Playing the (Citi) Field

Saw CitiField from the inside for the first time Sunday.

From the nosebleed seats in Section 508 down the first base line, we had a pretty good view of Long Island Sound and the Whitesboro (?) Expressway. We could see almost all of the field, unlike the view from some seats in the new stadium.

It didn't need much to make it better than Shea Stadium, but Citi Field seemed to be an above-average major league park. Lots of concessions, including a food court. Much more pleasing asthetically -- none of those huge, garish gobs of orange and blue as in the stadium thankfully turned into a parking lot.

The new park includes a somewhat miniaturized Big Apple -- which I could take or leave, but I'll give it points for being unique to major league stadiums and uniquely New York.

Service amenities seemed lacking. The will call window was painfully slow as the ticket agent searched through a long printed list of names (?), numbers (?), transaction codes (?). They don't have those things on a handy-dandy computer? The Italian sausage (grade B-minus) line slowed down at the cash register. It was surprising to find in New York a place so slow to take our cash.

The biggest flaw, however, came early in the game when plate umpire Jerry Crawford left the game. Not only did he leave, but the other umpires also disappared from sight, and both teams went to their dugouts. What happened? Would they come back? Was the game over? There was no way of telling in the park until they came back, because instead of making an announcement ("Jerry Crawford was injured. The game will continue with three umpires when umpire XXXX puts on his equipment to move behind the plate. We will we continue with three umpires.") the in-stadium PA reaction was to play the between-pitches music louder and longer.

Through the miracle of my son's iPhone, we found out that Crawford had a back injury.

Anyway, the worst part of the game was the play on the field. If a team uses seven pitchers, as the Mets did, it's not likely to be a good day. When two of those pitchers face a total of seven batters, and all seven reach base, that's even worse. The Rays weren't a whole lot better, trotting out six pitchers and coming away with a 10-6 win.

The best parts of the 4 1/2 or so hours at the ball park, which also included a rain delay:

1. Being at the ballpark.

2. Seeing B.J. Upton break out of a season-long drought in run production by driving in four runs and hhitting the ball hard. That more than outweighed his inability to come up with a catchable fly ball.

3. Seeing the day's most effective reliever, Grant Balfour.

4. Seeing Rays manager Joe Maddon have the good sense to send Balfour out for a second inning instead of bringing in still another crappy reliever. Balfour struck out three in a dominant 1 2/3 innings. That despite his name's striking resemblance to Ball Four.

Hey, I would have even sent Balfour out to pitch the ninth for a well desrved save. Instead, Maddon went with J.P. Howell in a non-save situation to close out the 10-6 win.