Well, beat the drum, and hold the phone...

I'm so ready for baseball season it's become a little embarrassing; the preoccupation is so great that I found myself wearing one of my favorite Mets long-sleeve t's today, with chinos. I'm not the only one living in my apartment who feels this way; Alexis found herself watching Mets Classic games on SNY today, in lieu of the last spring training game (it was untelevised), just to tide herself over until the season begins on Monday.

Though we didn't land tickets to either of this weekend's exhibition games at Citi Field against the Red Sox, Alexis and I will still be at Willets Point this weekend. We're going on Sunday for Workout Day, when the guys will be on the field and the rest of us will be wandering the new stadium.

It's hard to believe, but my team is sleeping in their regular-season beds tonight, having flown up from Florida tonight in advance of the games at Citi this weekend. Though these are exhibition games, there is an air of excitement surrounding the first games that major-leaguers will play in the new ballpark, and I can't help but feel its breeze.

...the sun came out today
we're born again
there's new grass on the field...

merch

Growing up, I didn't wear much Mets merchandise. This is likely because my dad, the most committed Mets fan I knew growing up, only ever wore the Mets shoe laces I got him for Christmas one year.

When I lived in Los Angeles and went to Mets games in Chavez Ravine, I felt the need to wear something that designated me as a Mets fan in exile. This was almost a decade ago (wow), before the t-shirts specifically designed for women were anything but pink and icky, so I ended up with an ill-fitting men's t-shirt that just said METS across the chest. I still wear that shirt to sleep sometimes. I also bought a Mets cap before going to Israel for the first time, and am still sad that I seem to have lost it in one of my moves since.

As I've spent more time as a fan not living with my dad and with folks who do wear Mets merchandise, I've developed my own feelings about how I dress when I go to games. And I like the t-shirts and sweatshirt and hat that I have. The options for women have expanded, and there are a couple of brands that design t-shirts and outerwear that I really like. Plus, I have some orange t-shirts, which when combined with jeans are Mets colors, too.

But whoever designed the bikini took a big step over the line of taste.

food at Citi Field

I'd love to tell you all about the food options at Citi Field, but my friend Matt already did, and did it better than I would.

Just to whet your appetite, here was Matt's view from work today:



I'm soooooooo jealous, and can't decide if it's more because of the view and being able to be at Citi, or because of the amazing food he got to sample. Either way, I'm grateful to Tamron for passing along the picture!

another sign of spring

this one courtesy of the LIRR:

I'm not sure how I feel about the name "Mets - Willets Point" for either the subway or railroad station at the new park. It makes perfect sense that the MTA wasn't going to put Citigroup's name all over their signage as long as Citi wasn't paying for it, but I don't really like the choice. It lacks... it lacks poetry.

Why not just call it Willets Point? We all know where to go to find the stadium the Mets play in, don't we?

from the 7

I took the 7 to Flushing today, and so went by the absence of Shea and the presence of Citi Field. I didn't have my camera with me and it was dark and rainy out, so these pictures aren't very good, but the sight had me standing in the window of the train looking from every angle I could see.



















It says Lets Go Mets above the big screen, below the big Citi Field sign. What do we call that screen now? It's not DiamondVision anymore.




















Of course, we might not be calling it Citi Field for long, either. Perhaps it'll be re-named appropriately, as Taxpayer Field.





















That's where Shea was. It's rubble.





















More of the garbage heap that used to be Shea Stadium.



The signs on the subway haven't been changed yet; they still all say Willets Point-- Shea Stadium. Perhaps the MTA didn't want to commit to Citi before they're sure it'll still exist on Opening Day?

Spring is in the window

spotted on Flatbush Ave, downtown Brooklyn today:


Just 28 days to go.

One more day

Until the most important of the year, which for so many of us is Opening Day, tomorrow is the most exciting day of the year for baseball fans: pitchers and catchers are due at spring training. In truth, most of them are already there, guys like Perez and Santana (who's been rehabbing his knee in Pt. St. Lucie for a while now) as are a lot of the position players (David Wright likes to get to spring training early, and given that he lives in New York, who could blame him?).

Never the less, there is a special magic to the day when pitchers and catchers are due, whether they've arrived earlier or not. It means winter is almost over, and it's less than two months until there's baseball again. Baseball fans are creatures both of habit and routine (how else can you like a game that goes on for 162 games?), and pitchers and catchers at camp is one of the special days in the yearly cycle.

a relief and a small concern

Santana isn't playing in the World Baseball Classic (officially) because he's still rehabbing his knee and needs to be extra careful. I hope the latter is more an excuse than the truth, but I'm relieved that our ace pitcher won't be risking any of his season by playing in the Classic. Never the less, it does not instill confidence to hear that your star pitcher is still rehabbing a knee when he's already at training camp and the decision was made after a session on the mound.

