BMF was in the house for the first ever game at CityField and I’m here to say that stadium KICKS ASS!
Walking into our new home was a surreal experience. It was both exciting and kinda scary at the same time - sorta felt like an arranged marriage. Assuming I’ll never see another Met ballpark in my life I really wanted to fall in love with this one and live happily ever after.
Of course as a Met fan I feared they’d somehow manage to screw up the new digs and we’d be forced into 50 more years of living in Yankee Stadium’s shadow. Luckily that’s not the case.
The Wilpons should be proud of their efforts because all that hard work and money has paid off. I haven’t seen the new stadium in BX yet but I predict CityField will reign supreme as the new crown jewel of NY/NJ stadiums!
BMF never even sat in my $5 seat or watched a full AB of the game (G’town beat St Johns 6-4). Instead we tried to walk every inch of the stadium to get as many looks at her as possible.
There are tons of cool things, which I’m sure we’ll be analyzing for months, but let it be known CityField is not without drawbacks. Mainly there are a ton of obstructed view seats. I’d guess that in more than half the stadium you can’t see into one OF corner or another. Some views are much worse than others but from the Pepsi pavilion you can’t even tell if a ball to deep RF is a HR or not.
Additionally you’ve also got a lot of overhangs that will cause fans to lose sight of routine high fly balls.
But I suppose this is the price you pay for a more intimate setting with seating closer to the field.
They also still haven’t managed to solve Shea’s issue of insanely long lines at the sausage carts. Maybe this is a tradition the Mets aren’t willing to let go but I highly recommend they roll out more sausage carts!
I’m also not crazy about the uniform green seats. A tribute to Ebbets field? Perhaps but BMF thinks it’s boring and sterile. The orange seats are iconic so I think they missed the boat on that one.
The other good news is I didn’t feel overly assaulted by “CitiGroup” branding. I’d just assumed the bailed-out bank would have its name and horrendous logo staring at me from every angle but I was pleasantly surprised to that this wasn’t the case.
I also noticed there was a lot of empty billboard space on the scoreboards. Maybe they’re still putting them up but as of Sunday there were huge swaths of gray where ads would normally be.
Shout to Irish Mike and CW for the tix!
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Catch BMF on SNY’s Sports Nite Monday AM
After bumping into SNY’s Michelle Yu reporting from the Jackie Robinson Rotunda BMF got interviewed and ended up with a sound-bite on Sunday night’s SportsNite.
It’s just a quick comment but it reruns mon AM every half hour til 10 and then 2x again at noon. I’m the guy in the Met hat talking about how my Dad would’ve loved the rotunda.
Meanwhile if you don’t know Michelle Yu, you should. She’s relatively new to SNY after working at NY1 and currently hosts the Sat 10P and 1A SportsNites as well as feature stories from the field all week long.
Keep an eye on her she’s good at what she does…