Shea Stadium

Philadelphia Phillies @ New York Mets
August 29, 2003

Phillies 7, Mets 0

W: Kevin Millwood
L: Steve Trachsel
HR: Pat Burrell (PHI)
Attendance: 33,208
Time of Game: 2 hours, 49 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: Queens, NY
First Game: April 17, 1964
Capacity: 56,749
Type: Open
Surface: Grass

Prior to 2003, I had been to New York a couple times, but really had not seen much of the enormous city. The Yankees game was my first trip to the Bronx. I have no recollection of ever being to Brooklyn or Queens prior to this trip either. We stayed at a friend's place in Brooklyn for a couple nights. It was very cool to see what New York city life is like. Also, I got to hear people with real New York accents in Brooklyn, unlike the mix of tourists and transplants that you find in Manhattan.

On Friday afternoon, we had plenty of time to kill before the Mets game at Shea Stadium, so we headed to the East Village in Manhattan to McSorley's Old Alehouse, the oldest Irish tavern in New York. I distinctively remember the only way you could order beers there was two at a time. Needless to say, we ordered several rounds. Eventually, our group of four hopped on the Subway and headed out to Shea Stadium. I mention the trip to McSorley's because it plays a bit of a role in my inability to recall every detail of this particular game. That, plus it was five and a half years ago, so cut me some slack!

Yankee and Shea Stadiums may share a city, but there aren't many similarities between their neighborhoods or the ballparks themselves. While Yankee Stadium is located in the heart of a city neighborhood with streets surrounding it in every direction, Shea is in a much more open area. It is located near LaGuardia Airport as well as the tennis complex which hosts the U.S. Open every year. In fact, the tournament was going on while we were there. Interestingly, Andy Roddick won the men's single title the following week, the most recent time it was won by someone not named Roger Federer.

Back to baseball... Shea Stadium is (I'm going to use "is" rather than "was" because I don't know if it has been completely destroyed yet) probably one of my least favorite outdoor baseball stadiums. It is one of the oldest parks in the league, but lacks the charm of the other old venues.

Shea has some similarities to the cookie-cutter multi-purpose stadiums built in the 60's and 70's, except that it is not completely enclosed. In fact, there are virtually no outfield seats in the entire park. That leaves what has to be a league high of 50,000+ seats from foul pole, around the plate, to the other foul pole. There are four seating levels. All but the lower level seats are quite a distance from the playing field. We had seats in the upper level down the third base line, which weren't too bad. I'm pretty sure we wound up sitting much closer to the field than our actual seats were though.

The openness of the outfield area reminds me a lot of the old Milwaukee County Stadium, but with far less outfield seats. The only outfield seats in the entire park are bleachers in left field. An enormous scoreboard covers the right field area, along with the famous hat from which an apple emerges when the Mets hit a home run. The perfectly symmetrical playing field favors pitchers with deeper than average distances down the lines and to straight away center field.

The Mets had a tough night against the division rival Phillies. The consistently mediocre, and always slow-working, Steve Trachsel was the starting pitcher for the Mets. Kevin Millwood started for the Phillies. Pat Burrell had the worst year of his career in 2003, but his second inning home run off Trachsel gave the Phillies a 2-0 lead, which were all the runs they would need.

After allowing a first inning single and walk, Millwood proceeded to retire the next 15 Mets batters. He and Rheal Cormier combined for a shutout, giving up just three hits, all singles. The Phillies scratched runs in the 5th and 6th and three more in the 9th to win a 7-0 shutout.

The Mets have had very good teams for most of the last decade, but 2003 was not one of them. This loss dropped them to 59-74, buried in last place. Meanwhile, the Phillies improved to a solid 71-63. Unfortunately for them, that record was not nearly good enough to keep pace with the Braves.

I only visited once, but I can't say Shea Stadium is a park I'm sorry to see go. The new Citi Field should be a major improvement. I am looking forward to visiting both of the new New York ballparks this upcoming summer. Finally, I can't mention Citi Field without displaying an image of the, sure to be trend-setting, uniform patch the Mets will be wearing this season.


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Next stadium: Fenway Park, Boston