Gogle Analytics, This Fan's Goals

though the analytics program that blogger uses can tell me a lot abut the overall trends of where people who visit this site are visiting from, and how they found themselves here. since it doesn't get any more specific than the cities from which folks visit (and how many from each place), it's fun to play the game of "who is that visitor from a place where I don't know a lot of people?" in my head. Some of them I'm pretty sure about (Danny in Ft. Lauderdale, SJ and Trevor in St. Paul, Tommy in LA, Sophie in Melbourne, probably Cierin in Louisville and Rica in Wilmington... though do correct me if I'm wrong!) but the ones I really love are the hits from places where I know no one, where people don't generally consider baseball a national pastime. Two summers ago, when I blogged as regularly as I plan to this season, I ended up with hits from all over the globe, which was both gratifying and exciting and frankly somewhat mystifying. This seems to be starting again--today, there were two hits from Hyderabad, in the central south of India. This is among the most interesting and exciting parts of blogging for me; seeing where the randomest of hits have come from, how long those folks have stayed on the site, trying to imagine (beyond what analytics can tell me) what brought them to an American girl's baseball-lover website. The world is a vast and interesting place, huh?

My goal for this blog this year is to have people comment more. I love comments! I love responding to comments! I love knowing what you think about what I have to say! So leave comments, people!

True Love

I've always hated Valentine's day, even when I've been coupled; it felt so artificial, like it was for amateurs who couldn't pull off being romantic an any particular day of the year, so they focused so much energy on this silly Hallmark Holiday. So, I generally ignore the holiday, and love my friend D's husband's response when asked by his sister how they'd be spending the V day: "We're boycotting it. We're in solidarity with the single people."

All those caveats rendered, I couldn't resist this new offering from the awesome folks who brought you the fabulous and endlessly entertaining omanicon me. Because that's the beauty of fandom; if you're really in it, you're in it when times are bad as well as when times are good, and being around your team brings out the endorphins like little else. So there's an argument to be made that baseball is one of the True Loves of my life.

Trader Joe's loves the Mets

The Trader Joe's that Alexis and I go to was clearly designed by a big Mets fan. Here are the three references I found:



the home run apple on what looks a bit like Citi Field.



a family hanging out in the park, with Mets cap.



The theme is just too obvious on this one to say anything.

When we got to the checkout, I was told that there were actually FIVE Mets references in the store... so on our next trip, I'm on a mission to find the other two.

Yet more to celebrate

Alexis just bought a 15-pack for Citi Field this season. Yipee!! Though I won't get to go to all of them with her, I'm so excited to spend time at Citi with her at all this summer as well as to watch games at home; my plan is to teach her not only how to score, but also how to love good pitching.

I've lived with someone who found my bodily excitement at the game-- the fist pumping and cheering when something good happened onscreen-- really annoying. I'm no shrink, but because he had a hard time feeling anything deeply, I think he was annoyed by how deeply I was able to feel about a simple* baseball game-- to care about something over which I have no control. To me-- and to my friends and family who are real fans-- that's the beauty of it. It's a romantic notion, really, to invest in something over which you have no control.

Alexis cheers and pumps fists and slaps hands and generally gets excited by what happens in a baseball game we're watching at the stadium or on television. So matter what happens on the field in 2009, I'm going to enjoy this season with Alexis a great deal.

*"Baseball, it is said, is only a game. True. And the Grand Canyon is only a hole in Arizona."
--George F. Will, Men at Work: The Craft of Baseball, 1990

Safeco, Citi and the New Yankee Stadium

I have to admit it; I'm really looking forward to the new stadium. I'm a bit (ok, a big bit, a bit large enough to be called a lot) disgusted that it's being financed in large part by a bank that's received an enormous amount of taxpayer dollars to be bailed out of their financial mess. That aside-- and I will leave it aside, because I'm not going to let it cloud my enjoyment of going to a ballgame-- I'm really excited to go to games at Citi Field. A while back, I went to Seattle and saw a Mariners game. The Mariners play in one of the first of the new-style stadiums, and the architects on Citi Field were the same ones who worked on Safeco. I loved Safeco. There wasn't a bad seat in the house, and the food options were plentiful and-- best of all-- afforded a view of the field while waiting on line for beer or other refreshments. And as a personal favorite feature, they piped in the radio coverage of the game into the restrooms, meaning that one didn't have to gamble on missing what happened while standing on line for the loo. In short, I loved Safeco.

