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Mets New Fundraising Plan: Sell The Blogs

Much has been made of the Mets current financial woes, but I’ve recently learned of a new plan they have to raise some money.  Starting on Opening Day the Mets are going to start a new concession booth at Citi Field out in the center field concourse.  This new stand will sell new and used Mets blogs at a reasonable price.

 

First up is the esteemed blog, Read the Apple.  In what is perhaps a misinterpreted understanding of common adages, the Mets believe if they sell an Apple a day, it’ll keep the doctors away.  Health is a key component to a successful Mets season, and they’re doing everything they can.

Eat The Apple

 

All articles featuring The Apple are fictitious. No Mets were harmed in the writing of this story.  Optimistic Mets Fan would like to thank The Apple, and the Academy, for awarding us a prestigious Fonzie award.

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Mr. Mets Landing and Pyrotechnics

The Mets announced this weekend that they will have Pyrotechnics night again this year.  They also announced that they renamed the last two sections of the Left Field Landing seats to Mr. Mets Landing, and will be discounting them.

Mr. Met’s Landing is a new, specially priced area of the ballpark.

Sections 338 and 339 in Citi Field’s Left Field Landing are priced at $10 for kids 12 and under and $20 for adults ($20 and $30 respectively for four Marquee game dates)

Mr. Met will visit both sections during every home Mets game.

I sat in the future Mr. Mets Landing section late last year.  That post has some pictures, and I’ll share some here as well.  What I was most shocked about was how much I actually enjoyed the seats.  I’d previously been under the assumption that the Landing may have been the worse section in the ballpark due to the overhang above you making it tough to see the scoreboard, and the Landing itself blocking you from seeing the left fielder.  This is still probably the case if you’re beyond rows 5-6 or so, but otherwise I think Mr. Mets Landing will end up being pretty popular.  You get a view of the game from nearly dead center, which is similar to the view you get on the TV cameras at home.  You get the view from behind the pitcher as he throws his pitch, as opposed to watching from behind the batter.  You’re more a part of the team on the field than the team at the plate, and I think this is one of the best things Citi Field has going for it that we didn’t get to experience at Shea Stadium.

I was at the inaugural Pyrotechnics night last year, and I had a good time.  I was initially skeptical; Fireworks night had been my favorite promotion growing up and I was sad to see it go.  I turned out to be pleasantly surprised; given the name change I did not expect fireworks, but the Pyrotechnic display that we did get was pretty good.  Not that there weren’t issues with it, but it was new and exciting and I had fun.  I’m planning to go again this year.

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Broke Mets Spend $7500 on Dirt

I saw this link earlier.    Apparently Chip Hale suggested that the Mets should practice on a similar infield to what they do in Citi Field, so the team and the county purchased the dirt used in New York to use at Digital Domain Park.

 

“It seemed like a no-brainer to me,” Hale said. “Why not make it as close to New York as possible? If it can help even a little bit, why not do it?”

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Is It Time For a New Generation of Mets?

As I sit here wondering if the Mets will extend Reyes’ contract, and how I hope David Wright and Jose Reyes spend their long successful careers only with the Mets, I started thinking the bridge between different Mets generations.  In my eye, generations are roughly defined by the ‘core’ or the handful of top players on a team that stay together for a couple of years.  You had Mike Piazza, Edgardo Alfonzo and John Franco leading us into David Wright,Jose Reyes and Carlos Beltran.  There was an overlap, or bridge, between these two generations as some of them played together.  One midseason story line was even when Wright would, or should, move ahead of Piazza in the batting order.  What if the bridge between generations was not so obvious?
We are Mets fans because we love the Mets.  We love the Mets because we are Mets fans.  It’s emotional, fanatical, and probably illogical, but it’s what we do.   We have an emotional connection to the team, and to the players.  We all know that you “root for the laundry” and that it doesn’t matter who is wearing the uniform because if it says “Mets” on it, we want them to succeed.

There is talk out there about breaki

ng up the Mets core: If the Mets haven’t won with Wright and Reyes, maybe they are part of the problem and not the solution.  How would the fanbase, the one that includes the millions of fans not on Twitter or in the blogosphere, react to the Mets rebuilding?  Would fans actually be excited for a team that had Tejada at shortstop, Zach Lutz at third, an outfield of Lucas Duda, Fernando Martinez and Kirk Nieuwenhuis with a rotation led by Niese, Gee and Meija? Especially if it took that group 2-3 years to really start to show any talent, if they do at all.  Perhaps Mets fans are too used to a group of players getting only one or two shots at the postseason and now mentally preparing for the next groups opportunity.  

