The Real Mets Fans Can't Find The New Stadium

That's how Wallace Matthews is thinking today. The Mets lost last night and as anyone who knows anything knows, one game means the entire season is over and the stadium needs to be rebuilt near the real Mets fans. Though Wallace has no idea of where that exactly is, he does know seats should be $5 and the fans should stay for the entire game.

On one hand I can see what Wallace is saying because new stadiums tend to cause ticket prices to go up, sky boxes to increase, and there is generally a more corporate atmosphere about the place. What I would enjoy about Wrigley Field and Fenway Park is that the atmosphere is not sterile, you feel like you are at a sporting event...or at least that is what those who have attended the games there say.

On the other hand though, Wallace Matthews has no point because it has been ONE GAME. One game, not two games, but one game. Usually the first night and opening of the new ballpark does not attract the natural Mets fans who come to the games. It tends to attract wealthy people who have no interest in baseball, except they want to attend the first game at Citi Field. It was one game. No need to freak out about the crowd...but Wallace does anyway.

There used to be a ballpark here, a raucous place where the fans were rowdy, the team was lovable and the game was fun, whether the Mets won or lost.

That ballpark was Yankee Stadium...and they tore that one down too.

The Shea Stadium crowd was rowdy and sometimes never made sense. The one example I can think of is when the crowd chanted "Larry, Larry" at Chipper Jones. That is his first name and I have no idea why they chanted that in a taunting voice. Maybe Mets Fan AwesomeSean can fill me in on this one...assuming he cares/knows.

Regardless, Wallace remembers a time when Shea Stadium and the real fans were able to attend the game.

But they tore that one down and replaced it with a tomb - a ridiculously expensive tomb to be sure,

Also a tomb that looked really, really good on television.

The first game at Troubled Assets Relief Program Field - its official name is a great big bird-flip to everyone in New York not named Wilpon or Katz, and therefore will never appear under my byline

The title of Wallace's article? "Citi Field Lacks Real Mets Fans." I know he may not be responsible for the title of the article, but the name Citi Field does appear under his byline.

- felt a lot like the last one at dear, departed Shea Stadium.

So the only game played at Citi Field felt a lot like the last game played at Shea Stadium, where the crowd was "rowdy," the team "lovable," and the game was "fun?" That sounds like the new stadium was actually a pretty good investment then since it was able to keep the ambiance of Shea Stadium.

Why so sad, Wallace?

Some of that had to do with the performance of the home team - with the exception of one moment in the fifth inning, the Mets were as lifeless as their fans - but mostly, it seemed to be a reflection of the clientele.

So the last game at Shea Stadium was sad? I thought the crowds were rowdy and fun...nevermind I am not going to understand Wallace Matthews, I better stick to my main point here.

That point is that Wallace thinks the Mets were a reflection of the fans at Citi Field. I don't have to explain to that many people how this is incredibly stupid. It is clearly the other way around. When the Mets give up a homerun on the 3rd pitch of the game, that tends to take the wind out of the pumped up Mets crowd.

Wallace, THAT is the reason the crowd was not pumped up. The Padres jumped on the Mets and won the first game at Citi Field. The Mets fan base has come off two straight years of (arguably) choking down the stretch and losing the division to the Phillies. To see the lowly Padres homer on the third pitch in the Mets new stadium was probably not an unlifting event for the Mets faithful. The lack of cheering is not completely the crowds fault, it was mostly the Mets fault. They did nothing in the beginning to make the crowd cheer. Of course, it did not help the crowd was filled with important people who were quiet...but that will change as the year goes on. These people just want to be there for the home opener, you won't see them every night.

I saw a friend of mine who had spent more than $100,000 for Mets season tickets this season. He was heading out the door. "I had enough,'' he said.

So Wallace's friend is the type of person that is not a "real" Mets fan? If so, who cares if he leaves? Wallace makes no sense.

Here is what I don't get. Wallace starts the article off complaining there were no real Mets fans at the stadium last night and it lacked the joy and fun of Shea Stadium because the general public can't afford seats. He says a friend of his who paid 100K for Mets season tickets left the game early...except this guy left early so he was clearly the type of person Wallace would not want at the stadium on a regular basis. He should be happy about this. The bad fans are getting weeded out so Wallace should be happy about this. Right?