And that got me excited about Citi. It's going to be a great place to watch a ballgame, and there really will be no bad seats in the house. Moreover, there's going to be a Shake Shack at the park. Does it get better than that?! It's also just going to be a beautiful stadium, a place designed for the enjoyment of watching a baseball game. Though I don't expect to get to as many games as I've been able to in the last couple of years (there are nearly 15,000 fewer seats a Citi than there were at Shea, and they'll definitely be more expensive, and I've just moved to Brooklyn, so my disposable income may be a prohibitive factor), I know I'll really dig the experience every time I go tot a game. I just hope that they pipe the radio coverage of the game into the restrooms at Citi.




Interestingly, I haven't heard nearly as much excitement about the New Yankee Stadium from my friends who are fans of the team from the Bronx. I'm not actually sure why this is, and it may be a flaw of sampling; I talk to a lot more Mets fans than Yanks fans, though I do talk to Yanks fans, too (Hi, Rica!). So, people who route for the team in the Bronx: how do you feel about the new stadium? Am I wrong that y'all don't seem all that pumped about your new stadium? Does anyone else find it bordering on obsessive to re-create a stadium in exactly the same dimensions, just newer? Are Yankees against progress?

Show & Tell

this was the scene when David Wright came to bat in the fourth inning today:



(Mets 3, Marlins 0, bases loaded, two outs, top of the fourth)

and here is the commentary from your SNY broadcast team:

Darling: I just find it very interesting that--I'm not criticizing the manager-- well, I guess I am-- for not having a right-handed pitcher ready for David Wright. I think that's something that could reeeealy backfire.

two minutes, two balls and two strikes later...

Cohen: It's a three-run double for David Wright, and the Mets have a 6-0 lead!

Hernandez: If you're a Mets fan, thank you very much to Freddy Gonzales for not having a right-hander ready for David!


for visual reinforcement, here's what happens when you don't have a righty ready for Wright in this situation:


(Mets 6, Marlins 0, one on, two out, still top of the fourth)


Lesson learned, opposing managers?

my sister takes good pictures

I've taken the privilege of naming this one Endy in the Hole, Port St. Lucie, March 23, 2008.

my latest excuse

I haven't posted about our spring training trip yet because M and V haven't shared their pictures yet.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

ok, the real reason is that L's laptop is missing the "g," which makes typing a bit uncomfortable. it'll be fixed soon.

in the meantime, I present this great picture of my sister and me at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, taking a break from John Maine's command performance against the Orioles.

a tour of Yankee Stadium that I didn't take

LHJ went with a friend of ours who is a Yankee fan, but whom we love anyway, on a "behind the scenes" tour of Yankee Stadium on Sunday. He was generally unimpressed by the tour, but I like this one picture he took...


...for obvious reasons. We're not going to Tampa, but we are going to Spring Training!!

Paulie Wins

because my living room was being painted as the Mets beat the Astros this afternoon, I watched the game at my mother-in-law's apartment. because I'd inhaled much more dust than my poor immune system can handle in preparation for the painting, I took some benadryl before the game began, and passed out for most of Glavine's command performance.

I was awake for the last inning, though, and for the post-game interviews on SNY. Paul LoDuca had a nice conversation with Kevin Burkhardt about catching Glavine and his RBI-double, and when they were done Burkhardt asked Paul if he had anything else to add.



Paulie turned to the camera and with this face said "Rock on, New York!!" he won a bet in the clubhouse for doing that, and I'd kill to know what the terms of the wager were. Sadly, my mother-in-law doesn't have DVR, so I couldn't rewind and catch the whole moment, but it was hilarious.

...when you're having fun.

our apartment is being painted this weekend, the preparation for which included a lot of cleaning, boxing, and disposing of our stuff. in my winter jacket, I found this crumpled ticket.


this was the third game of the year, which I went to with SJG two days after I turned 30. time sure flies...

an annoying sign and another gorgeous baby

this billboard is on the Grand Central Parkway, past LaGuardia, heading for the Tri-Boro bridge. (important note to my parents and husband: traffic was not moving when I took this shot, and I threw the car into park to take it.) note that this is in Queens, less than five miles from Shea Stadium, and then check out the uniform of the guy in the middle, the focal point and biggest figure on the billboard.


That's right, it's the other New York short stop. His team wasn't even winning the wild card when this sign went up, while the Mets have been in first place in their division since May! I suppose I ought to be happy that they deigned to put David Wright up there at all, but why is he the same size as David Ortiz?! Seems to me they're saying that in NYC, Ortiz is as big a star as Wright, which is a joke. At least Smoltz is smaller than the rest of the guys on the sign.



when I finally made it to the city, I had the pleasure of meeting our other new cousin. we all enjoyed meeting E and seeing his parents and grandparents, and SJG was not surprised as she was holding him to see that he was very interested in the Mets game on the television. His dad and grandpa saw Gooden and Strawberry when they were in Single-A ball in Lynchburg in the 80's, which I find indescribably cool.