Fans may enjoy a prospect or two, especially one that’s doing well, but watching a group of players lose consistently while going through the growing pains of trying to be a great major league baseball player is not what sells or excites fans.  Half of those guys probably won’t stick around long term in the big leagues, certainly not with the Mets, and they’ll make mistakes and boneheaded plays and go through slumps that will not enamor them to fans.  We love the team, but rooting for lovable losers is not what being a Mets fan is about.  For every fan that loved Ty Wigginton while he

was a Met there are a hundred or more that love Benny Agbayani because he was a part of a run of success.  Rustyjr of The Real Dirty Mets Blog asked for reader submissions of their top 50 Mets of all time, and has been counting down the tabulated results.  If you’re paying attention you’ll notice that the list hardly follows any statistical reasoning.  Ray Knight comes in at #37 for example despite his numbers across a mere 254 games with the Mets not being anything amazing.  Perhaps his baseball-reference sponsor has some insight:

“What a worthy ’86 Series MVP! He embodied those championship Mets. Who can forget his fire, his jubilation scoring the winning run on Buckner’s error?”

We cling the players that come through for us in big moments.  Endy Chavez made an unbelievable catch in a key moment of the biggest Mets game of the last decade.  For his Mets career he was at best a serviceable 4th outfielder and an amazing defensive replacement, which aren’t usually the guys that go down in history and get remembered.  Endy’s catch is immortalized in the left field gate at Citi Field and in the fan walk outside, and it’s one of the few parts of the building that has never been criticized by fans.  We form bonds and connections with these guys, and while winning makes them all look nicer, sometimes it’s just the emotion and effort of one player or series that makes us love them.  Endy’s catch was in a losing effort and Robin Ventura’s memorable Grand Slam Single was the last win the Mets would get in that series.


Would fans really pay to see a team of prospects?  My guess is no.  If the Mets fail to put a winning team on the field again in 2011, it won’t draw any more fans in August and September if they trade off every piece they can at the trading deadline.  While the removal of players that we have a negative association with may sound like a good idea, It doesn’t actually create more interest in watching that players replacement.  Sure there might be a boost in attendance if a fire-balling starter is doing well, or some rookie outfielder is smashing home runs all over the place, but those things will be passing novelties as most Mets fans find entertainment elsewhere that season.  Some cit the early 90s as some of the worse Mets seasons in history.  The ‘86ers retired, moved on, got into trouble and were no longer Mets. There were a couple of flashy prospects here and there that didn’t really pan out.  There was some brief excitement with Generation K, which shows us that a philosophy of “We might be pretty good in a couple of years!” is not a selling point.  There was no clear bridge to the next eneration and a lot of Mets fans in the 90s noticed that there _was_ still winning baseball in New York.  I wonder what the younger Mets fans that are in love with Wright and Reyes would do if they were no longer Mets in the next year or two?

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Left Field Landing Observations

Edit, 3/12/11: The Mets have announced the last two sections of the Left Field Landing have been renamed Mr. Mets Landing, and discounted.  Many of the pictures here, and in the full album here, are from this section.

Edit, 4/1/11: And now it’s sponsored and called BJ’s Clubhouse.

Since Citi Field was mostly empty last night due to the team and the rain, I moved all over the Left Field Landing section where my seats were to get a feel for it.  I’ve never sat there before, and I was surprisingly impressed with the vantage point.  At least from the front six or so rows.  Further back and you lose too much of left field for my liking.  I ventured out to the farthest section, 339, and it was almost the same as watching it at home, from the center field camera.  Actually, I could’ve reached out and touched the camera.

Center Field Camera
Center Field Camera

There was this interesting thing out above the Apple, that seems to report wind speed and direction.

Checking wind speed at Citi Field
Checking wind speed at Citi Field

Continue reading “Left Field Landing Observations”

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Will I Be Lonely At The Citi Tonight?

I’m going to Citi Field, courtesy of a non baseball-watching friend who got two tickets for donating blood. (I actually haven’t figured out whom to give the spare one to) The Mets are virtually out of it, merely at .500, and 8 full games away from even sniffing a playoff spot.  I’m not going to say “It’s over” because stranger things have happened, but until they rattle off a streak better than 4-3, even I’m not going to be hanging on every game like it’s a pennant race.  So will anyone be out at the game tonight? Someone suggested I should try the dunk tank and pretend it’s Oliver Perez sitting on it.  I’ll explore the free giveaways at the Verizon Studio, and see if the seasonal beers have changed to fall yet.

