Shea Stadium is no more. I won't argue that it was a great stadium, but I can't help feeling an attachment to the place.
At Shea I almost certainly saw more Met losses than victories, but winning isn't everything. (Of course, losing isn't everything either—despite my caption contest record!)
I'm not going to strain my brain to remember everything I saw at Shea, but here are the pretty random things that come to mind: Willie Mays hitting the highest foul balls I've ever seen, the roar of airplanes flying overhead, the roar of the crowd reverberating under the overhangs at postseason games, being there when Todd Hundley broke a home-run record in 1996, being there at a very slow-moving hot summer day game (pitched by Steve Trachsel, of course) when my sister's friend Karen managed to get an autographed baseball for my nephew, vainly trying to wait out a rainstorm when my sister and nephew wanted to see one last game at the stadium—and instead seeing the Texas Rangers play slip-and-slide.
One of the last times I went to Shea, I gave blood there. For the first and only time, I got to go "backstage" and meet Mr. Met...
...and see the trophy cases/Hall of Fame outside the Diamond Club. Winning isn't everything, but I still remember celebrating the underdog Mets victories in the 1969 World Series, in which Tommie Agee was a star.
Agee once hit a mammoth home run that was marked at Shea.
Source (00:32)
Photos: David Marc Fischer
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