I do think it is funny that Wallace uses his friend as an example of how all the Mets fans aren't cheering very loudly and staying for the entire game and just assumes every one else did the same thing his friend did. This is very Bill Simmons of him.

An inning later, three guys sitting in choice seats in front of the press box also got up to leave. As they passed in front of the open window before me, you could clearly hear one of them say to his two companions, "Let's get out of here and get a latte.'' True story.

I am sure the press box at Citi Field is a real piece of shit. I would bet Wallace wrote part of this article getting free drinks and watching the game on a 52 inch television.

It certainly seems as if when Mets ownership decided to cut out those 13,000 cheap seats from the top of their new park, they also eliminated the people who made most of the noise at Shea.

Again, it was the first game of the year in the first game at a new stadium. The crowd at this game may not have been indicative of the crowd that will be at every game.

By the seventh inning, there were wide swatches of empty seats, especially in the high-rent district behind home plate. But then the Mets, and Mike Pelfrey, set the tone early when the third pitch thrown in the new park came down in the rightfield seats off the bat of the Padres' Jody Gerut.

What kind of journalism is this? It's like he has multiple personalities and is arguing both sides of the argument against himself.

Even the best news of the night - the out-of-town scoreboard flashing the Yankees getting filleted, 9-0, after two innings by the Tampa Bay Rays - was met with one big shrug.

That could be because the team the crowd came to see was losing as well. If the Yankees lose a game, that doesn't mean the Mets have won a game. I realize they are rivals in the city of New York but the Mets fans want the Mets to win their home opener in a new stadium and even the Yankees losing won't make them feel any better.

But after the Padres retook the lead on Pedro Feliciano's balk in the sixth to provide the deciding run in a 6-5 victory, the crowd never seemed to get back into the game.

Again, this was not a crowd that was indicative of the crowd that will probably be at the stadium every single home game. If it is indicative, then yes Citi Field will be a quiet place. The economy sucks, normal everyday people can't afford to pay exorbitant prices for a ticket to the new Citi Field on opening night, so that led the way for wealthier people to buy tickets. There are more factors that go into this than the stadium is not conducive to loud noises.

Even last year, after the Mets completed their second straight final-game collapse by losing to the Florida Marlins, the fans stuck around for a farewell to a ballpark that may not have been pretty but always pulsated with life.

That would have been the final game in Shea Stadium Wallace is speaking of positively, which Wallace compared earlier as being similar to the first game at Citi Field, which Wallace spoke of negatively. I am just asking for some consistency. That's all I ask.

The new park is a beauty, all right, but last night, it was an ice queen, all looks and no heart or soul.

It is also an inanimate object and can not feel emotions, so it also has no real heart and soul. The heart and soul comes from the success of the team, which the Mets did not experience last night.

And you wonder how much better it will get, because the tickets aren't getting any cheaper, and for the time being, the games aren't getting any bigger.

Yes, nothing is more important or bigger than the first game of the year in a new stadium and the 7th game overall in a baseball season that has 162 games. Sure, the Mets struggled at the end of the last two years, but it was really those early games, like Game #4 and #5 that were the important ones. That makes perfect sense. This was a HUGE game.

But then, the people the Mets, and the Yankees, have chosen to eliminate from their new ballparks are precisely the people they need to bring the places to life.

A sentence I can semi-agree with!

But those people, and the park that welcomed them with open arms, are both gone, and the Mets have no idea how much they're going to miss them.

These people are not gone. They were just not present at the first game of the year in a new stadium, whereas wealthy people who wanted to be present for the first game at Citi Field, much like Wallace's friend, were present. Many people will sell their tickets on Stub Hub or something and "real" fans will attend eventually. The first voyage of the Titanic had a bunch of people on it who were incredibly wealthy because they wanted to say they were on the maiden voyage of the Titanic, but that doesn't mean it would have only hauled rich people around...you know, had it not sunk to the bottom of the ocean on its first voyage. What a great analogy...

It did not help the Mets started their first series in the new stadium against the Padres who are not a huge draw. It also did not help the Padres took the lead on the 3rd pitch of the game and led for pretty much the entire game. It also does not help that the Mets have chosen to open a new stadium in one of the worst economic times in the United States in a long, long while. These are all factors that contributed to the lack of sound last night that Wallace experienced. Let's let an entire series go by before we hit the panic button, shall we?