Citi Field

The Jackie Robinson Rotunda is inside the main entrance.

Just like at old Shea Stadium, the big apple in center field pops up when a Met homers. David Wright hit a 2-run bomb in he 1st inning.

Former Red Sox 2b and future Red Sox manager Alex Cora at bat as a Met.

Orange is one of the Mets colors, so they have orange foul poles at Citi Field. The only other Major League Ballpark with orange foul poles was Shea Stadium. They might be the same ones that they saved and moved from Shea.

I wore my H hat in honor of Kara, who had just graduated from Harvard.

In 2009 both New York ballparks were being replaced, so we did a road trip. Kara and I drove down and caught an afternoon game at the Mets new ballpark, Citi Field. Caitlin was already living in New York and working that afternoon, but she had been to an exhibition game at Citi Field the day before Opening Day. Red Sox vs. Mets.

Citi is much more of a regular person’s ballpark than the new Yankee Stadium. Spacious, plenty of concessions. There’s a Jackie Robinson Rotunda as you enter, with a wall depicting Ebbets Field where the Brooklyn Dodgers played, even though the Mets play in Queens, not Brooklyn. I didn’t learn this until seven years later when Kara got married. One of her husband Brett’s groomsmen is from New York and told the that the Mets colors – blue and orange, with black as an alternate – are an homage to the two teams who abandoned New York for California in 1958. The blue is Dodger Blue, the orange and black alternate is for the New York Giants.

It was a very hot August afternoon and the park is enclosed enough that you don’t get much wind in the seats. We headed up to the top where some breeze does sneak in. The field is right next to where Shea Stadium was, near JFK airport. The New York Jets originally played at Shea, and the name Jets was chosen because of the constant drone of 747s flying over. It’s just as true today.

In right field there was a Pepsi Porch, just like at old Tiger Stadium in Detroit, that hangs over the lower deck. The new ballpark in Detroit has the same thing.

The Cardinals were in town but they didn’t show up for the game. Albert Pujols doubled, but that was the only excitement for Cards fans. The Mets got two in the 1st, three in the 2nd, two more in the 6th and topped it off with two more in the 8th. The final score: Mets 9, Cardinals 0.