Tonight begins a new era for the Mets with the christening of Citi Field at 7:10 and there's even a winning record on the line! The Amazins', who are 3-3 so far, open up their new ballpark tonight with the ceremonial first pitch thrown by Tom Seaver to Mike Piazza. The scheduling gods were kind enough to see to it that the Mets' first home series of the year comes against San Diego, ranked last of all thirty MLB teams in ESPN's preseason Power Rankings; they weren't gracious enough however to have the starting rotation slot land on ace Johan Santana. Instead Mike Pelfrey will take the mound.
The Times highlights some features of the new building for fans to look out for this evening. In front of the main entrance are 18,000 bricks with fans' personal inscriptions (which led to $3 million raised for charity) celebrating everything from childhood memories of Shea to one that reminds us that “McDowell Was the Second Spitter."
While much attention has been paid to all of the new cuisine offered at Citi Field, the paper lets everybody know that the back end of those transactions has been attended to as well. Citi Field includes ten percent more rest rooms for fans in a ballpark with a capacity over 10,000 less seats than Shea. Citi Field and Yankee Stadium will also be two of the first buildings of their size to meet a 2005 law requiring new public spaces to have twice as many toilets for women as for men. One architecture professor called it possibly the biggest moment "for potty parity that we have seen."
But Mike Lupica reminds us that "you don't talk about how well you ate yesterday afternoon or last night, as if you went to "21" instead of a ballgame." He thinks that the success the Mets have had with their relatively new minor league field, KeySpan Park in Coney Island, bodes well for the success of Citi Field. Talking about KeySpan, Mets COO Jeff Wilpon says, "It was the beginning of the learning process about building the kind of ballpark you wanted."
Looking for reasons to be cynical about tonight's opening? Well, there is already a protest scheduled for Opening Night by advocates for the disabled complaining that the $15 million of renovations to the Mets-Willets Point subway station didn’t leave the stop fully accessible.
And while everyone has been singing the praises of how much more comfortable both fans and players will be with all the new amenities, old Mets pitcher Ron Darling reminds us of the advantage of Shea's "charm." He said, "One of the big advantages you always had as a Mets New York Mets player ... [other teams] hated coming to Shea Stadium. [They] couldn't stand playing in the ballpark."
