When Shea Became a Dump

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

When did this really happen?

I don't mean physically.

I mean, when did the perception of Shea being "a dump" enter into the fan consciousness, and how has it become so ingrained that today you can talk baseball with the least sophisticated out-of-town fan you can find and still count on the one thing he knows about the Mets is that they play in a "dump"?

It occurred to me tonight that such a rotten brand message, no matter how true, might not have penetrated so deeply if there were someone minding the brand store (not to mention paying attention to the physical plant). Then I thought about who might benefit were it true.

[metirish]

When I first came here and talked to people about going to see a ballgame one of the first things I was told was that Shea is a dump....and you are right,it seems when people on TV talk about the Mets they mention that Shea is a dump....I remember Jon Stewart was at a game last season and Cotter asked him if he would miss Shea,Stewert said something like yeah it's a dump but it's my favorite stadium....

[Guest iramets]

I don't think it's happened yet. It's a fabulous stadium, a great place to watch a great game, and people who call it a dump can kiss my ass.

I need a new stadium like Mr. Bayer needs another aspirin.

[DocTee]

When the Jets left for NJ, they claimed Shea was a dump and that they needed a facility with modern amenities-- while it may not necessarily have been true at the time, conventional wisdom tells me that label stuck and can be traced to that period.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The Jets theory holds water. I'm not sure how much the Mets home crowd believed it at the time, perhaps not until 1996 when the Yanks took the crown and blahblah.

It was a bad time for the Mets image, and they would have done well to address the equipment which started being "dumped" on the outside of the concourse while they were busy worrying about uniforms.

How a stadium that opened with a regular joke about there always being a place to pee is going to close with a regular joke about there never being a place to pee, I can never figure right.

[G-Fafif]

The fairest assessment I've ever read about Shea was in George Kalinsky's The New York Mets: A Photographic History, published in 1995, not a particularly fortuitous time to be a Mets fan.

]Empty, Shea Stadium isn't much to look at. Full, it's a vibrant, colorful, exciting place to be.

Indeed, those words run alongside images of vibrant, colorful, exciting full Shea and, quite frankly, empty, not much to look at Shea. The pictures say at least a hundred words apiece.

Taken a step further, it's full when the Mets are winning. And nothing succeeds like success. Other than physical factors like it didn't drain well and the winds were punishing (both addressed to certain degrees when renovations took hold) and the La Guardia landing strip situation (which I've either gotten used to or has been tamped down as part of a US Openish agreement I don't know about because I no longer notice the planes), I don't remember Shea being "dumped" on when the Mets were doing well. In the early '70s and the mid-'80s, Shea was the place to be, therefore Shea was fine. It was when the team went to hell that suddenly it was an easy step to look at the three-quarters empty shell and dismiss its possibilities when it's brimming to capacity.

I don't remember the "dump" appellation, even the loving "...but it's our dump" rejoinder, coming along until fairly recently, like in this century. Reasons?

1) The inane YS comparison. YS '76 wasn't considered a palace or a jewel or even particularly old-timey until it was a brainless storyline to say Derek Jeter is standing in the same place as Joe DiMaggio, blah, blah, blah. It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. But success succeeds, making the current edifice holy, hallowed and historic and, by comparison (because as Mark Herrmann could tell you, nothing can stand on its own merits), Shea not that. Why, it's got orange seats and a top hat! How gauche! (Of course in the '60s, fun, colorful Shea stood as glorious counterpoint to rundown, depressing old Yankee Stadium.) In 1988's Wait Till Next Year, co-author and Yankee-leaning but reasonably Met-sympathetic William Goldman (the screenwriter) referred to Shea as antiseptic, something that's hard to believe now. It's many things, but even given its multipurpose beginnings, it's not what you'd immediately think of as sanitized for your protection.

