A trip across town – first visit to Citi Field

After extensive research, I was able to determine that there is in fact another baseball team that calls New York home, and they are based in Queens. I then realized that visiting their ballpark was on my 101 list, so I headed there this past weekend. Despite a Mets win, the visit was not without controversy.

Our visit was somewhat opportunistic – I figured that there should be no better deal than a final, meaningless series against another terrible team. Thanks to StubHub, I was right.

I was able to purchase two $150 (face value each) tickets for approximately two apples and a shiny ball. I decided to take Lauren’s dad to the game since he is actually a Mets fan and neither of us had seen Citi Field yet.

The stadium itself has solid curb appeal – the partially brick facade looks cool from the street. Our tickets included special VIP access and entrance to the Caesar’s Club, so we got to ride up to our seats in a special elevator. This was when I first got wind of potential staff issues – they had an employee sitting in the elevator to push the buttons. These elevators have no radios or TVs.

This is mind boggling! Every major office building in NYC has “elevator news” on tiny flatscreens, and obviously elevators are known for their sound/music. How could you ask people who work for a baseball team to spend every game in an elevator (doing a pointless job) with no clue about what’s happening on the field? This can’t be helping the Mets’ karma.

The view from our seats

Anyway, the game itself was great. Our seats were one tier up, right next to home plate. The atmosphere feels very intimate and everyone seems close to the field. This may have been a function of how empty it was, but despite its size, it felt like we were watching a little league game (I’m not knocking the team, I swear).

There was a lot of food near our section, and despite a slow moving line (of three people), it was comparable to other stadiums I’ve been at. They also had fried dough, which is one of my favorite foods and caused me to have tremendous goodwill towards the organization.

As far as the game, the Mets beat the Astros, and ended up sweeping the series to end their season (box score here). The rain delay in the 6th was so bad that we ended up leaving early, but the Mets did end up finishing the game a few hours later for a 5-1 win.

Before we left, though, we had our staff controversy. Our seats were right below the beat writers and slightly across from the broadcast booths. Before we left, I decided to get closer and take a picture of Keith Hernandez, because, why not?

I'm Keith Hernandez ('s head)

As you can see, I got a great shot of the booth, but Keith’s head was obscured by the video camera guy. What you’ll also notice, is that to the right of the booth is a private box. When I went to take another shot of Keith, a security guard loudly told me to stop and smacked his hand into my camera (it is his red sleeve on the right).

Well, I looked into the box, and it turns out storied Mets GM Omar Minaya was sitting in there. Omar, because he is so great, cannot and will not appear on camera. I got into an argument with the guard, who apologized, but said you can’t photograph private fans at the game. Really?

• Why can I photograph any of the other thousands of fans there, but not Omar Minaya?
• How is the GM of the organization there as a private citizen?
• Why can I photograph Keith when he is off the air, but not Omar when he is actively causing his franchise to suck?

I don’t know if this was just an overzealous guard or what, but if Omar thinks avoiding photos will inculcate him from fielding a crappy team and a medical staff run by keystone cops, he’s wrong. Plus, even if this is their policy, I don’t need a security guard touching my camera.

All that aside, we did have a great time at the game, and I was happy for Mets fans to be able to at least end the season on a positive note. I would definitely check out another game at Citi Field as long as they hire new people and a better team is playing there.