"The Most Cynical Ballpark in the Major Leagues"

[Guest Swan Swan H]

I assume Recker supplements his major-league minimum salary by posing shirtless for the cover of romance novels.

[ashie62]

I went to my first game at Shea in 1968 Banner at age nine and Shea was part of the landscape of my life for 41 years. I can't replace that....

I am having trouble embracing Citifield on any level but I'm sure one, just one winning season would change that...

[dinosaur jesus]

Edgy MD wrote: Harvey is handsome?

That's not really my area of expertise, but yeah, I think he's handsome, in a Renaissance prince sort of way. The kind who might talk about Aristotle with you or have you dismembered, depending how he felt that day.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

More like the practical, slightly-ruthless prince with a piercing intelligence, with a head for Hannibal or the fine points of horsemanship, but absolutely no time for useless frippery like poetry or philosophy.

[Edgy MD]

Yeah, if he's a prince, I wouldn't put him in the Renaissance. Maybe an Ostrogoth, slowly bringing his people out of a long subugation by the Huns. Tired of war but being so good at it, willing to live a warrior's life that his successors may know a life beyond conquest.

He's driven by a little bitterness, that his people envy the sophistication and civilization of Roman citizenship, but he's seen Rome, and he knows they're better than that, and that Romans themselves consider the Ostros too pointless even to notice.

He sometimes stares at the Danube and imagines a home there by the shore, to retire when the warring is done, but then he gets another image of the same river stained with his blood. Maybe at the hands of the divisional rival Huns, and maybe from the crosstown Romans. But what's the difference? The river doesn't care.

He's that sort of prince. Not a particularly handsome one. And he's got an Escalade, so you know he's more than a little Romanized himself. And that's just got to tear at him a little.

[dinosaur jesus]

All right, he's a Romanized Ostrogoth.

[Edgy MD]

[G-Fafif]

Not sure if anybody here has mentioned the tackiness of the Citi Field scoreboard advertising situation, but SB Nation's Rob Neyer just noticed it.

