Every Picture Tells a Story: Shea Stadium — Queens, New York (1999)

 

 

EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY:
SHEA STADIUM — QUEENS, NEW YORK (1999)

Sports stadiums were once giant monuments to the metropolises they represented and sacred temples delivering hope to the most devoted, yet deprived believers. They were temples of togetherness. Fortresses of faith.

In earlier times, every stadium was different. They were all shaped differently. All the fields were different. The all looked different. Some stadiums had glass roofs and air conditioning. Other stadiums were ringed with wooden benches out in the freezing cold. Stadiums were as much a part of the spectator experience as the games.

Today, most newer stadiums in all sports look pretty much the same. I defy anyone to point out the unique features between most NFL and MLB domed stadiums. You can’t. And when it comes to the NBA or NHL, forget it. Every arena looks like every other arena. Sure, spectator sports are now much more comfortable for most fans. They’re fancier and cost a lot more to build and to attend. But they’re also boring. Watching sports played on fake grass inside a dome named for a corporation is dull.

Shea Stadium was different and also very distinct. Like the city it objectified, it was one of those quirky terminals like a sporting Grand Central Station that brought a disparate population together as a giant crowd of one. Even for non-New York sports fans, when you watched a game from Shea Stadium on television, you didn’t need the team scores nor even a glance at the uniforms. That giant half-shell engulfing the infield like a gargantuan baseball glove was unmistakeable. You knew that game you were watching was in New York. And, it wasn’t the place in the Bronx with the dark blue seats and white frieze up on the roof. This was the *other* New York sports shrine.

Shea looked strange because it was completely open on one side. Most of the outfield didn’t have seats. Turned on its side, Shea was shaped like a giant “C.”

 

Shea was ground zero for many memorable moments in sports–most notably the Mets and Jets both celebrating championship seasons there in 1969. The first memory I can remember from Shea was the 1973 World Series, when the Mets lost to the A’s. The Jets played there for many seasons. Check out the gritty NFL Films footage of Joe Namath often playing on wobbly knees in what amounted to a giant dust bowl. The baseball infield used to swirl up into the sky along with blowing trash discarded from the stands. Like riding the subway or getting hustled in Times Square, it was all so perfectly New York and so poetically beautiful.

I never cheered for nor cared about the Mets, but it’s impossible to write about Shea and its many motley magical moments without mentioning the dramatic showdown against Boston in the 1986 World Series (the Bill Buckner game). That was but one of so many memories many of us remember through the screens of a television someplace else; yet it all seemed we were here at that instant. Years later, when I had an opportunity to not only visit that place but also walk on the field–yes, WALK ON THE FIELD!—-and touch the green grass….feel the dirt….hear the constant scream of high-pitched engines from take-offs at nearby LaGuardia…..and inhale the Whitestone Expressway’s exhaust fumes and be nauseated by Flushing Bay’s fish smells — well, I had to partake in this pilgrimage for the senses.

In 1999, Marieta and I were on one of our many visits to New York. This stop wasn’t planned. We were just driving through Flushing in Queens when I spotted the stadium, and saw the opportunity to experience a first. Call it paying my respects. I’d never been to Shea before. So, we detoured into the parking lot. Within minutes we were standing in the outfield taking photos. A stadium worker eventually ran us off, but we still got a few great pictures.

Here’s Marieta standing on the right field warning track. It was cool to see those championship banners up on the wall. I’m sure to many fans, that old relic wasn’t the most comfortable place to watch a ballgame. But it was a tourist attraction every bit as moving as any building or statue in that city. Something about the perfect arc shape, all the multiple decks, and those blue and tangerine orange seats matched perfectly with the Met’s team colors.

That’s all gone now. Shea Stadium was demolished in 2008.

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