Earliest/Most favorite Shea Stadium memory

[Guest cooby]

Oh I have a few, since I didn't get to go very often but one of my earliest memories was probably being amazed that they had Ivory bar soap in the ladies rooms. And attendants!

[MFS62]

It was one stop on the 7 train from where I lived. (near Main Street Flushing)
And there were no steel columns blocking our view.

Later

[Guest themetfairy]

I thought that my first game was in 1970, but thanks to G-Fafif's Happiest Recap book I realized that it was in 1971. My mother and grandfather (who had lost his sight to diabetes) brought my younger brother and me to a game against the Phillies. My grandfather was very wary of crowds, so we arrived quite early. By the same token, we wound up leaving in the 5th inning due to concerns about the post-game crowd. However, the game went 15 innings, so we were able to watch the end of the game on TV at home.

And since it was in Greg's book, that means that it was a Mets victory.

[Ceetar]

my first game was 1987. 8/20/87. I don't remember much from it, really anything, but I remember my father following in a large group of people that had handed their ticket to the usher so he could preserve the entire ticket and not just the stub.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I don't recall my first game at Shea clearly but Frayed Knot might: He was there, cousins, grandfather and uncle were also there, it was 1971 maybe? I was very young.

The game that really woke me up as a fan was the George Theodore-Don Hahn collision game. That's my first vivid memory of being at Shea. Game is crazier than I even remember if you look at the boxscore. http://www.leaptoad.com/mets/gamedetail.php?gameno=1865

[Edgy MD]

Do you have the shot of you as Bobby Brady at the game with your crew?

My first 5-10 Mets games were all wins. I was beginning to think I had the magic. I've never been able to find what I remember to be my first game. In my mind, it was a 1-0 or 2-0 win, perhaps with Zachry going the distance, perhaps with the scoreless tie broken in the seventh, perhaps by Stearns and somebody else hitting back-to-back doubles. If that's true, then my first game certainly occurred after the Seaver trade. It's a shame to think I was 10 and the Mets stinky before I got out to Big Shea, but I think that's true.

My dad used to get big blocks of tickets to take a busload of kids from his local PBA club—and me and my brother—out to Shea or Yankee Stadium, alternately, to see games from the cheapies. I don't know how he and another cop kept 40 Brooklyn kids from getting lost or out of line over three hours, but there wasn't much time for father-son bonding, and if I thought my dad could be a red-ass in general, he was doubly scary when supervising the Dead End Street Kids.

[seawolf17]

I definitely remember my first Shea experience: http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2008/12/17/frame-game/

[Centerfield]

seawolf17 wrote: I definitely remember my first Shea experience: http://www.faithandfearinflushing.com/2008/12/17/frame-game/

Wait, two things, actually three things.

1. Great job on the framed cards. Wow. Terrific.

2. You rooted for the Cardinals?

3. WHY AM I NOT INVITED TO VIEW YOUR BLOG

[seawolf17]

Centerfield wrote: 2. You rooted for the Cardinals?

They were my first Little League team. I was young and foolish.

[Benjamin Grimm]

[Guest cooby]

I've been thinking about this and i THINK my first game at Shea was in 1972. Dad noticed my extreme interest and in September we went on a bus From Williamsport to the game.

I've settled on 1972 because I was in 8th grade and I remember wearing a certain pair of pants to school, which I will tell you about.

It was an old pair of my sister's jeans that I had grown into. They were a little ratty, but I had spent the summer trying to embroider a big orange 'Mets', in proper script, on the back of one of the bottom (very bell-bottomed) pant legs.
I wasn't getting far so on the night before the game, mom took over and got them finished.

The game was against the Cardinals and a very young and gorgeous Keith Hernandez caught my eye. Wasn't listed on the roster in the scorecard of course.

I was going to mention watching my favorite, john Milner, but really that might have been a different year.

I don't remember watching the game so much. Just the people. And I remember Dad getting me a hot dog and they didn't have ketchup (weird) and so he put mustard on it. I never ate mustard before but since Jerry Grote and his family were in the ads I ate it and liked it!

After a long bus ride home I went to bed and listened to mom and dad talking downstairs and could still hear the crowd noise and planes in my head. It's all great memories

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

The Steve Henderson Game, although I think my earliest visits to Shea were for Jets games.

[Edgy MD]

A cool "Hendu Can Do" fact: Steve and Pam Henderson got engaged hours before that game, and remain married today. (Wifey Watch crossover!)

