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Ceetar’s Back At Citi Field! Opening Day!

Despite six games in the books, baseball doesn’t feel real until I return to a baseball stadium for a real game.  (Spring Training was nice and all, but it’s not the same)

 

Starting at noon today, I will trek out to Citi Field for Opening Day against the Washington Nationals.  First order of business: Read the Apple tailgate!  Following that, I intend to do a lap around Citi Field on the outside, and then a lap around Citi Field on the inside.  I like to take in the tiny minutia that changes from year to year.  Ralph Kiner will throw out the first pitch.  The Mets will bat in the bottom of the order.  Hopefully the Mets will win.

 

Tomorrow’s high is 53 degrees, and with the usual wind at Citi Field it’ll probably feel colder than that. I’ll be wearing my Dickey shirt, covered by an orange sweatshirt under my cream colored Pagan jersey.  And a blue cap.

 

One of the things I intend to focus on is the beer selection.  I’ve heard there are some new brews at Citi Field, to complement the nice selection that already exists.  I floated the idea that Citi Field has the best beer selection in the majors, but I”m thinking that’s probably not entirely true.  After I do Citi Field’s list, I’m going to do some research on other parks I attend, and other parks I don’t attend, and try to come to researched opinion on beer at baseball stadiums.

 

I’ll have a lot of pictures from Opening Day to share this weekend, and perhaps scattered among posts throughout the season.  And to top it off, I get to go back to Citi on Sunday!

 

To follow my tweets and updates directly from Citi Field before, during, and after the game, follow me on Twitter.

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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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Opening Day 2010

Today was Opening Day at Citi Field.  A day filled with optimism. (Unless you’re one of the fans booing Oliver Perez, the Mets trainers, Luis Castillo or Jerry Manuel)  The day lived up to the hype and the Mets won as they usually do on Opening Day.  I met with a surprising amount of other bloggers and the Blue Cap Army to tour the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum which was a lot of fun.  Hopefully I’ll see a bunch more of them this season.  (My next game is Friday.)

The important stuff:

Johan pitched great.  He wasn’t exactly lights out, but he was excellent and held the Marlins to 1 run in 6 innings.  The bullpen pitched excellently.  It was just Nieve and K-Rod this time, but still good way to start.  David Wright got his first home run in his first at-bat, and it was just amazing.  Wright’s poised to have an amazing MVP caliber player, and getting that first home run out of the way so that no one can start doubting him was a great jolt to the Mets fans.  It said, “This season is going to be good.  We’re not going to fall on old clichés and you’re not going to be able to use the phrase ‘here we go again.’” Bay and Barajas both had big hits, to help break the ice so to speak.  More importantly, the Mets were aggressive.  They played an aggressive game, made the Marlins have to make plays (they didn’t), and played hard.  There was even a suicide squeeze attempt which was great to see.  So even though I think he’s still the worst manager the Mets have ever had, I do offer kudos to Jerry Manuel for calling that play.  Suicide squeezes and terror on the basepaths is a much better way to try to steal runs than sacrifice bunting.

Now some pictures of things I noticed at Citi Field today.  There are a lot of changes, and plenty of them are fairly mundane, but still changes.   I took 400 pictures and a couple of videos, and there was so much good stuff that I’ll never be able to get to it all.  The full gallery is here.  More pictures at The Real Dirty Mets Blog.

The moved Home Run Apple. Great change. Great location. Looks amazing there. Could become a meeting point, although it’s just a wee bit crowded there.

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