Shea Stadium will no longer be home to the New York Mets by the start of the 2009 season. In my nearly three decades as a Mets fan, there are things about Shea I've enjoyed and things about Shea I'm glad will end up under a pile of rubble. And yes, I'm talking about those cheese-tastic neon stick-figures playing ball on the side of the building, and that awful picnic area that's about the size of a Manhattan efficiency.
I liked the way the bass in "We Will Rock You" echoed through the stadium. I loved the apple that came out of the top hat when the Mets would hit a home run. I liked that the seats matched the team colors. When I was a kid, there was something nutritionally magical about the way a Kahn's hot dog matched with a lukewarm RC Cola.
And there were memories. I've gotten into shouting matches at Mets/Yankees games there. I saw Darryl Strawberry bank one off the scoreboard there. I remember chanting "Beat L.A." in the last home game before the '88 NLCS. I remember the time when my father and I decided to beat the traffic, and listened to Pat Tabler win the game in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded on the car radio in the parking lot. (Tabler, by the way, is one of those anomalous characters that only exist in baseball: he had a career batting average of .282, yet hit just under .500 with the bases loaded. He was like an NFL quarterback who couldn't complete a first-down pass, but could toss a touchdown on a Hail Mary half the time he threw one.)
Oh, and then there were those euphoric moments in 1969, and those two games in 1986 when Shea became the center of the sports universe. Those were pretty cool, too, even if I wasn't there for them. (Hey, at least I'm honest; I'm pretty sure if you tabulated everyone who says there were in the house for Game 6, the total attendance would be around 3 million.)
But while the rest of the major leagues were building state-of-the-art ballparks, my team was playing in a heap of concrete that looked like they ran out of money to complete. I think The Vet in Philly had more amenities, and that place was a cesspool. So it was time for Shea to go.
It's a bittersweet departure, because Shea was a symbol for this franchise's personality, especially when it came to New York baseball. The Yankees played in a temple, the Mets played in a football stadium. The Yankees had the quiet awe of Monument Park, and the Mets had planes buzzing over their games. Shea wasn't pretty, it wasn't friendly, and it could be awfully frustrating — in other words, meet the Mets.
The Mets will play in Citi Field, scheduled to open in 2009, but it won't be their stadium. It'll be the Brooklyn Dodgers', as the new ballpark is one big homage to Ebbets Field. I don't necessarily have a problem with that architecture choice; plenty of "throwback" ballparks around the league are influenced by the classics.
I just have a problem with Jackie Robinson.
There was evidently a movement afoot to name the stadium for Robinson, but that wasn't going to happen with CitiGroup offering $20 million a year for the naming rights. So, instead, the Mets are going to place a large statue of Robinson in the ballpark's rotunda and host an educational museum about his life and impact.
Look, I'm all for honoring Robinson's legacy as the single most culturally significant athlete in the history of sports. That's why we have Jackie Robinson Day every season. That's why his name is on awards and postage stamps and scholarship funds. But if you want to honor him in a stadium, do it out in L.A. where his team plays. He was never a Met. He had nothing to do with the Mets. He's got no business having a statue in their ballpark.
It made sense to have a Robinson statue outside of Olympic Stadium in Montreal because his brief stint with the minor league Montreal Royals electrified that baseball community and put the city on the baseball map. If Robinson had that kind of impact on the Mets, maybe there'd be a reason for this fanfare. As it stands, Horace Stoneham and Walter O'Malley were more important figures in Mets history than Robinson ever was; if it weren't for their avarice, the Mets wouldn't exist. Where's their statue? (Well, I guess having to clean eggs and spit off of the O'Malley shrine every day would get a little old.)
What can I say: I'm a purist. When I ranked the retirement of Wayne Gretzky's and Jackie Robinson's numbers at No. 96 in my book Glow Pucks & 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History," I did so for two reasons. First, I felt that having young athletes who were inspired by No. 99 and No. 42 wear those numbers in the big leagues leaves a more enduring legacy than having either number retired in perpetuity. But I also felt it was an insult to some of sports' most intense rivalries: the Calgary Flames have an Edmonton Oiler's number retired, and the Giants have a legendary Dodger's number hanging in their stadium. What a disgrace.
The Mets have said they'll honor their own players at other entrances of the stadium, although no specifics were given at this week's ceremonial groundbreaking. Let's just say I'm not holding my breath for the "Tug McGraw gate" to have the same gravitas as the Jackie Robinson rotunda.
The fact is that when Mets fans come through the turnstiles for the first time in 2009, they'll be greeted in the foyer by a player who never wore the uniform. Not Seaver nor Koosman nor Carter nor Hernandez nor Stengel nor Hodges — a pure Dodger. If the argument is that the new stadium should honor New York baseball history, then that statue should bear the likeness of only one player: Willie Mays, an honest-to-goodness Met.
Maybe you think I'm overreacting. Maybe you think petty feelings of fan loyalty and sports rivalry should take a backseat when it comes to venerating someone as enormously significant as Jackie Robinson. If that's the case, Mets fans, let me ask you this:
Would you still have no problem with the Jackie Robinson Rotunda if he had been a Yankee?
Didn't think so...
Greg Wyshynski is the Features Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington, DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book is "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History." His columns appear every Saturday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Greg at [email protected].
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