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Views of Citi Field

View from the "Subway Section" by Ceetar

 

I like to call this spot the Subway Section because it’s reminiscent of view from the subway platform outside of Shea Stadium where you could peek into the stadium. These photos are taken from just behind the right field scoreboard, next to the entrance to the Excelsior level inside corridor. You can watch replays on one of the televisions directly to your left.

 

Photo taken from the "Subway Section" by Ceetar

 

It affords you a view right into the Pepsi Porch as well and if you look down, the World’s Fare Market concourse. In my eye this section includes the walkway to the Pepsi Porch, which doesn’t afford much in the way of real viewpoints of the game, but still offers a tease as you walk between sections.

 

"Subway Section" at Citi Field, by Ceetar

Here’s a shot of the original “Subway Section” from Opening Day 2007.

 

Shea Stadium, from the Subway Platform, by Ceetar

 

 

 

 

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Opening Day Ticket Price Hike A Troubling Sign

The Mets spent more time and energy and research on ticket prices than you did. Their research suggests this is the best way to maximize revenue and push customers into committing to packs and getting more people into the ballpark for the other games. That doesn’t make it suck any less. The problem is it’s Opening Day and the demand is still high.

It’s one thing to say you’re annoyed with it in November and not going to buy, but once Spring Training kicks in and we hear about people planning to finally get out to the park again and see live baseball many people are going to be looking to find tickets. I’d be surprised if the stadium looks less than 95% full.

It’s a business first for the Mets, and it’s hard for me to get too up in arms at any specific tactic to maximize profit on the high-demand times, but it doesn’t bode well for the future. It’s not just baseball either, or just the Mets. Fans in this same market complained and moaned about personal seat licenses in the NFL, but the Giants and Jets both sold a ton of them. Movie tickets are going up, and if you think $63 for 3-4 hours in the sun watching baseball is rough take a look at the prices of some of the Broadway plays.

Revenue sharing money from MLB is going up too, and it’s only going to lessen the percentage of revenue that ticket sales is. As that happens more and more teams are going to make decisions to milk every last dollar out they can, with no regard to actual turnstile attendance. Take a look at the Marlins fire sale. The Marlins flat out don’t care about the fans, but the franchise itself is making a ton of money from other sources. Actual fans in the park aren’t at the top of their priority list.

It’s unfortunate. Many fans remember the days before the late nineties when payrolls skyrocketed causing ticket prices to follow suit when going to a baseball game was one of the most affordable activities in the city. As prices have rocketed, fan salaries haven’t followed suit and the economy crashed creating less disposable income in general. As a result everything is crazy expensive. I can’t ever legitimately afford to sit in the good seats at a game in any of the other three major sports, and every year it seems I get further and further away from the Mets field as well.

Dynamic pricing was designed with this Opening Day situation in mind. It was always a way to maximize the revenue of the top games, no matter when they happen in a season and was never really meant to lower prices to bargain basement levels to get the place packed. The Mets know, as everyone in sports knows, that take advantage of the few high-demand games you have, and let winning take care of packing the park for the other ones.

Unfortunately for us, the baseball market in New York is huge. The big Mets games are going to sell, and as they do better and better, those games are going to sell too. There’s no boycott that’s going to work. Clearly you shouldn’t back down from voicing your opinion at some of these frustrating aspects of fandom, but know that the only person you hurt by not going is yourself. It’d be great if we could drive market value, but the truth is we don’t.

I sucked it up and bought Opening Day tickets. I want to be there, it’s pretty much a holiday in my eyes, and I’m not yet willing to miss it. Maybe I skip another game or two depending on my situation, but I’m going to check my stubbornness at the gate about the pricing and go. Maybe I’m just resigned to the idea that everyone is out to take every last cent from me, but once Opening Day gets here I’m going to be excited no matter what I paid.

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Ron Darling: Best Announcer in the Playoffs?

We know Ron Darling is a great announcer as Mets fans, having been privy to his talents on SNY since 2006. He creates great insight into the game as a former pitcher, and isn’t afraid to tell you what he thinks.  We’ve witnessed this frequently this past season with his remarks about how the Washington Nationals handled Steven Strasburg.  Unlike other former athletes turned broadcaster, Darling often goes above and beyond simply crediting players for ‘being players’ as if he’s part of some secret club that knows better than we do. He imparts knowledge like he wants us to have it, not like he wants us to know HE has it.

