Mets In August At Citi Field

Three Mets games at Citi Field . . . and we discover how to park for free near the stadium!

The first game was the Mets vs. Diamondbacks on August 3, 2009. We located the sad old Shea Stadium Home Run Apple:

An excellent sunset over Manhattan:

I complained before about the obstructed views from the upper rows of Section 538, but the dirty secret about Citi Field seems to be that there are obstructed views nearly everywhere, including Section 524:

And it’s not just in the 500 level. A friend said he came across tickets seven rows behind the Mets dugout and couldn’t see the right field corner (his regular seats, part of a season ticket, are above the Spongetech sign in the outfield where he can’t see most of the left field corner):

We sat a little lower in Section 426 for the game against the Phillies on August 21, 2009 and still couldn’t see the left field corner:

And there is a lot of interference when looking at the field from that part of the stadium:

I know part of the knock against Shea Stadium was that it was so cavernous, but at least you could see the entire field from most (if not all) the seats. How you can spend $800 million and have obstructed views of any sort seems strange. And charging people what the Mets are charging seems outrageous. The face value of our Section 426 seats was $42. For that you had to listen to the crowd to discern whether Gary Sheffield gave enough of a shit to catch the ball. Weird.

Then there’s the out-of-town scoreboard that doesn’t feature “2s,” so you didn’t know that the Yankees were actually beating the Red Sox 20 to 7, instead of 10 to 7:

Before the game we took a walk from Hinton Park in Corona to Citi Field. This is also known as a way to avoid spending $18 to park, a tip I learned from the Mets Police blog. In only eight minutes, you can get from here, at 34th Avenue and 114th Street:

To here, the Left Field Gate at Citi Field:

Along the way you get to walk along the Whitestone Expressway:

The Monday day game against the Phillies on August 24 was a perfect day:

These seats, in Section 518, actually had a full view of the field. You know things are bad with the sightlines when StubHub sellers boast that a particular seat has a “full view of the field.”

That weekend the Mets were celebrating the 1969 World Series-winning team with specially mowed grass and painted “1969s”:

It was the day after Phillies utility man Eric “Beardo” Bruntlett made a super-rare game-ending unassisted triple play, only the 15th in the history of major league baseball:

An aside — I happened to be at Yankee Stadium to witness the 11th unassisted triple play in a major league game in 2000 — on the scorecard, see Shane Spencer’s sixth-inning at-bat, with the “4U TP”:

You can change the stadium but you can’t change the flightpath — I actually love watching the planes fly into LaGuardia, even if they’re a little loud (and the city somehow believes they can develop Willets Point when planes fly through there until late into the evening every night . . . hmmm):

The late-afternoon shadows fall over the field and Mets fans endure yet another loss:

Jersey Shore, July 24-26, 2009

Late July down in Cape May County, New Jersey — Wildwood and Ocean City. We got down there by taking the new ACES Atlantic City Express Service from Penn Station, which is nice and pretty cheap (for now at least — $29 each way), though it does follow a circuitous route into North Philadelphia and back out to the Jersey shore along the Atlantic City-Philadelphia line (it’s still faster than the bus, I believe, and obviously more comfortable):

First order of business was an evening on the Wildwood Boardwalk:

Watch the Tram Car, please:

We dined on Curley’s Fries and Kohr Bros. frozen custard while watching the Friday Night Fireworks, and enjoyed the Wildwoods Sign before going big at the Gateway 26 Casino and Olympic Casino. We did not spend long at the Boardwalk Chapel, though the folks there seemed nice enough.

Wildwood is always a little bit of a crapshoot. In 2004 we caught the infamous “Wack The Iraq” display before it was taken down:

This time there were some slightly embarrassing T-shirts for sale, and I don’t mean those of the “Flip Cup Master” variety:

Elsewhere, some remnants of Wildwood’s “Doo Wop” style remain, though the old 50s-style architecture is endangered:

Day two was Ocean City, where we saw a giant tuna being taken apart on a dock. It smelled like a sushi joint:

The main event of the weekend was Ocean City’s annual Night in Venice celebration, a rare night of partying in this dry town:

The idea is to decorate pleasure craft and parade them through the inlets on town’s bay side. Bay side residents typically have big parties that last well into the evening. It’s kind of difficult to photograph, but this YouTube gets across the basic idea:

Night in Venice 2009 YouTube Video

Chinese, Etc.

The Dim Sum Lunch A La Carte at Chinatown Brasserie in Noho is a good deal:

And the Soy Sauce Crispy Baby Chicken at Fuleen Seafood Restaurant in Manhattan’s Chinatown works magic with Pringles:

While you’re at it, watch these asshats post no bills: