Mets Opening Day 2014

March 31, 2014

For the first time in TBB history, on March 31, 2014, we attended an Opening Day game together. When the morning finally arrived, we cheerfully bounded from our respective beds and checked our windows, eager to see the beautiful day that awaited us.

It would not be so. This is the face of true evil:

Luckily for us, it seemed as though Mother Nature simply had her period because by the time Lisa picked Serena up to drive to the stadium, any signs of the morning's snowfall had been totally eradicated and the sun came out of hiding.

Re-energized by the turn in weather, we packed up Lisa's car with tailgating supplies and headed out to Citi Field. We arrived at Citi Field by 12:15 and were informed that the main parking lot was already full. Probably because of the enormous circus taking up 3/4 of the parking spaces. Police officers directed traffic further and further away from the stadium to overflow lots. We ended up at a small lot near the tennis stadium without any space or time to tailgate.

Bummed, we began the long, confusing walk to Citi Field. Eventually, we found the bridge that led from the Long Island Railroad and the NYC subway system to the stadium. We basically found someone dressed in Mets gear and stalked the crap out of them in order to find our way to the game.

Due to the fact that we had to cross the vast wasteland known as Flushing in order to get to the game, we were unable to get to our seats before the opening ceremonies started. Therefore, we snapped a bunch of photos of the activities on our way to the stairs leading to the upper deck. 

 

 

 

 

We found our seats in time for the game to begin. The first item of business that we noticed was the fact that Citi Field now has an organ player. For much of the game, we played, "Name That Tune." The player wasn't talented enough for us to identify songs immediately, but not so awful that we couldn't recognize songs. Among the artists sampled were Bon Jovi, Metallica, and the Rollingstones. Secondly, TOWSNBN came to the plate to the sweet, sweet music of New Kids on the Block. At first we thought it was funny, but when he came to the plate every single time to that song, we became confused. It's one thing for us to joke about our love for 98 Degrees (helloooo, we're girls). It's quite another for a grown man over 30 to openly embrace that crap.

Things started to look up in the bottom of the 1st when Andrew Brown knocked a 3-run home run to left center field. Lisa jumped to her feet, excited to photograph the season's first appearance of the home run apple. She waited, holding her cell phone camera pointed toward the area beyond center field. And she waited. And waited. And continued to wait, phone still focused on the spot where the apple should be rising from the center of hell. Ike Davis stepped into the batter's box and Lisa continued to stand there, staring intensely at the outfield, wondering when the apple would reveal itself to her. Nothing. So we have this picture: 

Official documentation of the apple's fail moment.

Naturally, we became hungry in the bottom of the 4th, so we decided to hunt for our food. As we purchased two hot dogs and a beer apiece, we talked about how much money we would've saved if only we'd been able to tailgate! Stupid circus!

We must emphasize the fact that it was a spectacularly windy day. Our seats, despite the killer view, never saw sun and were exposed to the brutality of the wind. We froze. We snuggled beneath an enormous Mets fleece blanket. Lisa's sauerkraut flew from her hot dog and landed on the man sitting next to her. And also landed in her crotch and down the sleeves of her sweatshirt. Now, full disclosure, Lisa is typically a messy eater. When we eat in Serena's bed, Serena makes her drape a bath towel across her lap to collect her food droppings. Having said that, this was still above and beyond Lisa's normal level of messiness. Apparently disgusted by the fact that he was covered in someone else's sauerkraut, he left. And never came back.

Of course, he wasn't the only person we pissed off. Every time we laughed at one of our own jokes, the elderly man sitting in front of us scowled at us. The icing on the cake was when Lisa decided to take a selfie of us cuddling in our warm fuzzy blanket. When the camera went off in his ear, the man sitting directly in front of Lisa turned around and gave us the stink eye.

We considered this a relatively successful day nevertheless for the Mets were winning! Hooray! We were so confident about the 5-4 score that we decided to leave in the at the top of the 9th in order to ensure Serena arrived home in time to teach her yoga class that evening. This confidence proved to be the Mets' downfall.

Bobby Parnell (who is now on the DL) is a raging a-hole. Thanks to him, the Mets and Nationals went into extra innings and the Mets went on to lose 9-7. Soooo, thank you, Bobby Parnell. May you be graced with every STD known to mankind. Gracefully Yours, the Traveling Baseball Babes.

The End.