I was watching the third game of the Giants and Reds NLDS, and he offered a bit of analysis that blended an appreciation of advanced shifting with a thought to the game at hand and how long-term trends might not apply the same way to individual samples. The Giants were shifting against Joey Votto to pull like many teams do for left-handed hitters with power. Ron Darling noted that Votto had returned from knee surgery this season and may not be 100%. He was questioning whether or not Votto could put the same force into his front leg to generate the power and pull that the Giants were positioning for. Maybe, he mused, they should use the injury information to adjust the defensive positioning despite what the long term trends say.

Joey Votto had not hit a home run since returning from the surgery, but I have no idea if this theory has any statistical merit in Votto’s case or in knee injuries at large. That’s not really important here because Darling wasn’t suggesting that the Giants forgo the shift because it’s over-thinking or bad form or anything, he was proposing that there was another input that the Giants should take into consideration. Perhaps the player they were shifting against wasn’t quite the same player that had generated all the data they were using.

Baseball is a game with a ton of statistical data that can be used to make educated guesses about players and teams and overall results, but it’s also a collection of small sample results that can vary wildly based on any number of random inputs. A player simply waking up with a headache could throw off the projections for one afternoon. This is why the very best teams will succeed by being aware of the overall trends and still be able to make snap decisions in the moment to adjust those trends based on the fluctuating nature of many of the factors. It’s part of what makes Ron Darling a great announcer. As a pitcher he studied and learned a lot about baseball, and he’s brought that into the booth with him, and as a scholar he appreciates the studious work other people have put in as well.

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Reporters and Analysts are Only Guessing

Hope everyone’s on the recovery path from Sandy. I finally got my power and heat back yesterday afternoon, and managed to fill up my car with gas, so I guess it’s back to business as usual here.

 

We’ve got General Manager meetings coming up in baseball and we’ve passed the point of options being picked up and exclusive negotiating windows with expiring contracts, so it’s open season on free agents.  There isn’t a ton to write about that’s not speculation and rumor, but there are outlets that are obligated, or feel obligated, to put out posts and columns.  Sometimes I suspect less is more when it comes to news and reporting, but that’s a thought for another time.

 

Remember that there are always surprises, that things aren’t always what they seem, and that unexpected trades and acquisitions happen all the time. No team is more active than the Mystery Team.  So try not to take anything you read too seriously regarding the hot stove season. When there are no games being played it becomes very easy for one well-read writer to muse about a player being a good fit for a team and it to catch wildfire and be talked about all over the world. The Internet is often one big game of telephone when it comes to these things.

 

One person could write about Cody Ross being a good fit for a team, and before you know it there are a dozen blog posts breaking down how the lineup will look with him in it. The shear quantity of talk seems to lend credence to acquisition even though the team in question might not even have talked to the player’s agent.  There are hundreds of different ways a GM can put together a roster, and it’s never exactly how anyone guesses.  Although if you want to take your own stab at guessing, Amazin’ Avenue’s AAOP would be a good way to go.

 

Some people enjoy this speculation and enjoy copying spray charts for a slugger onto his projected new team’s ballpark, rearranging their divisional predictions, and comparing lineups across the league.  They see it as a giant jigsaw puzzle that can be assembled in many different ways, and take joy out of finding the best picture. Don’t take this enjoyment for anything more than the time-killing exercise that it is.  Taking offseason speculation too seriously is how you end up pissed at a general manager or owner for not acquiring a player 10 years ago that they may not have even had a chance to sign.

 

Specifically with the Mets, no one really knows what Sandy Alderson is planning for this year, or the future.  It’s not hard to find articles about keeping Wright, trading Wright, offering him lots of money and only offering him just enough to hedge against failure.  You can find columns basically asserting that the Mets will trade R.A. Dickey anytime from now through the trade deadline and also mentions of signing him to multiple years beyond this one.  You can find columns suggesting the Mets will make big moves, if not big signings, this offseason, and others telling you to expect roughly the same team back.  Although I suspect the people telling you the Mets won’t do anything and you should ignore anyone that’s going to make more than two million are just trying to narrow the focus of the work and speculation they have to do this offseason.

 

To me, the only thing certain about the Mets in 2013 is that we can’t be certain about the Mets in 2013.

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Do YOU Want to High-Five Captain Shorts?

Then hit the batting cages, work on your knuckleball (which by the way, R.A. Dickey would teach you if you win this auction to benefit Shannon Forde) and start working off some of that excess fat and then place a call to Sandy Alderson, get signed to the New York Mets and be on the team when they win a game at home.

