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Shea Day

Written by Mark Healey

Sunday, 06 April 2008

It's fitting that the last Opening Day at Shea Stadium should honor Bill Shea, the man most responsible for the very existence of the New York Mets. For without his tireless – and creative – efforts, New York would still be a one-team town. Shea, with the help of Branch Rickey and his “Continental League”, rope-a-doped the National and American Leagues just enough to get them to grant Gotham an expansion franchise for the 1962 season. That gratitude was repaid by then-NYC Mayor Robert Wagner, who made sure the new cutting edge stadium was named in honor of the Manhattan-born attorney.
Of course, what was cutting edge in 1964 has become less so in 2008, and the Mets will be occupying Citi Field in 2009 and beyond.

But what a ride, it's been.

For all of its faults and obvious cosmetic shortcomings, Shea Stadium is a monument to Met fandom, and its deconstruction, even with a brand new ballpark being built next door, will be felt deeply.

Dana Brand, author of Mets Fan , is one of those that will miss the old Shea:

I love Shea. I can’t help it. It’s been part of my life for over forty years. I will miss the name: a quick syllable. I will miss what I feel every time I approach the blue bowl wrapped in its web of highways. I love to drive into the parking lot where people are picnicking just to be near it. I love it in the
sun and the wind, and I love it when the lights turn the nighttime into magical bright green daylight. I love it when the Mets win the game in their last turn at bat, and the echoing exit ramps vibrate with the voices of thousands of people who can’t stop chanting and cheering.

Like Dana, and every other Mets fan that has passed through its doors, this author also grew up at Shea, and will miss it terribly.

We spent the summers of our youth at Shea, and never in our trips there, seeing it for the first time as we drove past it on the Grand Central Parkway, did we ever look at it and complain about the blue paint or the lack of superior sightlines.

Though it's understandable the season-long goodbye to Yankee Stadium -- also in its final year of existence -- will get the majority of press coverage, the emotions that will run though the hearts of Mets' fans that have watched their team since 1964 will be quite the same.

Recently, during a taping of “Mets Weekly”, I was asked to share my favorite Shea moment, and I chose that night in 1985 that I at behind home plate and watched Dwight Gooden strike out 16 Giants. Discuss yours here. I am curious to see what others remember about "Big Shea", as me and my dad always called it.

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