Selling Shea Bit By Bit

[soupcan]

AG/DC wrote: If it does, then maybe that's good.

Its not good.

I remember. Believe me I'll never forget it.

Put a memorial somewhere just not in the middle of my distraction, you know?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Looking at it now, I think it's the spangly pink-outlined Mets script in the middle of the skyline that makes it tacky. I'm not a fan of neon.

The thing from Shea I would most have wanted to keep would probably be the original tiles. With them irretrievably gone, I guess that leaves the apple and the hat.

And I agree about the World Trade Center and the ribbon. We should never forget, but I don't think we need to constantly remember either.

[Guest AG/DC]

It's not in the middle.

And I think we do a terrible job remembering national tragedy. Subsequent generations much much moreso --- making them increasingly vulnerable.

A minor note in the corner of the stadium to keep the fire burning is not too much to ask --- particularly in age where the notion of naming public bulidings like stadia as monuments to the fallen is lookng pretty lost.

[Guest themetfairy]

I'd keep the organ. And reinstate organ music at games.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Citifield needs a gigantic Rudy Giuliani popping out of a hat.

[Guest AG/DC]

I'm conflating your posts into one about a giant organ popping out of a hat.

[Benjamin Grimm]

AG/DC wrote: It's not in the middle.

Of course it is. Look at it; there are buildings to the left and buildings to the right. It's not on the end, so it's in the middle.

AG/DC wrote: And I think we do a terrible job remembering national tragedy.

Well, maybe. But eventually you need to put tragedy behind you. I was glad to see the Mets no longer wearing the NYPD and FDNY caps this year. It was a nice gesture, but I think it ran its course.

[seawolf17]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Citifield needs a gigantic Rudy Giuliani popping out of a hat.

Better that than a cake.

The first game I attended that fall, I was sitting behind the third-base dugout in the loge reserved. During the national anthem, I looked up at the Towers on the scoreboard -- it was hard not to, really, as that was on everyone's minds -- and just at that moment, a plane, off in the distance, crossed through my field of view behind the scoreboard, right through the middle of the skyline and the Towers. Really eerie.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Here's a suggestion about what to bring to Citi Field, from gothamist.com:

]Cat Lovers Want Shea Stadium Feral Cats Moved to Citi Field Since opening in '64, Shea Stadium has been a popular home for feral cats, who've been known to scamper onto the field during games. In the Mets' championship year of 1969, a black cat ran back and forth in front of the Cubs dugout, cursing Chicago's pennant hopes. Now a group called Neighborhood Cats is urging the Mets to relocate the feral felines to the new Citi Field. "They're part of Mets lore, so why not keep them around?," asks Bryan Kortis, the group's leader. He guesses there are 20-40 cats who call the stadium home, and if the Mets don't relocate them he predicts, "they're going to be overrun with rats." Pressure from other groups successfully saved the Home Run Apple, but Mets officials have yet to respond to this demand. And a Parks Department spokeswoman tells Newsday there are only a couple cats at Shea, and when they catch them, they're taken to a shelter.

[Guest AG/DC]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: ="AG/DC"]It's not in the middle. Of course it is. Look at it; there are buildings to the left and buildings to the right. It's not on the end, so it's in the middle.

That's some simplistic logic, so I'll assume you're kidding.

Neither is a small outline on top of the scoreboard in the middle of the "distraction," but on the periphery.



It's about as intrusive as a photo of dead relative on top of your mother's piano or end table.

Edited October 3, 2008 by Guest

[Guest Iubitul]

The logo looks to be in the middle to me:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3045/2902378362_10235c4333.jpg

That being said, I agree with AG - I'm glad they are bringing it over to Shea II, and that the towers and ribbon should remain.

[Frayed Knot]

Leave the ribbon up until the new tower is complete and then replace the old with the new.

[Guest Iubitul]

Frayed Knot wrote: Leave the ribbon up until the new tower is complete and then replace the old with the new.

Makes sense - I like that idea.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Frayed Knot wrote: Leave the ribbon up until the new tower is complete and then replace the old with the new.