Leaving aside the ear-splitting sound systems, which aren't a function of the architecture but rather are just an offensive stylistic choice, both Safeco and Coors are largely geared toward the game on the field. In both ballparks, you can almost literally walk around the entire lower level and never lose sight of the field. It's almost as if the architect - and by extension the franchise itself - believed that watching baseball was the single most important thing about attending a baseball game. Well, that's just no longer the case. Or doesn't seem to be. I haven't been to a number of the newer ballparks; later this summer, I'll visit the new parks in Philadelphia and Washington, which will leave me two short (San Diego and Miami) of the complete set. But the new paradigm is, in a more blatant way than ever before, all about the money: Get the people inside the building, then separate them from as much of their money as possible while bombarding them with as many advertisements as can be sold. Every time I write something like this, a few wise guys are quick to yell at me, "Hey, I guess you don't know that all the baseball parks used to have advertising!" Actually, yeah. Thanks. I do know that. I've seen the old photos. When I was growing up, the fountains in Royals Stadium were capped by huge rotating billboards, including advertisements for cigarettes. Mind you, the Royals were owned by a noted humanitarian. That was life in the 1970s and '80s. My point isn't that ballparks weren't commercial enterprises. They were. My point is that the commercialism, aside from actually selling tickets and beer and hot dogs, was a secondary consideration. Today, it's the primary consideration. Which was never so clear to me before this week, when I visited Citi Field for the first time. Citi Field's most notable elements create a jarring contrast. Exiting the Willets Point subway station, your path takes you to the stadium's main entrance, the Jackie Robinson Rotunda. This isn't just a name. The rotunda is essentially a shrine to Robinson, with huge photographs, a video screen running Robinson clips in a loop, and inspirational quotes. These words are writ large, high on the wall: excellence, justice, persistence, determination, courage, citizenship, commitment. It's all in perfectly good taste, but somewhat discordant, since Robinson never played for the Mets, never played a baseball game in Queens. It's also a bit odd to build a shrine in a high-traffic area like the main entrance to a baseball stadium. But I can't really quibble with Fred Wilpon's execution of what I will assume was high-minded sentiment. It's the rest of the stadium that leaves me cold, because the rest of the stadium is a shrine, not to Jackie Robinson, or to excellence or justice or citizenship or any of the rest of it, but rather to rank commerce. There are the usual suites, of course, and also a number of clubs, where one can relax with an overpriced drink without having to look at those silly baseball players doing the things that Jackie Robinson used to do. Some of the clubs are close to the field -- supplanting many hundreds of seats, and any view of the field from the concourse -- and some are far from the field, but it's hard to escape the conclusion that this ballpark wasn't designed for actually watching baseball games. If you do actually sit in the stands, you might notice something strange: two huge walls beyond the outfield, featuring video boards and advertising billboards. This is not unusual. What's unusual is that one board is angled toward the middle of the field, while another is angled toward left field. Why this cockeyed arrangement? Because one of the boards is not designed for people inside the ballpark. Some clever lad realized that if that wall were angled in a certain way, it would perfectly catch the eyes of people driving on the Van Wyck Expressway. The other wall, the one that faces the infield, faces out perfectly toward another highway. That one's covered with signs, too, with just a little room for a subtle, easy-to-miss Mets logo. When I was growing up, the giant scoreboard at Royals Stadium also fronted a freeway; it was painted blue, with the Royals logo in white. In those days, you sold a few commodities on the inside, but you were really selling your baseball team. Today, it's all about the commodities. Essentially, Citi Field is a shrine to Jackie Robinson's value and to naked commerce. Which seems an uncomfortable, vaguely inappropriate combination. I'm sure that many Mets fans have figured out a way to enjoy Citi Field; after all, it's all they've got. I do appreciate the extremely cantilevered upper deck in right field, which hearkens back to the old days. The Mets Hall of Fame and Museum, in a room next to the rotunda, is decent enough (although it's not as well-appointed as the Royals Hall of Fame and Museum at Kauffman Stadium). Citi Field isn't a terrible place. But like the new Yankee Stadium, it could have been so much more. Considering how much money was spent, and the grand tradition of public architecture in New York, it should have been so much more. But this, I'm sorry to say, is where we're at. Baseball stadiums are no longer palaces for the fans. They have become palaces for people who live in palaces, and places from which to hang garish billboards. Maybe it didn't have to be this way, but then again maybe it did. Considering that not a single owner has stood up to the forces of commercialism, not even the owners of teams that play in the remaining Classic Era ballparks, maybe there was never any reasonable hope of resisting the impulse to suck every last short-term dollar out of these publicly financed stadiums. Maybe this is just where we're at, in our society and in baseball ... which does, in the end, usually do a pretty good job of reflecting our society. Welcome to the enemy, sports fans; he is us.

[dgwphotography]

Yeah, Neyer nailed it.

I have never warmed to the place, and I likely never will.

[Guest Mets � Willets Point]

Requisite Yankee fellation alert: If only it were like Yankee Stadium, it would be so much better.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

I have great memories of Shea, of course, but I go to the park 15-20 times a year and I wouldn't trade Citi for Shea under any circumstances.

[G-Fafif]

Requisite Yankee fellation alert: If only it were like Yankee Stadium, it would be so much better.

Neyer wasn't at all crazy about MFYS III -- said both NY parks could have been so much more.

His review of that place here.

