Day 51: Shea Stadium

Shea Stadium is where the New York Mets played as recent as last year. The Stadium was originally opened in 1964. The Mets used it the whole time the Stadium existed, but it was not the only use of the stadium. The New York Jets used in from 1964 through 1983 and the New York Giants used it in 1975. Even the Yankees played here in 1974 and 1975 as their home stadium while the old Yankee Stadium was being renovated.

Unlike the old Yankee Stadium, which is slowly being demolished with a current timeline of being down by the end of 2010, Shea Stadium’s demolition went quickly. After giving only two weeks after the 2008 season ended for items to be salvaged for sale to collector’s, they began to demolish the stadium. The final demolition was finished in February 2009. Now the site is a parking lot for the new Citi Field. In the parking lot you can see plaques marking the spots for the home plate, bases, and pitching mound for were in Shea Stadium.

Day 43: Old Yankee Stadium

I am trying to catch up on posts about the last week or so and was about to do the post on the Mets old stadium when I realized I never did a Former MLB Ballparks post about the Old Yankee Stadium. We saw what is just the shell of the old stadium when we went to the new Yankee Stadium.

Old Yankee Stadium was first opened in 1923 and was often called the House That Ruth Built. The Stadium remained in use until the end of last season. This year the Yankees moved into their new stadium and the old Yankee Stadium is to be demolished. Honestly, I thought it would already be down when we visited. Instead, though, the shell of the stadium was still there.

It basically looks the same as it always has on the outside, but a few places you can glimpse into the park and notice that it has been completely stripped of seats and other mementos. At the game it becomes apparent how all these things that were stripped from the stadium are being dispersed, as there are a lot of ads on the video scoreboard telling fans to go to a website to own a piece of the Old Yankee Stadium.

I am not sure how long until the Old Yankee Stadium is to be completely gone, but I believe the plan is for the site to become a park. I assume they will end up putting some sort of plaque or plaques where the home plate and/or bases were originally located. I think the giant bat outside of it is to remain. I also think there is a movement to keep Gate 2 as part of the park.

Kj’s Baseball Collection: Citi Field Inaugural Season

The ball I got at the Mets game commemorates 2009 as the Inaugural Season for Citi Field. One the blue strip is the Citi Field 2009 Inaugural Season logo on one side and an orange NY logo on the other side. The other strip has a sun ray background design and says New York.

Mik’s Mini Bat Collection: Citi Field Inaugural Season

The mini bat Mik got at Ciit Field is light blue in color. It has an orange colored Mets logo on the end. Next to that is the Citi Field Inaugural Season logo.

Mik’s Food Scrapbook: Citi Field

At Citi Field Mik tried the tacos from the food court behind the outfield. Mik was very disappointed in them. They were so bad he did not even finish them. I think it was mostly because they were corn tortillas and it had a lot of cilantro, but it also did not seem like the normal ground meat he is used to in a taco.

Smashed Pennies: Citi Field

At Citi Field back on July 7, 2009, I got two different smashed penny designs and Mik got one design. One of the ones I got just says Citi Field Inaugural Season 2009 with two small NY logos. The design we both got has an image of Citi Field and says Citi Field Home of the NY Mets 2009.

Game 24: Toronto Blue Jays 2 @ Baltimore Orioles 0

Today we did three museums before the game (2 baseball and one Mik's choice pop art/comics mostly one), but I will get to that in later posts. By the time we were done with those and took our souvenirs back to the car Orioles Park at Camden Yards was just opening. The first half hour we could only go on Eutaw Street and part of outfield. That was kind of boring since we already walked Eutaw Street going to the museums. At least they do have some of the better concessions out here and all the stands here were open including souvenirs stands and the Team Shop.

About an hour and a half before the game they opened access to the rest of the park. We walked around in search of the Noah's pretzels so I could have an 'O' one and then went back to our seats. The seats were decent as we could see the scoreboard and most of the field. Oddly it was part of centerfield that we could not see.

The game itself was not that action packed, but it was not entirely dull either. There was some good pitching mixed in with the bad (i.e. quite a few walks). There really was not much in the way of great hitting, as in the whole game there were only 2 extra base hits. Both the extra base hits were doubles by Blue Jays. For the most part it was scoreless innings of baseball, as both Blue Jays runs came in the 5th. I do not think there were even any hits after the 6th or 7th inning.

Overall a good park. The whole game experience other than the ballpark itself is a lot like going to the Nats. I still hate the stupid O chant they say during the National anthem, but it is not as dorky as when the Nats fans do it because they think it is a normal baseball thing since the Orioles used to be the closest team to D.C. They do not have racing Presidents or anything like that on the field, but some of the scoreboard things are similar such as the MASN guess the year thing. Also, some if the best local type food is the same (Noah's Pretzels in the shape of the team letter and Boardwalk fries).

Sent from my iPhone

Update July 16, 2009: Finally got the photos uploaded from the game here and have added some to the post.