No apple in the Big Apple

--For those of you not in the know, the Mets have a giant apple that pops up when the home team hits a homerun (which they did not do).--

New York was rainy and dreary the whole time we were there. Add that to the Long Island RailRoad operating at 60% due to a main signal box fire, and things weren't the best. We made a good time though, eating a lot of NY style pizza. We had an off day after the Yankee game and then made our way to Citi Field, home of the Mets.

Stepping off the subway, you can immediately tell things are different than New Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. There, you felt like you were stepping off a decrepit, aging platform into the diamond in the rough - kindof like going to CoPa (moreso in it's earlier years). At Citi Field in Queens, though, it felt like they'd given a facelift to the who
le area as even the subway station felt pristine - more like a fresh airport terminal than a NY subway.


We entered through the Jackie Robinson rotunda - which was very nice - and a nice touch to honor the Brooklyn Dodgers' past - though I wonder if the LA Dodgers don't do the same thing. The stadium felt like a good size for a modern stadium - and it seats about the same as CoPa, so I may be biased on that one. Food was mercifully cheap (6.75 for a cheeseburger - 8.50 for a double) but they tricked you on everything else (5.75 20oz soda). It has a couple beautiful and huge video boards. In most parks they'd be unfortuante as they block the view out of center field. Here, though your view would be of Laguerda airport. Unfortunately, they don't block the sound of jetliners scraping their bellies on the stadium every half inning or so. The double video boards showed the full lineups for both teams at all times which was nice - though, even though they highlit who was at bat, they displayed the due up list just below the lineup which felt reduntant. It was also pretty pointless to have both screens showing the batter's stats and image. It would have been a lot nicer to have, you know, different information on the video boards that are practically side by side. I feel like I'm saying a lot of negative things about Citi Field. Maybe because of the loud jets. Maybe because of the upper deck first row view:

But we did get to see Maybin (who didn't play when the Marlins faced the Pirates) single in the second:


We got to see former Toledo Mudhen Mike Hessman do what he does best (when not being the active HR leader in AAA), look ugly striking out:

And we got to see a 9th inning walk off win:

The park was really nice but had a few major flaws. Unfortunately, you can't fix the proximity to the airport, and you're likely not going to bother with the unfortunately tall upper deck fence. The scoreboard repitition though is an easy fix. Throw in the pitcher's career stats against the batter or his seasonal splits or something on the smaller board. See, I did it for them.