could shimmy and shake. We who were there nine Octobers back changed the reputation of Citi Field. It wasn’t the building that was blah. It was the baseball and our response to it. Shea invited you to be giddy for the sake of giddiness when it opened. Citi wished to show you a menu. Once settled in Queens, Mets fans were ready for 1969 long before 1969. Come the next century, the Met mood had to find its place in its new place.
[1]Open for postseason business…and fun.
Since 2015, we know Citi Field has a pulse and a heartbeat. Each throbs extra loud when it hosts extra games. Through their respective first sixteen seasons of operation, Citi actually leads Shea, 11 to 10, in serving as a site for Upper Case October Baseball. Today and tomorrow will make it 12 and 13 for Citi. Shea sizzled in October 1969 and October 1973 (teeth chattered in the latter month’s World Series, but we’re talking Met-aphorically). Then it went on a long autumnal hiatus…except for the Jets, and even they took off after a while.
Shea came back strong in October 1986. Later, there’d be a handful of Octobers when mojo rose, if not as high as desired. Still, it was always a handful for opponents, thanks to the building and its occupants — players and fans — working their respective magic. I’ve never much associated Citi Field with magical properties. Some magical moments, absolutely, but it was too stately in its construction to include pixie dust. Yet these 2024 Mets are nothing if not magical, and we know damn well they’re not nothing. To us, the way they’ve gotten to October and fought into October, they’re everything. Until today, they’ve been everything but the home team.
The world’s longest road trip of Atlanta to Milwaukee to Atlanta to Milwaukee to Philadelphia, with an impending hurricane and two champagne showers thrown in, is over. The Mets went everywhere and all they brought us was this wonderful opportunity. Citi Field’s gates open at 2:30 this afternoon, 43,000-some sets of vocal cords shortly to follow, no doubt reaching an apex pitch before first pitch at 5:08. The din will erupt from deep within. We’ve waited long enough to express our in-person postseason’s greetings.