Citi Field

I completed my inaugural visits to both of New York City's new Major League baseball stadia on Friday night, as my friend Bob and I went to the Mets home ground, Citi Field, to watch an interleague match-up between the Mets and Yankees.

Bob is a fervent Mets fan, and I fervently root for any team playing the Yankees, so our interests were mutual. We arrived early, each picking up a new Mets cap (with a Chevy logo on the back) as a give-away and taking our seats in the leftfield stands. Skies were threatening, though, and dark clouds rolled in and the field got a drenching. Our tickets allowed us into the Caesar's Club, though, which allowed a dry spot to talk baseball until the game began, about an hour late. Rain started up again, but not a heavy one, and our seats were one row under an overhang, keeping us nice and dry.

The early results were pleasant; Yankee hurler Andy Pettitte, perhaps thrown off his game by the delay, walked a few and allowed a few hits, including a three-run homer that just eluded the webbing of Nick Swisher's glove, and the Mets had a 5-0 first-inning lead. The Yankees pecked back with homers; Alex Rodriguez (his 642nd), Andruw Jones, and then a monster shot by Robinson Cano. It was now 6-4.

The Mets have a closer, the unimaginatively named Frank Francisco, who was 17-for-20 in save opportunities but has an E.R.A. above 5. Clearly he makes things too interesting for Mets fans. Earlier in the day he called the Yankees "chickens" (the Post responded with a mash-up picture of Derek Jeter's head on a fowl's body), and though nobody really knew what that meant, he came into the ninth with a save opportunity. Francisco put two on but got Mark Texeira to pop out into the rain drops for a Mets win.

The field is immaculate. It's somewhat similar to any number of stadiums, with a welcoming area, this time called the Jackie Robinson Rotunda, and a Mets Hall of Fame. A person can circumnavigate the stadium, always able to maintain an eye on the field. There is the requisite giant scoreboard, this time in dead center, and some of the cheesy stuff from the old days, like the playing of The Curly Shuffle and the airplane races are no more. There are also a lot of private clubs, presumably keeping some of the riff-raff out, which is an unfortunate, undemocratic trend in baseball. There were also a lot of food choices, highly priced, of course. I bought a foot-long sandwich from Subway for $12.

During the day, with Bob driving, we had some excellent adventures on the road. After missing a turn after the George Washington Bridge, we wended our way through the Bronx, in search of the Whitestone theater, where we would see Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter before the game. We had a GPS, a Garmin, which I find gets confused in New York City. We came up upon our destination, and were told by Garmin's disembodied voice, "Your destination is on the right." It was a cemetery. After laughing long and loud, we circled around and found the theater about a half mile up the road.

On the drive back we eschewed the GWB, seeing the delays were prohibitive, so once again we traversed the scenic byways of the Bronx, but managed to find our way home. A good time was had by all Mets fans and Yankee haters.