 

Or if that sounds like too much work, Read the Apple is running a kickstarter to make a Captain Shorts t-shirt.

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Hope Shines For Shannon Fundraiser Dinner

If you’ve followed anything in the Mets community in the last month or so you know Shannon Forde, the Mets director of media relations was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer.  Shannon’s been a good friend and contact to us Mets bloggers, and we all wish her the best.

 

There is a charity dinner coming up, on November 1st, to help Shannon and her family deal with this horrible news and the expenses that go along with it.  Ron Darling will be the emcee, and there will be all sorts of auctions and autograph opportunities. There is a related Meet and Greet session that includes Matt Harvey, Daniel Murphy, Willie Randolph, and Super Joe McEwing  have been added to the special meet and greet line up that also includes Gooden, Strawberry, Franco, Ojeda, Alfonzo, Leiter, Ed Charles and Ed Kranepool.  Open Bar. Trickey Tray. Dancing, etc.

 

Addionally there are auction items for awesome events like batting practice with David Wright, a pitching session with R.A. Dickey, behind the scenes tours of popular NY-filmed sports shows, and many other cool things.

 

If you can’t make it, you could always donate directly.

To make a monetary donation, please mail check payable to “Hope Shines for Shannon” which can be mailed to
C/O DTRF P.O. Box 3145, Point Pleasant, NJ 08742

 

or click on the Paypal link at the bottom of the fundraiser page.

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New Minor League Baseball Team: Hillsboro Hops

I’ve never considered buying a baseball cap or shirt from a team not associated with the Mets until now.  The Yakima Bears will relocate and become the Hillsboro Hops, who nail it with the name.  Oregon is the second biggest hop producing state in the country and hop, as in short hop or bad hop, is a common baseball word as well.

That’s the Oregon mountain, Mt. Hood, above the Hill in Hillsboro, which coincidentally is also the name of a hop grown in the region.  I can’t wait to see what the mascot looks like, who very easily could be named Hood.

 

Because it’s single-A baseball, they presumably will have some silly in-game entertainment.  Maybe a mascot race between hops, barley, water and yeast that ends in a collision…and a beer?

 

The new park hasn’t been named yet, but supposedly there are no breweries currently in the running. That’s disappointing, because having the Hillsboro Hops play at Deschutes Field would double down on awesome.

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What’s Going On In Metsopotamia?

Well, The Mets last two good center fielders had really good games in the playoffs last night.

 

The 7 Line is having a Mets pumpkin carving contest.  I don’t usually carve my pumpkin until the night before to keep it fresh, but I might have to make an exception this year.

 

Rumors fly about how fast the Mets may or may not look to extend David Wright and/or R.A. Dickey.  I think there’s a rumor for every possible permutation.  I’ll just wait and see what happens.

 

Some Mets prospects are playing in the Arizona Fall League.  I don’t pay close attention, but you can check out Metsminorleagueblog.com for specifics.

 

Speaking of Arizona, it seems like the Diamondbacks are willing to consider trades for just about any one of their outfielders.  Given that the Mets desperately need outfielders a flooded market gives the Mets a larger supply to choose from.

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I’m Rooting For Carlos Beltran and the Cardinals

Normally I wouldn’t be pro-Cardinals, especially after they eliminated the Mets in 2006, but as long as it’s not the Yankees It doesn’t really matter to me which team wins.  I don’t hate the Yankees because they win, I hate the attitude of many of the fans and the treatment they get in the media.  That’s what makes me root against them.  The Cardinals could be considered similar, but I have no contact with their fans and being in a different city keeps me separated from most of the Yankees writer counterparts that you can’t help but hear about when you live in the NYC area.  What does matter to me is Carlos Beltran.

 

Carlos Beltran may be a Hall of Famer alreadydepending on who you ask, but for those that don’t think he is, a World Series ring and further postseason domination would strengthen his case.  He’s played more games with the Mets than anyone else, the next closest being his Royals origins.  This suggests that if he were to get inducted down the road, he’d go in as a Met.  That means I’m invested in Beltran collecting the criteria required to strengthen his case, and if that means rooting for the Cardinals this postseason, so be it.

 

Carlos Beltran was one of the best Mets ever, and it was a joy to watch him during his tenure here.  He’s still a great player, and I’m rooting for him to continue the postseason dominance he’s shown in his previous two trips there.