This New York Mets fan wanted to believe deep down to his orange and blue heart that the Mets organization would do the right thing when it came to naming the new ballpark.
I wrote an article earlier this year about this topic in which I proclaimed that the new park should be named Jackie Robinson Field. I think I stated my case clearly and succinctly, but there was probably never a chance for this to happen because the whole thing came down to dollars and cents. Notice the words “common” or “sense” are no where in sight.
Today there was a “groundbreaking” ceremony for the new park (despite the fact that construction work has been going on for months) outside the centerfield fence at Shea Stadium. This place will be called CitiField, though it will resemble the old home of the Dodgers, the legendary Ebbets Field, in order to evoke memories of the history of baseball in this town that has nothing to do with the Yankees (They have their own new stadium to contend with, but that’s another issue).
The Mets organization has caved in big time, greedily sucking up $20 million a year in order for Citigroup to have its name plastered on the façade of the new ballpark. For baseball purists like myself who find this offensive, we are supposed to be assuaged by a statue of Jackie Robinson that will be placed at the entrance of the new stadium. Yeah, right!
Of course, many Mets fans will not mind any of this, for they felt the fact that Robinson never played in a Mets uniform was more important that anything else. It mattered little to them that the Mets were the logical, emotional, and spiritual heirs to the Dodger legacy in New York; and Robinson, more than any other Dodger, embodied that gutsy type of player that became emblematic of the Bums’ heart and soul.
My uncle used to say, “You can beat the Dodgers, but you can never defeat them.” This was a man who got so drunk in 1955 after the Dodgers beat the hated Yankees that he was lost for three days. He drank “in every bar in Brooklyn” according to his story years later, then got on the subway and started to visit every one in Manhattan for good measure. How he ended up in a motel Teaneck, New Jersey, is still a mystery unlikely to ever be solved. Nevertheless, he and many Dodger fans bled Dodger blue and then cried a river of it when the team went out to California.
Article comments
1 - sal m
nice job...
the whole stadium naming thing is a sign of the times and it shows how guys who are in their 40s - like me - are already in the "too old to get it" bracket.
we look at sports in a romantic way where the reality is that sports is just a business where there is little room for sentiment.
and they could have at least made the lame attempt and name it "the citifield at jackie robinson stadium."
2 - Victor Lana
Exactly right, Sal! I was thinking the same thing. Something like Citigroup's Jackie Robinson Field or maybe just the little red umbrella slanted over the word Robinson. Yes, it's lame indeed, but at least it would be more in the spirit of the public interest.
Oh, and we guys around 40 probably don't get it. Not what they want us to get anyway. I'd take the old Channel 9 broadcasts (with Lindsay Nelson in his bright jacket, Bob Murphy blubbering lines, and Ralph Kiner's funny inverting of sentences like "No bout a doubt it") anyday over the too slick for its own good SNY.
3 - the mayor
Since there are a bunch of Mets fans reading this, anyone see the I'm Keith Hernandez Film? i'm keith hernandez - the movie