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NY's Weirdos Will Miss You, Shea

NYC bids adieu to its home for eccentric, earthy fans

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Sep 27, 2008 2:45 PM CDT

(Newser) – Shea Stadium may lack the grandeur of Yankee Stadium and look like a tacky concrete donut, but that's what made the New York Mets' home great, writes Harry Bruinius in the Christian Science Monitor. “Shea is a circus in a way Yankee Stadium could never be,” and gave the city's eccentric, less button-down baseball fans a place to watch the game.

“Shea was the funky alternative to regimented, uptight Yankee Stadium, a place where ‘characters’ reigned,” one lifelong fan told Bruinius. “It was a ballpark for the rest of us.” While Yankee fans got a “silver spoonful of championships,” the Mets "root for the underdog, we care about justice,” another fan said. That may change temporarily in the Mets' new home, Citi Field—"but don’t expect us to change our fundamental natures," Brunius writes.

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (3)]

New York Mets fans look skyward for a fly-over at the end of the national anthem on Opening Day at Shea Stadium in New York. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)

A Mets fan in full gear. (Getty Images)

A C-130 military transport plane flies over Shea Stadium in this file photo. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

Baseball fans sit under umbrellas in the stands as rain falls before the New York Mets were scheduled to face the Atlanta Braves, Sept. 12, 2008. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens)

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Shea was the funky alternative to regimented, uptight Yankee Stadium.
It was a ballpark for the rest of us. - Jerald Podair, Bronx native

The Mets represent the hoi polloi, the Kmart-types who have to go to the prom with friends and hope to dance just once. - Harry Bruinius

The Yankees were never for me. How could a 10-year-old coming of age in the 1960s root for them? It would be like rooting for an investment bank. - Jerald Podair, Bronx native

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NY's Weirdos Will Miss You, Shea