A Guest Article by James H. Burns
When the Mets return to Citi Field today, there will be some members of the team’s extended family who will be missing their first post-season in the club’s history:
Men and women who wore the orange and blue, or some variation thereof, for decades.
For years, the ushers at Shea Stadium, were the most direct contact fans had with the ballclub. Many of them had been at the Met’s first “new stadium,” since its debut in 1964, and others had baseball pedigrees that went back to Yankee Stadium, the Polo Grounds or Ebbets Field in the 1950s!
But when Citi Field opened in 2009, many ushers felt that too many of their working conditions had changed, and they did not return for another season.
Many of these men, in their seventies, were part of the fun of going to a ballgame. Where else was the average patron going to be able to hobnob with someone who had a personal baseball history going back to the time of Jackie Robinson, and Joe DiMaggio? Other, younger veterans, had witnessed the Mets’ humble beginnings, their 1969 championship season, and all the seasons, thereafter:
Whether sublime, or elsewise!
As Citi Field was being erected, however, word began to come down to the staff that things were not going to be the same in the new environs. Now, according to every usher asked, it would be an automatically fire-able offense, if they took a tip.
This was a particularly nasty turn of events for those customers who had learned one of the great old ballpark’s secrets. If you arrived at Shea’s field box section one hour before game time, as the opposing team’s batting practice was winding down, you were allowed to sit there, before the prime level’s gates were shut down. (Those with tickets, of course, could always get in.)
If you stayed on the lower level (ignoring the stadium announcement to return to your actual ticket location), one of the ushers who knew you would give you a great seat, somewhere before “first pitch”–for a modest gratuity (five dollars, twenty years ago; escalated to ten bucks at the millenial). The ushers wouldn’t do this for just anybody. They had to believe that you were a nice, well behaved fan.
They were also, to some extent, helping the Mets. What looks better on television: Empty seats behind the players, or a group of happy enthusiasts? Even the ballplayers have said it’s disturbing to play to a phalanx of empty stands…
The Loge–Shea’s middle level–also got plenty of action, with the ushers sitting folks in seats that would otherwise be empty.
There were also a multitude of fans who simply enjoyed greeting those employees whom they could always count on seeing, and who had been a part of what was clearly a lovely part of their lives.
Having a conversation with one of these baseball lifers could, in fact, be a treat of the day.
The first odd turn at Citi Field was that ushers who had their Shea locations for seemingly forever, were switched out to new parts of the stadium.
But when many of the old-timers realized that Mets management was serious about enforcing their new rules… They found working for the team no longer made much sense.
One seventy-five year usher said, in 2009, “I can retire to Florida… How can I stay up North… Working for less money than I’ve ever made before?”
No one seemed to win in this particular scenario, as too many Mets telecasts over the last several years have been highlighted by the spectre of Citi’s oddly, darkly colored seats, with no one sitting in them
And perhaps it was an illusion, but many of the long-time vendors also seemed to be gone. People that some fans could recall seeing since their childhood, seemed to have disappeared somewhere between the new international food court, and Shake Shack….
(As Gary Cohen, the Mets’ lead broadcaster once noted, there also seemed to be far fewer vendors, than at Shea…)
To be sure, there are others among the long-time Mets employees who are still happily walking the club’s merry corridors of baseball.
If all of this seems odd to bring up now, during what has been the most unexpectedly happy of Mets seasons, it’s simply in an attempt to remember some of those who made being a Mets fan so special during all of those earlier, winning seasons.
There will, after all, be many former Mets players on hand for the festivities this week.
I’m just hoping that somewhere,Thomas, and Ken, and Harold, and all the rest are sitting comfortably in front of a TV–or at Citi Field!–enjoying another playoff run. And that somehow they know, that many of us recall how great it once was, to be there with them.
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This MMO Fan Shot was contributed by James H. Burns, who is a writer/actor living in Long Island. He has written for such magazines as GENTLEMAN’S QUARTERLY, ESQUIRE, HEAVY METAL and TWILIGHT ZONE; and more recently, Op-Eds or features for THE VILLAGE VOICE, THE SPORTING NEWS, CBS-NY.COM, and THE NEW YORK TIMES.
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