{"id":648,"date":"2010-04-05T22:05:52","date_gmt":"2010-04-06T03:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/?p=648"},"modified":"2010-04-05T22:32:55","modified_gmt":"2010-04-06T03:32:55","slug":"opening-day-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ceetar.com\/optimisticmetsfan\/2010\/04\/05\/opening-day-2010\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Day 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today was Opening Day at Citi Field.\u00a0 A day filled with optimism. (Unless you\u2019re one of the fans booing Oliver Perez, the Mets trainers, Luis Castillo or Jerry Manuel)\u00a0 The day lived up to the hype and the Mets won as they usually do on Opening Day.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Hopefully I\u2019ll see a bunch more of them this season.\u00a0 (My next game is Friday.)<\/p>\n

The important stuff:<\/p>\n

Johan pitched great.\u00a0 He wasn\u2019t exactly lights out, but he was excellent and held the Marlins to 1 run in 6 innings.\u00a0 The bullpen pitched excellently.\u00a0 It was just Nieve and K-Rod this time, but still good way to start.\u00a0 David Wright got his first home run in his first at-bat, and it was just amazing.\u00a0 Wright\u2019s 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.\u00a0 It said, \u201cThis season is going to be good.\u00a0 We\u2019re not going to fall on old clich\u00e9s and you\u2019re not going to be able to use the phrase \u2018here we go again.\u2019\u201d Bay and Barajas both had big hits, to help break the ice so to speak.\u00a0 More importantly, the Mets were aggressive.\u00a0 They played an aggressive game, made the Marlins have to make plays (they didn\u2019t), and played hard.\u00a0 There was even a suicide squeeze attempt which was great to see.\u00a0 So even though I think he\u2019s still the worst manager the Mets have ever had, I do offer kudos to Jerry Manuel for calling that play.\u00a0 Suicide squeezes and terror on the basepaths is a much better way to try to steal runs than sacrifice bunting.<\/p>\n

Now some pictures of things I noticed at Citi Field today.\u00a0 There are a lot of changes, and plenty of them are fairly mundane, but still changes. \u00a0 I took 400 pictures and a couple of videos, and there was so much good stuff that I\u2019ll never be able to get to it all.\u00a0 The full gallery is here<\/a>.\u00a0 More pictures at The Real Dirty Mets Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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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more below to save on page load times.<\/p>\n

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Cats, especially black ones, have a special meaning to Mets fans.\u00a0 So you can imagine I was pysched to randomly encounter one on my way from the car to the park.<\/p>\n

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The Museum was excellent.\u00a0 I’ll let other bloggers that are better with the history stuff break that one down, but good stuff.<\/p>\n

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You can now see into the Champions Club, which is on the field level behind home plate.\u00a0 That area always seemed so dark and dreary, and this definitely opens it up a bit.<\/p>\n

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The newly dedicated Shea Bridge.\u00a0 Great name for it, great symbolism.\u00a0 Great bridge.<\/p>\n

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I don’t know if this was there last year, because it’s in what I deem the ‘secret’ gift shop.\u00a0 Right past the Carvel that serves ice cream floats.\u00a0 (Where the dunk tank used to be) If you have kids, you probably _did_ know about this one. (btw, isn’t the kid sitting on the shelf a little creepy?)<\/p>\n

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I could just be just not remembering, but I don’t remember globe lights to distinguish an up elevator from a down one last year.<\/p>\n

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This isn’t exactly ‘new’, but newly accessible.\u00a0 The Acela Club can be reached with a ticket that claims any club access.\u00a0 My tickets ended up being Promenade Club, so I was able to walk into the Acela Club to check it out, which does indeed look like a cool place.\u00a0 Not really my style for a ballgame necessarily though.<\/p>\n

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One of the new menu items, Disco Frittes.\u00a0\u00a0 Pretty good, although not overly amazing either. (Btw, Box Frittes no longer seems to be serving “Blanche De Queens” as their beer, which I found disappointing.\u00a0 Didn’t like the Brooklyn Summer as much.<\/p>\n

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I know some criticized the ads around the ‘Diamondvision’.\u00a0 It does look a lot cleaner this year.<\/p>\n

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Picture of the Blue and Orange stairwells.\u00a0 This isn’t the greatest picture, but you get the idea.<\/p>\n

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Today was Opening Day at Citi Field.\u00a0 A day filled with optimism. (Unless you\u2019re one of the fans booing Oliver Perez, the Mets trainers, Luis Castillo or Jerry Manuel)\u00a0 The day lived up to the hype and the Mets won as they usually do on Opening Day.\u00a0 I met with a surprising amount of other … <\/p>\n

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