Will the lines at Shake Shack be short?  Or will they be longer as more people are willing to walk away from watching the game for a great burger?

Will the crowd get into the game if it’s a good game?  Or will they mostly be disinterested and focus on booing guys like Castillo?

Will people leave early, even if it’s a close game?  If the score is 6-2 can I expect the stands to be virtually empty by the 9th?  Will they be mostly empty even if it’s 4-3?

Personally I’ll be looking forward to a good pitching matchup (Johnson vs. Dickey) and looking forward to Dickey reaching the minimum innings required to qualify for the ERA list, on which he’d be in the top 10.

I’m watching the game from section 337, row 4.  That’s Left Field Landing, and somewhere I’ve never sat before.  Always enjoy the new vantage points, and row 4 probably isn’t overly obscured like the back rows of that section are.  I’ll also probably roam at random taking pictures of everything.  If you see a guy with a camera pointing at odd things wearing a Mets Hall of Fame cap and a Wright last season at Shea jersey…probably me.

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You Will Go To Citi Field on Sunday

hof_hat_300x250The Mets Hall of Fame game is Sunday.  Before the game they’re having a ceremony and inducting Frank Cashen, Dwight  Gooden, Davey Johnson, and Darryl Strawberry into the Mets Hall of Fame. There are still tickets available.  There are still TOO MANY tickets available.  Shannon over at Mets Police has been all over this, and rightfully so.  It’s one thing if the mid-level seats that are priced above what’s affordable for many people don’t sell out.  It’s quite another if the Promenade section doesn’t.

The lack of Mets history in Citi Field was one of the biggest complaints about the place last year.  More so than even Pelfrey letting Jody Gerut hit the first home run in the place.  Even if you only go to a few games this year, this should be near the top of the list of options.  It’s honoring one of our greatest teams.  Great players who we enjoyed rooting for for many years and the leaders who helped get them there.   True Mets.   It doesn’t matter what they did off the field or later in their careers in lesser leagues.  They did something for Mets fans that can never be erased, and to miss out on that for petty reasons like inflation, personal feelings about current players or administrators, or the organization or park not being precisely how you like it is just sad.  It’s one thing if it doesn’t fit into your schedule, your personal finances, or you’re flat out busy that day, but it’s quite another to make a specific effort NOT to go.    If you’re going to stop celebrating the best parts of the Mets history, what are you going to celebrate?

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Could This Be The Mets Final Test?

Could this be the final test for the Mets?

I hope it’s not, but if they fail it may mean the figurative end to their season.  The next two weeks are very critical, and the first order of business is just flat out winning games.  The Mets have played very well at home this year, and they’ve got three games against the tough Cardinals, and then three against the not so tough Diamondbacks.  There can be no excuses: They have to win games.  Omar’s job, provided he still has one, is to bring in reinforcements after that.  The trading deadline is next weekend, and the Mets are in need of some help.  No longer can they play waiting games or decide they don’t like the price.  When you drop as many games in the standings as the Mets did, you no longer have the luxury of pretending you’re not desperate for help.

After the Diamondbacks the Mets again head on the road.  It’s this road trip that could prove to be critical, as they face the Braves and the Phillies.  The Braves have been amazing lately, and the Mets have been making just about every other ballpark look to them like Turner Field did around the turn of the century.  By falling so far back, it’s become imperative that they make up ground by beating the competition in front of them.  Losing and falling further behind could very well be a death blow.

The Mets have been extremely streaky this year and they really are much better than they’ve shown lately.  If they take that streak and turn it into a hot stretch where they’re again a team that’s tough to beat, they could climb right back into this race.  There is still a lot of baseball to be played and August could be a good month for them.  After they play the division rivals on the road, they come home for the Rockies and the Phillies before going on a road trip that one would describe similarly to the Cleveland-Baltimore trip they took that they were successful on: they play the Astros and the Pirates.  Another home stretch with the Marlins and the Astros provides plenty of time to fight their way back into this race before facing the Braves again at the end of the month.

Can the Mets ace this next test and fight their way back into relevancy again?  I don’t know.  Neither answer would surprise me, but I’m certain they’re capable of it.  They often say you need to get hot at the right time and if the Mets can capitalize on that by beating up on the division rivals, as the Phillies did in 2007, they can certainly win this division.