I also like that all these years later, he refers to Tom Seaver as "Mr. Seaver."

[Guest cooby]

Another favorite memory was the opening day DDad and Metfairy took me along and we met Rusty Staub! KC you were there too...any more cranepoolets in that group?

[Centerfield]

You guys are all lucky. I grew up in upstate NY.

My first trip to Shea Stadium was in 1998, at the age of 23. I remember sitting through an hour and a half rain delay until the game was ultimately called.

I went back for my first actual game later that year. Against the Diamondbacks I think.

I have a lot of "favorite" memories of Shea. I'll have to think it through.

[Guest themetfairy]

As for a favorite memory, the double play at home plate during the 2006 NLDS was an incredible play to witness in person.

True, I had seen that play previously that year. But that was in a Little League game.

[Benjamin Grimm]

My first game at Shea was a 1-0 loss to the Reds in 1971. Gary Nolan vs. Gary Gentry.

The first time I saw them win was in my second visit, June 27, 1972, vs. the Pirates. It was Jim Fregosi's best day as a Met, with a 3-run homer and 5 rbi in a 7-4 win. I was hoping to see Roberto Clemente play, but he wasn't in the starting lineup and he didn't come in as a pinch-hitter either. (I seem to remember seeing him in the on-deck circle, but I can't be sure of that. Maybe I saw him out on the field before the game started.)

My favorite Shea Stadium memory is easy:



(Those aren't my actual tickets, although I was in the Upper Reserved. I was above first base, around Section 25.)

[Fman99]

My earliest memory is being at a Mets Cubs game in maybe 1976-1977 sometime, that went an interminable amount of innings. And that I wanted to stay, but my mom and brother were all done, and we left in the 13th or 14th inning (OE: I looked at baseball-reference but could not find a Mets/Cubs extra inning game in those years, it may have been a different opponent).

I remember we always used to get the single serve vanilla/chocolate ice cream cups at the game, and that that was a big deal.

I remember also always bringing my mitt, even though you'd need a NASA booster to hit a foul ball up into the rows we normally sat in.

[G-Fafif]

First memory of seeing Shea comes from sitting in the back seat of a Chrysler, driving by on the Grand Central, my family dropping off I'm gonna say Sam Zaret (my dad's accountant/friend) at LaGuardia on a Sunday afternoon. I believe it was the summer of 1970 and that the Mets were playing within. I thought it was frigging Oz from the outside. All those speckles. So much color. I'd seen pictures, not to mention games on black & white television, but to see it from the highway was enchanting.

First game inside: July 11, 1973. Astros 7 Mets 1. Day camp group. Upper deck. Kooz started. Willie played first for us. Agee led off for the visitors. Bought my Official Yearbook and learned Ed Kranepool was once an All-Star. Ate kosher box lunch salami sandwich that probably sat on the bus too long. It did not agree with me. But Shea did.

Favorite memory inside: October 3, 1999. Mets 2 Pirates 1. Melvin Mora scores on a wild pitch to clinch a Wild Card tie and, at the very least a tiebreaker game. The Mets HAD to win that day and they did. And I was there. A year after they lost five in a row and blew a playoff spot and less than a week after they were in the midst of losing seven in a row and blowing another one, it was the ultimate act of redemption.

I could fill a theoretical season with my favorite games from Shea. Actually, I once did.

[seawolf17]

G-Fafif wrote: Favorite memory inside: October 3, 1999. Mets 2 Pirates 1. Melvin Mora scores on a wild pitch to clinch a Wild Card tie and, at the very least a tiebreaker game. The Mets HAD to win that day and they did. And I was there. A year after they lost five in a row and blew a playoff spot and less than a week after they were in the midst of losing seven in a row and blowing another one, it was the ultimate act of redemption.

That's probably my favorite game, all told, that I was at too. Speaking of my old blog, I wrote about my favorite Shea moments in 2008: http://you.stonybrook.edu/cdorso/2008/09/28/for-the-last-26-years-i-thank-you/

[Lefty Specialist]

Favorite memory inside was the Todd Pratt homer against the D-Backs in 1999 to win the division series. An entire stadium held its breath for a split-second and then exploded. Incredible.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

I was at the Pratt game too and that is up there among the bests/favorites. I also enjoyed the Bobby Jones game, the Piazza 9/22 game, the 4 doubles in the first inning playoff game, the drama-less NLCS Championship Mike Hampton Game.