The New York Yankees are supposed to epitomize class. But with the arguable exception of Derek Jeter's appearances still announced by the (now) disembodied voice of Bob Sheppard, there is almost nothing classy about Yankee Stadium. The Yankees could have afforded to eschew advertisements on the outfield walls, but they didn't. They could have jettisoned "YMCA", but they didn't. They could have built something in the grand tradition of the Empire State Building or the Chrysler Building or the Brooklyn Bridge or any of a dozen other New York City landmarks, but they didn't. Yankee Stadium's like a school in summer. The big blue letters say Yankee Stadium, but otherwise you could be almost anywhere. There's something special about Yankee Stadium because the New York Yankees do play there and, as the franchise wins more championships, this new building will naturally accrue atmosphere and mystique, weighty with emotion and history. Now, though? The New York Yankees and the local citizenry spent more than a billion dollars on a wasted opportunity.

[Ceetar]

Swan Swan H wrote: I have great memories of Shea, of course, but I go to the park 15-20 times a year and I wouldn't trade Citi for Shea under any circumstances.

agreed. 10 years from now Citi will have that same "I know it's not perfect, but it's OURS!" and the "Well _I_ would've designed it different" stuff will fade some. Like the Wilpons/designers should've consulted you when they decided they'd rather build the promenade closer to the field and obstruct view than push fans another 50 feet back.

I'm sure I'm considered a Citi Field apologist or whatever, but it's not just rampant commercialism, and a lot of that stems not just from greed on the owners part but on the players (hello, they've gotta pay these salaries you know..) but from things like building codes.

Shea wasn't as bad (newer). but take old Yankee. The upper level steps were dizzingly steep. You literally would not be allowed to build that today. My home inspector told me the code for step height on a front entrance has come down a whole inch, and i'm sure there are similar codes for buildings like stadiums. That means either moving the seats further out to grade the pitch, or obstructing views. It means plexiglass and more women's bathrooms even though the bathrooms don't really match the gender percentages of the fan base.

Neyer's speculating. If they tilted the scoreboard in Right-Center towards home plate, fans in the cheap seats in the left field fair territory seats would not be able to see it as well. Also it'd just look stupid. It's set back beyond the bridge (why yes, Pepsi Porch people can see it too that way) And it'd mess with the bridge if you brought it forward. Yes, duh, someone realized you can advertise on the stadium too, and this is most noticeable on Northern BLVD more than anywhere else. They certainly could've extended the building up higher to maximize that if they wanted, as it doesn't quite peak through the trees onto the GCP as well as Shea did, and it's further back (yeah, logistics. Maybe if the Yankees weren't doing the same they would've demolished, played there, and built it in the same spot for that reason? who knows)

Look, the advertising isn't great. I'd love it, I think it'd be the most awesome thing, if a team hired an advertising firm themselves and demanded that all advertisments go through them so that they were designed to fit the park specifically. These are the extra steps the Mets (And many others) don't take. They don't put in the extra deck to push the capacity towards 60k but they knew they rarely were going to draw that and yes, money, they knew they'd rather sell tickets at 10-20 as the low end rather than crappy 'just get 'em in here' seats 6 miles from home plate.


I liked Citi Field to begin with and it's only grown on me more. We're still breaking it in, but we're getting there.

[metirish]

Swan Swan H wrote: I have great memories of Shea, of course, but I go to the park 15-20 times a year and I wouldn't trade Citi for Shea under any circumstances.

This, I love going to Citi Field, my son loves going there. All the ads are garish but I really couldn't give a fuck at this stage....sponsors on the front of the shirt, we don't have that.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

It helps folks weather the vagaries of both weather and childhood moods a LOT better than Shea did.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

As long as we're invoking the opinions of writers:

Jon Heyman ?@JonHeymanCBS 16 Jul folks finally seeing how great citi field is. 1 of 6 faves: pnc, at&t, safeco, dodger, marlins

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Well, I agree it is way too commercialized, and it's certainly no mistake that the scoreboards double as billboards. Really, that's their primary purpose inasmuch as that side does what it's supposed to do 365 days a year vs. 81.