2) The competition got tougher. As long as the Vet and its turf-encrusted cohort were on the scene, Shea's charms (or lack thereof) could fly under the radar. In a blink, no Vet, no Three Rivers, no Riverfront, no Candlestick, no Big O and so on. Shea wasn't old enough to be quaint. It was just old. My theory is the New York writers and broadcasters who travel the NL and liked the accommodations a lot elsewhere came to resent having to work in a place where the elevator didn't always rise to the occasion. I've only had glimpses inside the underbelly, but those, combined with the municipal concourses and the built-in lack of "amenities," are going to make Shea look worse next to the Phone Company Parks and such even as the Mets have done their best to spruce it up every season.

3) Younger media never experienced Shea as the antidote to the crumbling ballparks of yore. Shea was, when opened, a mega modern step up from the Polo Grounds to say nothing of Connie Mack Stadium and other ancient stops along the circuit. It probably didn't strike the beat writers of the '60s that they were in anything but the grandest of new stadia.

4) The bathrooms and the Jets didn't help.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

I think the recent spate of new stadiums has made Shea dumpier in comparison. After visiting the new baseball palaces, Shea pales in comparison.

Greg mentioned the restrooms. If you're a woman, and/or if you're bringing small kids to a game, that becomes a bigger consideration.

Aside from that, there always seem to be leaks, dark corridors, broken escalators, etc. Not that it isn't serviceable. But it's no showplace, nor has it been for many years.

[Benjamin Grimm]

G-Fafif wrote: It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built.

I have to disagree with this. I've always understood that it was a different ballpark, and apparently you have too. But I've been hearing forever that Yankee Stadium was "renovated" and not "rebuilt." I remember when I was in college, from 1981 through 1985, arguing that the current stadium dates to 1976, not to 1923.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

I was kinda working on the theory that the spread of the "dump" virus was an inside job, expressed as Shea's physical inferiorities when compared to newer stadiums, while actually stemming from its financial ones from ownership's perspective.

That's right. Jay Horwitz told you Shea was a dump.

[stevejrogers]

I think the overall surrounding areas also has something to do with it, the Chop City right across the street, nothing but Robert Moses' damned highways all round, ect.

I think just the fact that non-Met fans love to make fun of the fact that Shea resides in a place called "Flushing" also adds to the general perception.

[stevejrogers]

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I was kinda working on the theory that the spread of the "dump" virus was an inside job, expressed as Shea's physical inferiorities when compared to newer stadiums, while actually stemming from its financial ones from ownership's perspective. That's right. Jay Horwitz told you Shea was a dump.

Well that defeats my "Flushing area" argument since even that domed contraption was to be built in Shea's parking lot.

When also did the fact that Shea actually resides on the top of an old landfill actually become common (aside from buffs of how Queens was prior to the 1960's), because I do hear that mantra every now and then.

[Frayed Knot]

The whole 'it's a dump because it sits on a dump' theory is more after the fact rationale than it was a reason for the conclusion in the first place.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Might be part of the legend. What I want is the moment that the notion of "Shea is a dump" became inseparable from the notion of "Shea."

[Guest Edgy DC]

Yancy Street Gang wrote: ="G-Fafif"]It used to be understood that the YS that was rebuilt in the '70s was a substantively different entity than the one Ruth built. I have to disagree with this. I've always understood that it was a different ballpark, and apparently you have too. But I've been hearing forever that Yankee Stadium was "renovated" and not "rebuilt." I remember when I was in college, from 1981 through 1985, arguing that the current stadium dates to 1976, not to 1923.

I went to a dumb college with a dumbo Yankee roommate, but yours had dumber people, I think. (But you're smarter than me, so take heart.) I don't remember anybody buying that "This is the house that Ruth built" crap until 1996.

="Johnny"]I was kinda working on the theory that the spread of the "dump" virus was an inside job, expressed as Shea's physical inferiorities when compared to newer stadiums, while actually stemming from its financial ones from ownership's perspective. That's right. Jay Horwitz told you Shea was a dump.

