Goodbye, Old Friend

Why would a grown man get all emotional about the close of a building, infamously derided as a hokey dump, with a papier mache apple gimmick as one of its most famous features? When that grown man was just a boy, he would go with his Dad to attend this blue/purple monstrosity and see villains like Bobby Bonilla and Bret Saberhagen, and heroes like Eddie Murray and Todd Hundley. John Franco would be one or the other, depending on the day. The most vivid sensory image was the aroma of a Kahn's hot dog. That boy would go with his Dad, roughly ten times or so a year, to see those guys in the blue and orange mostly lose until the late 90s or so.

I stood above my seat in the Upper Reserve, Section 25, Row O, Seat 3 at 5:06pm today, seeing the worst come to fruition. Intense anger flooded my veins as, for the third year straight, the 25 guys to whom I had trusted my heart ripped it up like so much confetti that rained down over an hour later.

This latest failing was soon deemed irrelevant, as the anger became reflective sadness. I needed to see that video of Mr. Met packing up and leaving Shea Stadium while recalling that building's greatest memories like I needed a hole in my head. Thus the first tears welled up.

One summer afternoon in 1998, while the Mets were looking like contenders for the first time in nearly a decade, my Dad came home from work beaming. He told me that it looked like the team might be in the running for some guy whose name sounded like pizza, and that this guy was an incredible baseball player. I was twelve, so still had to rely on him to determine whether something the Mets did was good or bad. When he did actually come to Queens, he struggled a bit and drew the ire of a few pessimists, but my young mind saw something in him that can only be described as heroic. For eight years, there was no equal in my mind to Mike Piazza. As much as everyone knows I love David Wright, he still has quite a bit to go before he takes the crown of my favorite baseball player of all time. And it's a beautiful thing to know that in 2005, one man's last Mets season was the other's first.

So spending the final minutes in my home away from home, while not being able to comprehend a Mets game without a Shea Stadium, the guy whose named adorned my back for nine years was introduced during the park's farewell ceremony. The dam that was holding back those welled up tears instantly burst. For the first time in at least three years, I was openly sobbing uncontrollably. At this point, I was finally facing the fact that this personal mecca to which I've eagerly gone probably about 200 times, during meaningful games in September, already-meaningless games in July, two straight drizzly 40 degree April nights, a 95 degree night which preceded a New York City blackout, days with parents, best friends, girlfriends, and even a few by myself, four playoff games including Flushing's only game won in the 2000 World Series, a concert this July that nearly brought the house down, and the final three contests to ever occur in William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, that this Holy Ground would soon be a parking lot for a place called Citi Field. Too much to bear, and I felt terribly that it didn't see a happier finale. The dimming lights followed by the blue and orange flares shooting from the rafters moments after the greatest Met of my Dad's generation, Tom Seaver, threw the final pitch of the house to the greatest Met of my generation, Mike Piazza, was the only thing that the organization did right all day. And you know what? As I was walking down the ramps, snapping pictures at Mr. Met's various phrases underneath those exit signs I had seen so many times, I announced that no matter what the price, I would be on hand at 7:10PM on April 13th, 2009 to usher in a new era of magic.

But I'm still calling it Shea.