That's not to say Shea was better. I mean at onepoint it was but by the time that place was done the Wilpons had sold every square inch of Shea available, and erected truly awful stuff just for the ad space like the Azec thing in the RF bullpen, the Keyspan sign in left, the giant Budwesiser ad where the scoreboard used to be etc etc etc

[Ceetar]

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: Well, I agree it is way too commercialized, and it's certainly no mistake that the scoreboards double as billboards. Really, that's their primary purpose inasmuch as that side does what it's supposed to do 365 days a year vs. 81. That's not to say Shea was better. I mean at onepoint it was but by the time that place was done the Wilpons had sold every square inch of Shea available, and erected truly awful stuff just for the ad space like the Azec thing in the RF bullpen, the Keyspan sign in left, the giant Budwesiser ad where the scoreboard used to be etc etc etc

And that's the Shea I knew, which is probably part of my reasoning.

I like the Azek K-Counter actually. Thought having a dedicated board was neat.

How about the Dunkin Donuts cup they put up the last couple of years though? How freaking AWESOME was that?

[stevejrogers]

Ceetar wrote: How about the Dunkin Donuts cup they put up the last couple of years though? How freaking AWESOME was that?

I first heard about it on another forum where the poster was talking about things new at Shea that year as he had gone to Opening Day. At first I thought he was saying that a cup had landed in the bullpen early in the day and no one had bothered to come and remove it for the whole game!

And, yeah...no it was quite tacky, quite minor league actually.

Yeah there is the Apple, but the Apple has never, in any incarnation, well Shea's Apple was sporting the ASG logo this week, SOLD anything. Not on the Apple, not on the hat, no where. So it may be a tacky thing you'd see in a minor league ballpark, it isn't shilling some sponsor's product.

And the problem isn't just the sensory overload and the disgusting mis-mash of ad space (the less said about the bullpen tarp ad debacle, the better, its they've been getting so many different advertisers, that some have turned out not to be the most stable choices (Spongtech for example), and that's not even bringing Amway into the conversation!

It makes the team look cheap, low rent and willing to grab anyone who actually offers to buy ad space in the stadium.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Swan Swan H wrote: I wouldn't trade Citi for Shea under any circumstances.

Form or function? Citi functions better than Shea, no doubt about that. Not that I'm impressed. Citi's almost 50 years newer than Shea: it oughtta function better. Citi's also almost 20 years newer than Camden Yards, and you'd hardly know it. Aesthetically, Citi's an unimaginative mish mash of mismatched pieces. Neyer's the first journalist I read who noted the wackiness of placing two giant scoreboards so close to each other. I always thought that their absurd placement was a domino effect necessitated to adjust for a bad bowl design. But Neyer writes that the ugly scoreboards were placed to take advantage of the highway traffic facing the stadium. I'm not surprised and on second thought, it makes sense to me. Besides, Citi's bowl doesn't appear so much different from other new baseball stadiums. I could go on, as Neyer does, noting some other of what I agree are missed opportunities. Like the so called Museum and Hall of Fame, a dinky exhibit, neglected more and more with each passing season, and erected only after the owners were shamed into doing so. I'm sure the Wilpons are still stewing over all of that wasted space that isn't generating revenue for the sale of more $50.00 t-shirts. How much you wanna bet that Jeff Wilpon's wife's walk-in closet is bigger than that Museum.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Does the amount of advertising in the park really affect your experience, Steve? Watch the fucking ballgame.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

I count fourteen sponsors in this picture.



I got fourteen here too, including some totally classy 20' tall Coke bottles. I am not counting the two charity spots. The sainted wall covered with advertising - good heavens.



And Amway? Only the Mets would take money from an organization like that - well, the Mets and the Red Wings, one of the most respected NHL franchises.





Christ, the whining.

[Vic Sage]

i've hated Citi from day 1, and we all went around and around on that topic as the stadium was being built and afterwards,too, and i have nothing new to add to that discussion.