Really the whole 97-00 Bobby Valentine Era was a good time to be a Big Shea, before 9/11 ruined everything and CitiField ruined Big Shea.

[ashie62]

Three moments in attendances are the Ventura/Pratt and Agbayani games.

First memory is seeing Shea from the Whitestone bridge headed to a 1968 Banner day game. It was HUGE.

[Edgy MD]

Top three memories, all of which have appeared in this space before:

1) Double-header long teenage makeout session in the mez. I'm sure we grossed our seatmates out and would have disgraced our families on ESPN if it happened in a later time. But it was then and it was sweet.

2) Police/Joan Jett/REM. During "So Lonely," the upper deck shook so much with the jumping up and down that a pipe hanging on the underside snapped, drenching folks in the field level seats. Fortunately it wasn't scalding hot water or sewage. If there's anything teenagers love as much as feeling the power of burgeoning independence and sexuality, it's feeling the power to destroy things in large groups.

3) Winning Banner Day. I mean, I was a Mets fan. Winning Banner Day was winning the lottery, winning a Nobel Prize, and getting into Harvard all in one. I didn't really win, but carried the banner of a friend's family, as they had two seemingly better banners to carry and I got the castoff. But the judges didn't see it that way. That brief period of time, when the number of the winner was announced and tens of thousands of people were looking around to see who won, but I and only I knew the number was mine ... I felt like I held the world in my hands at that moment. Yes, this was also when I was a teenager.

As precious as these memories are, in retrospect, it'd be nice to have had one of those improbable ninth inning comebacks in my collection, like a bunch of you guys. But c'est la vie.

[Guest themetfairy]

Attending the September 17, 1986 division clincher was pretty awesome.

[Guest d'Kong76]

This was one of my favorites, I'll have to mull on a few others...

[Frayed Knot]

Lefty Specialist wrote: Favorite memory inside was the Todd Pratt homer against the D-Backs in 1999 to win the division series. An entire stadium held its breath for a split-second and then exploded. Incredible.

The only people that didn't hold their breath for a split-second that day were those of us in the waydafuckupthere seats in the RF corner upper deck because that angle gave you a knife-edge view along the entire length of the RCF wall thus allowing those sections to immediately see the ball bouncing around underneath the scoreboard. So rather than having to wait for Finley to check his glove then do the shoulder-slump thing, we knew Finley didn't catch the ball before Finley knew that Finley didn't catch it. We also has a several second jump on Pratt knowing (he was still standing and staring after I celebrated then turned towards the IF) and, upon listening to the radio replay on the way home, it was obvious that we knew before Gary as well.

[RealityChuck]

I've only been to a game a handful of times. My first was October 2, 1966. What I remember most is that Sean Fitzmaurice started in the outfield. Back then, routine transactions were not always well covered, so when they announced his name, I had two thoughts: Who is Sean Fitzmaurice? And that sounds like the most Irish name ever.

[Edgy MD]

I had a similar experience with some seats I won by answering a quiz given by the Amazin' Bill Mazer, that wasn't as stumpy as he thought.

Donna, Fabio, and I arrived and found out we were in for a treat. It was the debut of Shawn Hare. We had not only not heard of the transaction, but had never heard of him as a minor leaguer, nor even as the American Leaguer he had been 2–3 years earlier. Shawn went 1-4 with a walk and we spent the whole game coming up with horrific back page puns to serve has headlines for future Hare-oics that were NEVER going to come—because these were the 1994 Mets, and the end was nigh.

[HahnSolo]

I had a similar experience with some seats I won by answering a quiz given by the Amazin' Bill Mazer, that wasn't a stumpy as he thought. Donna, Fabio, and I arrived and found out we were in for a treat. It was the debut of Shawn Hare. We had not only not heard of the transaction, but had never heard of him as a minor leaguer, nor even as the American Leaguer he had been 2–3 years earlier. Shawn went 1-4 with a walk and we spent the whole game coming up with horrific back page puns to serve has headlines for future Hare-oics that were NEVER going to come—because these were the 1994 Mets, and the end was nigh.

Is that the quiz where he thought you were cheating?

Earliest memory: my first-ever game was 8/20/73 vs. the Reds. Seaver v. Billingham. Game went 16 innings; we left after 12 got home in time to see the last inning and watch Kiner's Korner.http://ultimatemets.com/gamedetail.php?gameno=1908&tabno=B

Best memory: October 25, 1986.