With Mother’s Day upon us I started to reminisce about so many times that my mother has made a huge impact in my life.  She has always been my biggest supporter and when it came to the Mets she knew how important it was to instill the love of this team in our lives.  She made sure that we were at almost every home weekend game in the early 1980’s. Shea Stadium was kind of [...]

I was walking around the mall yesterday with my wife, trying to get her to go into labor with our second child (first son). They say walking is good for kick-starting the labor process at this point, and as we were walking around, I decided to duck into the sports memorabilia store. I was pacing through the store, looking at the autographs of all the great players hanging on the wall, and I came across a beautiful autographed picture of Gary Carter. [...]

This is a bittersweet moment for me, as this is my last column on MetsMerized, at least as it stands now.  I’m moving on to pursue another opportunity that includes covering the Mets, so I’ll still be involved in the scene.  But I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Joe, the other staff writers and all of you readers who made the last 15 months or so an absolute pleasure for me. I know [...]

When one thinks back to the Mets of the 1960’s and 70’s, certain images come to mind: Casey, Tom Seaver, Tug pounding his glove on his leg, black cats, Miracles, fans ripping up the field and so forth. Off the field, however, there were others who were just as much a part of Shea Stadium folklore. One such Mets icon was organist Jane Jarvis. Miss Jarvis died a few days ago in Englewood, NJ.  Just [...]

Mark McGwire’s admission that he used steroids is both a black eye and a small weight off Major League Baseball’s collective shoulder at the same time.  I mean, this wasn’t something we all didn’t know, but at the same time, it’s important for guys like Mac to come clean.  After thrilling us with the Great Home Run Chase of 1998, we were owed the truth.  I’m looking in your direction, Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, [...]

Before 2009 turned into a nightmare year for the Mets, their fans we were excited.  Aaron Heilman was gone, the Mets signed K-Rod and added J.J. Putz to the bullpen and they were opening up a new ballpark.  For the final 2 seasons Shea Stadium saw the Mets playoff dreams evaporate on the last day of the season, we were hoping that the demons of Shea were gone with our brand new ball park. Citi [...]

One year ago today, on September 28, 2008, the Mets played their last game at Shea Stadium.  A day that fans were hoping to celebrate a playoff spot ended with a sad goodbye to the season and the ballpark.  I wasn’t writing for MMO back then, so I never got a chance to share my thoughts on Shea’s final day.  I was sitting in my usual Sunday seats (Mezzanine Section 7, Row E, Seats 16 [...]

The inaugural season for Citi Field ends in a few weeks and to say the least it was a very disappointing first year for the Mets new ballpark.  At the start of the 2009 season I was hoping that with a new ballpark that had not witness disappointments over the last couple of years the slate would be clean and we could start making new histories for the new ballpark.  Unfortunately for us the memories [...]

 I read an interesting article on ESPN by Tristan Cockcroft entitled Shea It Isn’t. The piece is well written and well researched and is a fair comparison of the two parks. One of the interesting parts of his article was the following chart which shows exactly which non-homers would have been homeruns at Shea Stadium. Hitter Team Date Pitcher Team Result J.J. Hardy MIL 4/18 Johan Santana NYM Fly out Justin Maxwell WAS 4/25 Brian Stokes [...]

Check out these great tributes to Shea Stadium that are located in the parking lot of Citi Field. These gorgeous plaques mark the spots of first base, second base, third base, home plate and the pitchers mound at Shea Stadium. Nice job by the Wilpons for preserving a little bit of our former and much beloved home. Keith Hernandez should sign this in gold! Let’s get Fonzie to sign this one! We might have to [...]

During Wednesday night’s broadcast, Gary Cohen talked about some of the drives he felt would have been homers at Shea Stadium, specifically citing Wright and Beltran’s long outs. He went on to say how Jeff Wilpon mentioned that the Citi Field was setup so that if necessary they could bring in the fences next season if the park effected the Mets offense adversely. After many, many years of playing in a pitchers park like Shea [...]