Citi Field

The entrance rotunda to Citi Field, Jun-2009.

The ball field and seating bowl, from the right-field bleacher porch.

From the next-to-last row of the upper deck, a view as close as from the lower boxes of the upper deck at Shea. This photo is from Mar-2009.

Chronological Tour: Stop 341

• Location: Roosevelt Avenue at 126 Street, Flushing (Queens), N.Y. (map it using Google Maps)
• Opened: 2009
• Home team: New York Mets, Major League Baseball (2009-present)
• Capacity: 45,000

Rating: 4 baseballs

The first base hit in park history came at 1:19 in the afternoon, when Hoyas shortstop Tom Elliott singled to center off Red Storm starter Brendan Lobban with one out in the home first inning. Georgetown catcher Greg Pustizzi knocked in the first run in the history of the park in the second inning, with a single to left scoring first baseman Dan Capeless. An inning later, Sean Lamont followed with his ninth home run of the season and the first ever at Citi Field, a solo shot to left.

As I arrived at the ballpark, I tried to figure out what was different, in comparison with the now-demolished Shea Stadium:

1) The old scoreboard was gone. That thing was a classic. In its place are two large matrix boards, both of which usually display the score, and I think it's rather redundant for them to be as close to each other as they are. Then again, much of the other information differs between the boards.

2) The simple outfield wall is gone, replaced by an irregular monstrosity that could be at home in any number of other MLB parks of recent vintage. At the college game, the distance markers were missing, but they were in place by the time I got there in June for a Met game.

3) The out-of-town scoreboards, which used to flank the main scoreboard at Shea, are now mounted atop the left-field bleacher. They show the runners on base and the number of outs, as at many new ballparks. At the college game, the dot for which team was batting was missing; again, it was fixed when I saw a Met game.

4) There aren’t too many escalators in this building. Shea had them all over the place. Again, though, a lot of the new parks rely on stairwells. I’m sure design engineers have concluded that this is a more efficient way to move people into and out of the park, but the walk from the upper deck to street level was excruciatingly long after a crowded MLB game.

5) The multicolored seats are gone. Instead of a different color for each seating level, which I admit is so 20th century, Citi Field’s seats are forest green. Green is probably the most common color for stadium seats nationwide, but it’s not a Mets color. They could have done just as well with royal blue. To its credit, the tread (room between seating rows) here is much wider than at the old park.

Most importantly, though, Shea was missing. This place doesn’t look anything like Shea Stadium, and that’s certainly deliberate. It even has a new home-run apple (the old one, originally inside the park near street level just inside the bullpen entrance gate, is now in the plaza outside the home plate entrance). They seem to have incorporated design features from many parks, old and new, into this park. The main entranceway, the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, is modeled after the home-plate entrance to Ebbets Field. The bullpens are adjacent to each other in right-center field, copying several new parks, and they jut out into the outfield, creating a short porch that pays inadvertent tribute to Kiner’s Korner at Forbes Field (Hall of Famer Ralph Kiner went on to be a Mets broadcaster for over 40 years).

I ran into an old friend and Shea denizen in the eighth inning, and he turned around, looked at the pile of rubble that remained of Shea (and which was gone by opening day), and said, “So much of my childhood ... it’s gone now.” Am I that emotional about not having Shea? Hardly. And the commute to this park is exactly the same as the commute to Shea. The look is different, but the feel is similar because they put this park in the same place as the old one, give or take 600 feet.

For the 2012 season, the Mets adjusted the outfield walls, shortening some of the distances and fence heights in order to make it a little easier home run park. The field had gained a reputation as a pitcher’s park in its first three seasons.

In September 2017, a three-game Tampa Bay Rays series against the New York Yankees was relocated to Citi Field while St. Petersburg dealt with the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, a powerful storm that impacted nearly all of the Sunshine State.

Getting to the Game

The stadium is on the northern edge of Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, which has had service on the IRT Flushing line (NYC Subway No. 7 train, Willets Point Boulevard station) and the Long Island Rail Road since at least the late 1930s. Flushing Meadow was home to World’s Fair expositions in 1939-40 and 1964-65, and Shea opened in conjunction with the later event. The park is 30 minutes from Times Square on the subway and less than 15 minutes from Penn Station on the LIRR.

In addition, the Grand Central Parkway runs right past the park, and it is also close to the intersection of the Van Wyck and Whitestone expressways. There are sufficient parking lots, which aren’t cheap; there is also limited street parking in the neighborhood to the west of the Grand Central Parkway and you can walk to the stadium on Roosevelt Avenue.

Watching the Game

Field views are good here from just about anywhere in the park, including most of the concourse area. The only exceptions are directly behind the plate, where club areas on both the lower and upper decks obscure views from the downstairs rotunda entry area and the upstairs food court.

Enjoying the Game

The mascot, Mr. Met, is instantly recognizable: nothing more than a big baseball head. This simplicity has endeared Mr. Met to generations of fans. These days, he typically appears during a T-shirt toss after the fifth inning and during the seventh-inning stretch. (The Cincinnati Reds have a similarly simple mascot.)

Concessions are varied, especially on the main concourse, and priced in line with most MLB venues, which is to say overpriced but not necessarily outrageous. Expect to pay premium prices for premium items at specialty stands like Brooklyn Burger and Shake Shack.

The stadium is not in a neighborhood, so there are no outside dining options surrounding the park, but mass transit (above) makes it simple to enjoy a pre-game meal in midtown Manhattan and still make it to the game. This being New York, there are also numerous eateries in the neighborhoods along the No. 7 subway line.