Give Blood, Get Citi Field Tickets

I just got a postcard inviting me to donate blood and receive of a pair of Mets tickets in the process. I did this last year, and it went very smoothly.

This year it seems even more relevant, considering the injuries and anemic playing affecting the Mets!

The details:

Donation on Thursday, July 23, 2009
10:00am through 5:00pm
Citi Field First Base VIP Entrance
Flushing, NY

People can donate as along as they meet the standard requirements. For instance, you must be between 16 and 76 (and have written consent if you're 16 and a doctor's note if you're 75 or older). Your weight must be at least 110 lbs. You should bring your ID to the event. You should eat and drink before donating, and (sorry, hipsters!) you must not have tattoos or piercings less than a year old.

You can call 1-800-688-0900 for eligibility requirements.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

And Now for a Word from Ed Sullivan

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Shea Stadium (1964-2009)

Going...Going...Gone

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.



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Photos: David Marc Fischer

Mets Lose to Cards, 10-8

Shea Stadium was home to 14 innings of hitter heaven and hurler hell as the Mets and Cardinals combined to produce 18 runs on 37 hits in a kitchen-sink game that, drawing heavily on both relief staffs, started last night and ended early this morning. Brandon Knight, up from the minors for the Mets in his first major league start, gave up four runs to the Cards in the first inning but settled in for four more innings without allowing any more runs. Meanwhile, the Mets climbed their way into the lead with two runs in the first, two runs in the third, and one run in the fourth.

In the top of the sixth inning St. Louis racked up another four runs that the Mets answered with two runs in the bottom of the inning and a game-prolonging run in the bottom of the ninth, which tied the game at 8-8. Billy Wagner pitched a strong two innings and the game became a standoff until Cardinal superstar Albert Pujols knocked a two-run homer off of Aaron Heilman that that the Mets didn't match, ending the game after more than five hours.

It was only this morning that I learned that a man had fallen from an escalator at Shea during the game; it was the second such incident this season.

THINGS TO DO TONIGHT

Okay. If you're not going to the Mets/Cards game or seeing the Asylum Street Spankers at Joe's Pub...and you're not camping out on Governors Island on the sly...how about a free tribute to Johnny Cash at the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center at 8 pm?

The lineup includes BAT favorites Laura Cantrell, Marshall Crenshaw, and John Doe as well as David Bromberg, Jay Farrar, Hymns, Raul Midon, Ollabelle, The Persuasions, Catherine Russell, and Sway Machinery.

Here's video of Ollabelle, featuring guitarchiks Amy Helm (mandolin) and Fiona McBain (guitar). They're playing "Ain't No More Cane," which has also been performed by Amy's dad Levon.



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Thanks to Gothamist for the lead.

BASEBALL SLIP AND SLIDE

I've been to Shea once this season, for a Mets-Rangers rainout that made our rear loge seats among the best in the house, as they were well sheltered from the drenching downpour.

Nobody threw any pitches, but one team was a winner of sorts. An hour or so after the scheduled starting time and not long before the official postponement, Rangers ran out onto the field and gave us diehards (or is it "dryhards"?) a good show. The crowd shouted "Let's Go Rangers!" No one from the home team ran out, unless you count the groundskeepers who seemed to call the Rangers back into the dugout.



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JACKIE ROBINSON DAY 2008: METS VS. YANKEES?

Last night on NY1, sportscaster Tom McDonald compared how the Mets and Yankees recognized Jackie Robinson Day, which recognizes the date in 1947 when Robinson played his first Major League Game, with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson's number 42 has been retired from baseball, but on April 15 all players may choose to wear it in honor of the exceptional athlete who officially broke baseball's color barrier and, as McDonald pointed out, subsequently put up with more insults and threats in one season than many people ever face in a lifetime.

McDonald noted that the Mets players went out on the field wearing 42, but that no Yankee player did so other than Derek Jeter, Robinson Cano (who was, apparently, named after Jackie Robinson), and Mariano Rivera, whose number is 42 anyway. (He has special dispensation to continue wearing the number despite its retirement.)

McDonald, a big admirer of Robinson, was very disappointed by the Yankees. I felt the same way: "What's with those Yankees...are they racists? The Mets are so much better!" But then I started thinking, which of course means big trouble. Basically, I thought about how I tend to resist uniform behavior, if you pardon the expression.

I don't like situations where people are expected to display uniformity, even when the uniformity seems to be for a good cause or at least be harmless. I look at how people in Congress wear American flag pins, and think about how Barack Obama has been criticized because he doesn't wear a pin, and I get back to basics like "You can't tell a book by its cover." People are more than what they wear. At least most of the time, right?

And isn't a big part of the Jackie Robinson story about being considered according to ability and accomplishment instead of appearance?

So I guess I'll give the Yankees a pass on this one. I'm glad the Mets fell in line with the 42 thing—and I'm glad the new Mets stadium will have a kind of shrine to Robinson—but I'll try not to make too much of the puzzling behavior of the Yankees.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

THE METS CAN MAKE YOU CRAZY!

"Fresh off a three-game winning streak on the road, the Mets brought their act back home last night — and bombed, losing to the Nats by the score of 13-4. Not since the Ford to City: Drop Dead days has Washington been so hard on New York...."


"Let’s just beat the Nationals already, and get this thing over with. Waiting for the Phillies to lose is not my idea of 'enjoying the pennant race'...."


"I am going to make this simple. For the next three days I am a huge Braves fan. As much as it disgusts me to even think or utter these words, its the truth. I, Joyce Mandelkern, diehard Mets fan, who bleeds orange and blue, has to root hard for Larry and Andruw, Huddy and Smoltzie, Frenchy, and dare I say it, Bobby Cox. I feel ill. Desperate times call for desperate measures and there are things you do for those you love and you don't think twice about it...."

YANKEES AND METS

There's still time to register for Yankees post-season tickets. Click here for more info.

Who knows? There's a chance the Mets will play the Yankees. Emma Span has faith that the Mets will stagger their way into post-season play.

Photo: David Marc Fischer

REGISTRATION OPEN FOR METS POSTSEASON TICKETS

Give yourself a chance to see postseason play live at Shea. Registration is free and easy (just like me)!

And here's some extremely post-postseason play.



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Photo: David Marc Fischer

WWW. "So you want to know how my summer has been? Mets, Mets, Mets—and I love it! Adam and I watch them whenever we can, in bed or in a bar or at Shea. We've invented a Tim McCarver drinking game and we even know the name of his producer, Bill Webb."—Excerpt from letter by Ellen White to her sister Loretta, dated August 1, 1986



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WWW is a weekly series on Blog About Town. Click here to see other episodes.

Photo: David Marc Fischer