Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
September 28, 2008
Shea Stadium Memories

As the Mets celebrate the end of Shea Stadium today, here are some of my memories from the few games I attended there. My first was in 1970. The Nathan Hale School Cub Scout troop took a field trip to Shea. The game was against the Braves and I got to see Henry Aaron play, although he didn't get the ball out of the infield. I don't remember much about the game. At the last minute, the Den Mothers asked my father and my best friend's dad to go. It turns out they were the only adult males on the trip. As my father says to this day, he saw the game from the men's room as he and Mr. Shawah shuttled Cubs from their seats to the bathroom. He still gets upset when I bring up that game. :-) (Happy 88th, dad.)

On May 3rd, 1989, I was in NY on business and hooked up with one of my college roommates, Levon Nazarian for a Mets game. Levon remains a big Mets fan to this day. We sat in the upper deck in right, and in the first inning Todd Benzinger came to the plate. He played first base that night and batted fourth, and I started criticizing the Reds for playing such a poor hitter at first base and batting him fourth. In the middle of my rant, Todd hits a home run to give the Reds a 2-0 lead. I still was right. :-)

Then in the middle 1990s, one of our STATS, Inc. scorers who handled press box duties at Shea Stadium kept having trouble with the software. He'd break down in the middle of the game and lose the account. In an effort to solve the problem, I went down to Shea to sit with him and watch him score. At one point, I went to the men's room, and who comes in and takes the urinal next to me but Gary Carter! My brush with greatness.

My last game at Shea came on Sept. 9, 2006. Apart from seeing Maddux fool the defense at the plate, the memorable moment came when my daughter saw the stadium for the first time. She had only visited Fenway, and the scale of Shea, a stories high stadium impressed her.


Posted by David Pinto at 09:44 AM | Stadiums | TrackBack (0)
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