Perfect!

[Benjamin Grimm]

I think Citi Field will be razed and replaced before the Freedom Tower is completed.

[Guest AG/DC]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Well, maybe. But eventually you need to put tragedy behind you. I was glad to see the Mets no longer wearing the NYPD and FDNY caps this year. It was a nice gesture, but I think it ran its course.

How does such a thing run its course? Why shouldn't the sacrifices of emergency workers get acknowledged every year?

In remembering the dead in a small way, it's not tragedy that's carried forward, but resolve, respect, and triumph over tragedy.

It's nice any time a team can stand for something besides a different-colored uniform.

[Guest Vince Coleman Firecracker]

AG/DC wrote: How does such a thing run its course? Why shouldn't the sacrifices of emergency workers get acknowledged every year?... It's nice any time a team can stand for something besides a different-colored uniform.

I'm with Edgy. The PAPD, FDNY, and NYPD hats were classy as hell, and now they've been replaced by some bullshit merchandising push. It's a fucking disgrace.

[Farmer Ted]

A good peice by Marty Noble.

NEW YORK -- The essence of the Mets clubhouse is no more. The people, equipment and furniture are gone, toilets and shower fixtures have been removed; so, too, a 1970 Rusty Staub card found amid the rubble created by deconstruction. And, of course, the locker stalls, the Shea Stadium homes of the 788 men who played as Mets in the now de-commissioned ballpark, have been taken away as well.
Most of the stalls are nondescript now that their contents and nameplates have been removed and their locations have been changed. Mike Piazza's stall -- later assigned to Guillermo Mota -- bears great resemblance to those of Mike DiFelice and Mike Fitzgerald. And the stalls used by Doc Medich, Dock Ellis and Doc Gooden can barely be distinguished from the one used by Dr. Ron Taylor.

The hooks where they hung their hats, painted over a dozen times in 45 years, have no distinction; nor do the shelves and the hinged compartments at the bottoms of all lockers.

One locker had karma, though; karma, grandeur, distinction, dignity and -- who knows? -- maybe some Hall of Fame DNA mixed with that dreadful seafoam-green paint that was under all the other coats of white, blue and black. Maybe some traces of Tom Seaver survived.

If not physical evidence of Seaver's presence, at least a sense of history.

"That locker did have history," John Franco said on Tuesday. "More than any other in that place."

Franco lived from that stall -- the one just to the right of the clock, the phone and the boom-box shelf -- for 11 years, plus a few weeks in the summer of 1992. And he made Mets history when he was the tenant.

"But nobody made the kind of history here that Tom Seaver made," Franco said.

Franco was the tenant of that stall for longer than another player, Seaver included. Indeed, only Ed Kranepool had lockers at Shea longer than Franco. But Franco still refers to the one that was his for so long as "Seaver's."

So did anyone with a sense of the Mets franchise and the Mets' Franchise.

"It doesn't matter how long anyone had it, it was always Seaver's," Franco said.

But no longer. That stall and all the others belong to either the Meigray Group or the folks who have purchased them from the group dismantling Shea.

Some have been sold, all have been moved to a different location. Seaver's has been moved, but it remains on the Shea shelf, available to anyone who wants to pay the terrific price of $41,000.

Seaver wore No. 41, of course, so the stall is appropriately priced.

"What would they be charging for it if it was being sold as mine?" Pat Zachry asked on Tuesday.

Zachry, acquired in the trade that sent Seaver to the Reds in June 1977, was assigned the locker immediately upon his arrival at Shea. It was his through the 1982 season. (Seaver took it back when he returned in 1983 to his former clubhouse digs.)

Zachry wore No. 40 throughout his Mets tenure.

"Forty grand for mine, I guess," he said. "My locker would be a bargain."

Steve Trachsel used the locker in 2005 and 2006, after Franco's departure. Trachsel wore No. 29. Such a discount!

The locker was assigned to seven players, all pitchers, since the Seaver trade 21 years ago -- Zachry, Seaver again, Ron Darling (1984 to July 1991), David Cone (July 1991 to August 1992), Franco, Trachsel and, for the last two seasons of Shea, Aaron Heilman.