But to criticize a for-profit commercial enterprise for being commercial... well, as my daughter sometimes says when i say something stupidly obvious, "DUH". It IS a palace for commerce, not for people, but so was Shea in its day, and every other ballpark in America, for that matter. And compared to Shea, this palace has better amenities, if equally bad sight lines, so it offers a better experience for me, generally, than Shea ever did, albeit a more expensive one. But CitiField certainly represents a missed opportunity in oh so many ways.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

I don't think the issue is, or ever has been, that there's in-park advertising; it's that the park's aesthetic is dominated by said advertising. There's no style constraint on the color/sizes/regularity of the advertising... it's just as big and visible as we could get it up there, get it up there, get it the fuck up there. Hell, forget form, even; the park's function-- displaying and relaying information about a baseball game-- is slightly impeded by the particular array (disarray? agglutination?) of advertising, and how it impacts scoreboard size/placement.

I mean, if you don't see the difference between that Fenway picture...



and, say...



... I'm not quite sure what to say.

[Guest Swan Swan H]

Here's a picture I took on Opening Day. I have no problem with advertising, sightlines, or anything else. I'm six rows from the top and have an unobstructed view of virtually every inch of fair territory, and these are among the lowest priced seats in the place.

[Vic Sage]

i tend not to give a shit about color schemes in ballparks, or interior design generally. Is there a difference with Fenway? Yeah, Fenway is an iconic piece of design that became part of the cultural landscape of the 20th century. That its advertising is more consistent in its design is like 12th on the list of reasons why Fenway is better than CitiField. Is the circus-like explosion of color and fonts that is CitiField distracting? yeah, a bit, but that too is 12th on the list of reasons i don't like the park. Yes, it may be symptomatic, or a signifier, of the Wilpons nakedly crass approach to their ownership of the team, but thats more about the Wilpons than Citi as a ballpark.

[Ceetar]

very first thing i see in the Fenway picture: CVS

Very first thing I see in the Citi picture: Omar Quintanilla


Partly that's because I've got my eye trained at Citi. I know which box to look at, and the scoreboards are not broken up, like in that Fenway shot or at Yankee Stadium for example. There are advertisements BETWEEN useful baseball information. Good trick, that. Makes sure you always look at it.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Swan Swan H wrote: Here's a picture I took on Opening Day. I have no problem with advertising, sightlines, or anything else. I'm six rows from the top and have an unobstructed view of virtually every inch of fair territory, and these are among the lowest priced seats in the place.

Hey, no argument here. Y'know, 'cause there's no argument here. Your seat's great. That's great! That doesn't mean that plenty of equally-priced or higher-priced seats don't have those same-- apparently value-added, rather than intrinsic-- features.

It was designed expressly for baseball and the game's particular sightlines; that there are "bad seats" at all is a pretty glaring error, isn't it?

Partly that's because I've got my eye trained at Citi. I know which box to look at, and the scoreboards are not broken up, like in that Fenway shot or at Yankee Stadium for example. There are advertisements BETWEEN useful baseball information. Good trick, that. Makes sure you always look at it.

How wonderful for the advertisers!

Just because I know how to jiggle the handle on my defective toilet doesn't make it a marvel of plumbing engineering.

Listen, it's a good place to spend an afternoon, and I like a lot about it. It just isn't nearly as world-class as the people discounting overpriced seats and calling them "bargains" would have you believe.

[Ceetar]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Listen, it's a good place to spend an afternoon, and I like a lot about it. It just isn't nearly as world-class as the people discounting overpriced seats and calling them "bargains" would have you believe.

Never is, turns out they're advertisers too though. World-class is mostly that, an advertising word.

Bargains are few and far between in NYC though.

[metsmarathon]

the thing fenway does right is, though they've allowed advertising to cover and hover over the green monster, they've maintained strict control over the color palate of those ads (monster green and white on & above the wall, scoreboard green & white on the scoreboard), and also have forced them to be uniform in size and shape, helping them to be fairly unobtrusive. yeah, you still know they're there, but they don't get in the way.

but the park is not immune to the incursion of advertisements over every available space.



feast your eyes.