I'm not so sure, but I certainly think there's a motivation there. Bitch about your digs, get the fans down on it, and get new ones. It worked in other cities. I sure think the Yankees played this card, and played it well, simultaneously propagandizing that fans were sitting in a majestic piece of history and a dangerous chunk of urban blight. That's easier to do with an 80-year-old edifice (even if it's not).

I'm 50% sure that a thorough investigation of the "falling beam" incident at Yankee Stadium would show that the beam was tampered with and the orders came right from the top.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Yup.

From that little paperback I "won" from KC, published in spring of 64:

]People who watched workmen putting on the finishing touches on the Stadium agreeed that new concepts of design make it the most convenient, comfortable and attractive stadium on the Eastern Seaboard. Seating for 55,000 for baseball, with a planned future capacity of 85,000, is a triple-tiered edifice with 21 escalators and two elevators to speed the customers to anbd from their seats. The seats themselves are from an inch to an inch-and-a-half wider than in any older stadium in recognition of the broader American backside. Not a pillar or post obstructs the spectator's view from any seat in the stadium and 96% of all seats for baseball games are between the foul lines...

[Frayed Knot]

"Not a pillar or post obstructs the spectator's view from any seat in the stadium"

Only overhangs

[Willets Point]

I remember in the 80's that Yankee Stadium was a dump in the common wisdom and the one thing that Yankees fans would concede to Mets fans is that we had a better stadium.

[Guest Edgy DC]

It would be pretty wickit if that was documented somwhere.

[Guest vtmet]

Willets Point wrote: I remember in the 80's that Yankee Stadium was a dump in the common wisdom and the one thing that Yankees fans would concede to Mets fans is that we had a better stadium.

I think part of that changed when they made parking garage(s) next to Yankee Stadium and it became semi-safe to park there...I remember when I was a teenager driving there and there was absolutely no place to park...where we parked looked pretty seedy and nowhere near the stadium...the stadium was nice but getting there and leaving appeared dangerous...later on, we drove down after they had a parking garage right next to the stadium and even had signs telling you how to get on I-87 North, which took a bit of the "dump" image away, at least for upstaters...Shea hasn't had good parking in awhile, but at least it has better access to major artery roads to leave the city...hopefully in the long run they will fix the messed up parking situation...

[Willets Point]

Edgy DC wrote: It would be pretty wickit if that was documented somwhere.

Just my neurons sadly, but I do remember having the conversation.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I was once able to convince a Yankees fan that Hubie Brooks was better than Graig Nettles, but that was never the common wisdom.

You may be remembering one fan who liked Shea better than "The Stadium" but I'm sure most Yankee fans felt that they had the better ballpark, especially after 1976.

[Guest ScarletKnight41]

Yankee Stadium IS a dump. Those narrow causeways are horrendous!

[G-Fafif]

I wish I had saved my Baseball Digest collection from the '70s and '80s because whenever they printed lists of stadiums by age, YS was always noted as having opened in 1976. No asterisks, nothin'. Royals Stadium 1973; Yankee Stadium 1976; Olympic Stadium 1977 (along with Exhibition Stadium and the Kingdome, I suppose). It wasn't considered a bad thing. New was good. Yankee Stadium was new. Somewhere along the way it became more appealing for the perception of it to be old.

The Mets have wanted a new ballpark for more than a decade but they've never completely run down their setting the way the White Sox did when they were seeking a replacement for Comiskey or, for that matter, Steinbrenner with that awful place and that awful neighborhood when he wanted Taj Mahal on the Hudson. Once Wilpon unveiled his model in 1998, it was certainly implied that Shea had to go. If management wanted a new stadium, something must be wrong with the old one. But they never told the fans you're taking your well-being into your hands if you show up at Shea (and no accompanying threat to move elsewhere).