Before Seaver -- who knows? Buddy Harrelson couldn't recall. Seaver himself didn't know. For that matter, he was unsure whether he had lived from that stall as a rookie in 1967.

"It doesn't matter [who preceded Seaver]," Darling said. "It's his."

Darling asked for that locker in 1984. "Unless they were going 'Thurman Munson' on it," he told the Mets. (The Yankees maintained Munson's locker in Yankee Stadium following his death in 1979.)

"I'm not dead yet," Seaver said on Tuesday.

Seaver had little interest in the stall, though his reaction when told of the asking price was a priceless -- and characteristic -- Spanky cackle and "What a steal!" He wondered what the three lockers to the right of the clock might fetch. At one time they were assigned to himself, Nolan Ryan and Jerry Koosman.

"Not many hits in those lockers," he said.

They called it Pitchers Row for a reason.

Seaver hardly was sentimental.

"Where you lockered really wasn't that important," he said. "It didn't make any difference. Just your own little space. But it could have been anywhere."

But Darling thought, "There might be some karma," when he asked to move in. He already knew the perks of the location. There was no locker to the immediate left, just a three-foot-wide panel. A trash can was placed there.

"There's good and bad to that," Heilman decided after his first week in 2007.

The space allowed Franco to keep his black leather rocker there without infringing on a teammate's territory.

The music and the phone could be controlled from either side of the panel. Except for when Bobby Jones lockered on the other side, Franco was in charge of the volume. There was an upside to that, he decided, particularly when Carlos Baerga blared his musical preferences. Franco would turn up Frank Sinatra or Andrea Bocelli. Darling played the Romantics full blast the first day of the first homestand in 1984. Cone kept the volume down, as did Trachsel.

"We didn't have music when I was there," Seaver said.

Trachsel often had a case of wine resting on the floor next to trash can, but it was fine wine.

"It must have been my influence," said Seaver two years ago. The wine from Seaver's own Northern California vineyard, GTS, is highly regarded.

"I just drank beer when I was there," Zachry said.

"I don't remember ... too much about it," Seaver said. "So I'm not buying it. I just know it was a good clubhouse to be. Good people. Good memories. I know we drank champagne there. But it's all about the people, memories, energy, not the room or the building. It's not like it was great architecture. It's old now and pretty beat up. They're going to blow it up. I'd volunteer to light the fuse."

[metirish]

I bet the people doing the selling are thrilled that Seaver cares so little about his old locker. It certainly I think would help them if the lockers most celebrated occupant was the sentimental type.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Tom Seaver wrote: It's not like it was great architecture. It's old now and pretty beat up. They're going to blow it up. I'd volunteer to light the fuse.

[Guest AG/DC]

No need to remind me

I've got a vineyard I'm thinking of blowing up myself.

Edited October 8, 2008 by Guest

[Centerfield]

I like the NYPD and FDNY hats.

I can live without the skyline.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I dunno.

I think I'm having Shea Nostalgia Backlash.

[Willets Point]

I want to get this for ironic reasons.

[Guest AG/DC]

The gummint should get that.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I didn't see the part of the fence that said "THE STRENGTH TO BE THERE" anywhere for sale. They may be holding that for a future auction. (I have the spreadsheet of the fixed price items that are being sold outside the auction process.)

I bet whoever ends up with that segment will start each morning by leaping against that wall and pretending to be Endy Chavez.

[soupcan]

I don't think that advertisement was there this year (or last?). Just replaced by the three letters.

[Willets Point]

AG/DC wrote: The gummint should get that.

"government of the people, by the people, for the people" - A. Lincoln

I'll share it with you and the other 300 million people of the government.

[G-Fafif]

soupcan wrote: I don't think that advertisement was there this year (or last?). Just replaced by the three letters.

It had the strength to be there until the final homestand, the day after AIG was bailed out. It was then replaced with a second AIG logo.

[metirish]

Are we now underwriting AIG's $100 deal with Manchester United?