After a quick stop for two days in St. Louis, the Phillies and Mets meet up again in New York. Who knows, maybe the arrival of the Phillies to the Mets’ new ballpark will finally get CitiField a sellout?
How about that? That house of horrors called Shea Stadium is all gone, nothing more than leveled ground, replaced by a fancy new ballpark paid for by every taxpayer out there.
You’re welcome Mr. Wilpon.
But here’s the thing about Shea and the Mets’ new bailout ballpark – it’s still located in the same spot. If it’s possible to be in the middle of nowhere in a city of more than 8 million, Robert Moses and New York nailed it with the ballparks in Flushing.
Worse, there is no easy way to get to get out there to those ballparks. There are no back routes or shortcuts. Take the Verrazano Bridge through Staten Island and over to Brooklyn and you will get stuck on the Belt Parkway. If you go farther north to the George Washington to cross through the South Bronx over the Triborough into Queens and you're done before you get off 95.
The best move is to go through the Holland Tunnel and then through Manhattan to the Queens Midtown Tunnel to the Long Island Expressway and finally to the Grand Central. But even that's a crapshoot depending on all sorts of variables.
If the natives have any secrets to get to the old stadium deep in the heart of Queens, they didn't trickle down our way, aside from the trusty Amtrak to Penn Station followed by the short walk to Grand Central to hop on the No. 7 train all the way out into the deep of Queens.
But even that's stressful, though not the way confirmed moron John Rocker would lead one to believe. The worst part about taking the No. 7 train from Grand Central to Shea isn't the other people – that’s the best part. In fact, it's very difficult not to be entertained and/or to make friends on the ride out to Flushing.
No, the worst is getting on the local train and making all the damn stops.
It takes forever.
In the past the journey led to a non-so magnificent destination in Shea Stadium. Frankly, the place was a mess. Even in the press box there are obstructed views, tight quarters in a room with far too few seats and a work area built for a different era when people were the size of Shetland ponies and weren't lugging around laptop computers. The media dining room is just as cramped, but at least they have a sundae bar and a real caterer.
But you know, so what? Essentially all media people need are electrical outlets, a table, a view of the game and access. Everything else is cream cheese. The problem at Shea was the outlets sparked small fires and the table didn’t quite have enough girth.
Otherwise, it was OK.
It was just as nice for the players, too. Both the home and the visiting clubhouses are small with amenities that clearly aren't up to date. The dugouts are old, deep and seemingly crumbling.
The elevators don't work well, the parking is scarce and the location is a drag. Nothing against Flushing or the borough of Queens, but seriously, what was Robert Moses thinking? He built all those freeways, bridges and tunnels, uprooted neighborhoods and displaced folks from their homes and he didn't anticipate the traffic?
Some visionary he was.
Nevertheless, that proposed stadium on the west side of Manhattan doesn’t seem likely so it’s back to Queens we go. Only this time the new joint looks pretty nice. Looks like there is plenty of space and lots of electrical outlets.
Still, it's fair to say that Shea Stadium gets a bad rap from guys like me. The truth of the matter is that there are places far worse than Shea that are celebrated with unironic and overwrought prose about the nostalgic ardor about such buildings. From this vantage point, Fenway Park, the Palestra, Wrigley Field are not great either, but there are no plans to replace any of those places.
So here's the question: did places like Shea Stadium (built in time for the 1964 World’s Fair), RFK in Washington or even Veterans Stadium get old really fast? Or did our needs change?
In other words, did we get soft?
Certainly Veterans Stadium limped to the finish line, and clearly RFK was not properly equipped to host Major League Baseball for three years. But Shea hosted a World Series not too long ago and the more popular and "historic" Yankee Stadium had last year’s All-Star Game and plenty of World Series games over the past handful of years.
But after we get through all the traffic, the crowds, the stress and all that goes with it to find our way out to Queens, chances are we're going to see something interesting. After all, it is New York where even the most mundane occurrences seem to take on greater importance.
Shoot, The Beatles, The Clash, Pope John Paul II and Bill Buckner all played Shea. They all rocked the house, too.