Though it wasn't as dramatic as that chunk of YS that fell on the MFY fan in '98, I had a few dabs of concrete drop into my lap from the upper deck when I was in the mezzanine in 1999. It wasn't bat day or anything, it just came off. I turned it into security/maintenance who helpfully told me "that's why we need a new stadium." Always regretted not keeping the souvenir.

[Guest KC]

I'm having trouble buying that "shea is a dump" being PR ploy. Sometime in
the early 90's, when the team sucked, I became aware of sneakers sticking
to bathroom floor and vomit in the stands from the night before not being re-
moved, the whole team and place just sucked. Shea was a dump, and the
team was in the dumper. That dump seemed less dumpy that night after 9/11,
say, or during the 2000 playoffs, but it's still a dump and we didn't need Jay
Horowitz to tell us that (straight out or out the the side of his mouth).

[Guest Edgy DC]

I guess it's somewhat worth saying: bad maintenance can happen in new stadia also.

I don't remember if it was noted, but at the Police show, the upper deck was bouncing up and down with the revelers during "So Lonely" and eventually a pipe suspended underneath it burst and showered patrons in the lower level. With the mob psychology of concert-goers, we cheered the dubious-in-retrospect accomplishment of our sisters and brothers in the upper deck. I hope it wasn't a sewage pipe.

[Benjamin Grimm]

There's only one thing seriously wrong with Shea that can't be easily fixed: the rear seats in the Loge and Mezzanine that are obstructed by the overhang.

The other main problem is that at first and third base, even the front row seats are far from the action. Beyond that, if you're in some of the outfield seats you have to sit with your head turned for the entire game because the seat faces the outfield grass and not home plate.

Plumbing can be fixed, though, and vomit can be mopped up. Restrooms could be improved and expanded. They found room to add a lot of retail selling space at Shea. I'm sure they can add restrooms as well.

I wish that Shea was staying around. I'm not in favor of the new stadium. However, I suspect that if I was still living in New York and going to more than one or two games a year (at the most) I'd feel differently. At this point in my life when I go to Shea it's as much for nostalgia as for any other reason. Citi Field won't do that for me. In fact, I think that once they're in the new stadium I'll be less motivated to make the trip to Flushing.

If I was still going 20 times a year, I'd probably be excited about the new place.

I remember when I moved out of the house I grew up in, every time I went to visit my parents I felt like I was at home. Then my parents moved to a new place, and now when I visit them, their place is comfortable and familiar, but it's not home, and never will be, unless I inherit the place and decide to live there.

Citi Field will be like my parents' new place, while Shea Stadium is the home I grew up in. Unless I move back to New York, Citi Field will never be my baseball park like Shea has been.

[Guest KC]

The upper reserve seats are obsolete. The whole upper deck sucks.
Sometime back in one of these discussions I wondered aloud why the
who upper deck couldn't just be removed and the stadium be expanded
in other ways like towards the outfield.

Don't mean to get away from Johnny's underlying question of when it happened,
I'm saying it happened in the early 90's after glow of the late 80's was deader than
discomania.

[Frayed Knot]

"I'm having trouble buying that "shea is a dump" being PR ploy. Sometime in the early 90's, when the team sucked, I became aware of sneakers sticking to bathroom floor and vomit in the stands from the night before not being re-moved ..."

Which, one could surmise, was a semi-deliberate attempt to plant the idea in patrons' heads that the place is a dump.

[Guest KC]

You know as well as anyone that I was never big on the Mets management
conspiring to fool the fans. Whether it be building a team that is just good
enough to appear like they're spending (but withholding just enough to be
thrifty) or intentional poor bathroom maintenance ... sounds kinda paranoid
to me ... Johnny Lunchbucket bilkin' flashbacks.

[Frayed Knot]

I don't go in for many conspiracy theories either, but I do think an attitude can creep in where stadium brass starts to cut corners on things like cleaning and other types of preventative maintenance figuring that making the place shine as much as possible is, in a way, counter-productive to their long term aims.