Mets Opening Day 2017

April 3, 2017

We experienced a ballet of emotions over the course of the last two weeks with our teams' opening days, but we'll focus on the Mets right now and discuss the Yankees later this week. We've experienced things never before experienced on an opening day. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let's just get right to it. Last Monday afternoon was a lovely one. Sunny with just a slight breeze in the air. Lisa packed travel wine cups. We packed Dr. L and snacks. We hit the road around 11:15 for a 1:10 game start time. We arrived at Citi Field at 11:45. Again. 1:10 start time. We cannot stress that enough. Police officers denied us immediate access and detoured us, which was fine. That's happened before and usually, we're simply detoured to the other side of the stadium so we weren't concerned.

Slight concern began to set in when the cops kept waving us on as we drove by the US Open. And then the Queens Museum. Even more so as we navigated passed the World's Fair. Full panic set in as we headed into territory we never saw before. Eventually, the cops deposited us in one of the parking lots of Fresh Meadows Park (which we didn't know existed). It took us approximately 15-20 minutes to arrive at this destination. At the entrance of the parking lot, Lisa got into an altercation with the senior citizen monitoring traffic. She called Lisa, "honey." This was a mistake.
Lisa: "How do I get back to the stadium?"
Old Person: "Honey. Ya not goin' to the stadium."
Lisa: "Yes, I am. I don't want to park here."
Old Person: "Ya gonna park (sounded like pahhhhk) here. Ya gonna to take the shuttle to the stadium and when you get back, ya gonna take the parkway (pahhhkway) home." (please note: the shuttle stop was a half mile away from our parking space)
Serena: "How does she know what parkway we need to get home?"

After Lisa begrudgingly pulled her car into the lot, another senior citizen demanded that we pay $25. They didn't even discount the parking rate for us. At parking time, it was 12:15 pm. We needed a little breather, so we tapped into our awesome wine sippy cups and a bag of chips. Look at our nails.

At 12:45, we headed to the shuttle. We walked through a geese sh*t filled field in order to get there. The shuttle transported us back towards Citi Field. Ten minutes. No big deal. But guess where they dropped us off? Not at Citi Field. Roughly four blocks from the subway station, not even the gate. We've now seen where the 7 Line is parked and where the MTA offices are. No one ever needs to see that. This is photo taken halfway to the subway. Not the stadium. The subway:

When we emerged from the subway station, this is the sight that greeted us:

Hell on earth.  Lines. Lines upon lines of people. We thought we were being clever by circling around the entire stadium, but we weren't. We were not clever at all. The lines wrapped around the stadium and god knows where else. Our gate was the bullpen gate and our line was so long that it encircled McFadden's, the stadium dumpsters, and began in the parking lot. It was so crowded that it was hard to determine which line led to McFadden's and which line led to the stadium itself.

Sidebar regarding McFadden's: Citi Field should not allow non-ticketed patrons to park in their parking lot during prime games such as opening day, popular rivalry games, or playoffs. It's not fair that non-ticketed McFadden's customers took parking spaces that could've been made available to customers who actually purchased opening day tickets. For too much money. Especially since Citi Field has limited parking. There is only one lot. Once it's full, fans are sh*t out of luck. Have you ever been to Flushing? Tom Glavine was a liar. No one should ever experience Queens or get stuck street parking. Trust us.

Now rumor has it that the reason some teams have nixed the idea of "print at home" tickets is that the tickets are able to be scanned more than once. We cannot speak to whether or not this is true. We don't know. We've never tried it. We're a-holes, but we're not d*ckheads. However, that being said, it's clear that SOME people think it's a trick that works because while we stood on line near McFadden's, Serena watched several people enter the stadium through the bar's entrance and then pass their printed tickets through the fence to their friends waiting outside. While they may not have gotten into the game with these tickets, these individuals definitely contributed to the crowd control issues surrounding the stadium's exterior.

Once inside, we noticed this little addition:

Lovely touch. We also found this wonderful M&M bench. Note our awesome free giveaway socks courtesy of Serena's work mom.

At the top of the staircase, we stepped right into the supposed "standing room only" section. Mayhem. It looked like the scene from Independence Day just before the aliens attacked and the humans just stood around like jack wagons staring up at the sky. That's a sh*t ton of people just standing around in the walkways if you ask us. Let's call a spade a spade. Baseball stadiums should not offer standing room only tickets unless the venue also functions as a football stadium. Citi Field and Yankee Stadium cannot possibly accommodate a crowd size like Met Life Stadium can, for example. They're just not big enough. Most likely, a facility the size of Citi Field cannot provide the PARKING necessary to accommodate these extra bodies. That's right. That's another dig at the parking f*ck up.

This is a view of the crowd congregating around the food court as we used the escalator to get to our seats:

We reached our seats at 1:45. It was the top of the 3rd inning. Remember, we arrived at Citi Field at 11:45 in the morning. We sat at 1:45 in the afternoon. Perspective.

 

The wind was no joke up there.

The view from our overpriced seats was decent. And by overpriced, we mean that we spent $200 total for this view.

We received a visit from both Ginger Snaps and Old Man Ed. Neither of them bought us snacks, so we had to go get our own. Unfortunately, it was so crowded, that we couldn't deal with the concession lines, so we simply settled for the shortest line available to us. Which is why we ended up spending $13 on a boring, lukewarm cheeseburger/french fries platter. We ate it before we could take a picture of it, but we did take a picture of ourselves on the way to the concession stands, so we figured that would be a suitable substitute. Plus, you're not really missing much by NOT seeing our food because it wasn't that interesting and in this case, you get another photo of our kick ass socks.

After the game, we waited 15 minutes before being able to get onto the shuttle back to the car. Needless to say, we had a long day. On the upside, the Mets won 6-0.

 

Use the Force for Good!

I am just a lonely co-pilot today. Captain Serena is off working the Autism Speaks walk at Jones Beach today. There she is helping to raise lots of money and awareness for a great cause as well as stalking Star Wars storm troopers and jumping on jump jumps. They are so conveniently part of the entertainment for today’s event. I wonder who was in charge of hiring them. Mhmmmmmmmm! In the fine words of your brother “Serena your five”! I too helped out for the Autism Speaks foundation by being the honorary bagel delivery girl! My car now has the tantalizing scent of garlic from picking up 5 large garbage bags of bagels that was so nicely donated from Town bagel of Bellmore and Plainview for the walk. I wish Autism Speaks lots of luck on the walk today!!

Moving onto our poll results. Glad to see there is only one a**hat among the voters last week. We had asked you minions “Who had celebrated victory better? Six of you voted for “The Diamondbacks were so dull it makes me think the entire roster is bad in the sack” We agree! Not to be dirty birds but shaking a champagne bottle is the same motion as well…. You do the movement and let me know what it reminds you of. Go ahead do it now I’ll wait… Now that we all have perverted thoughts in our heads we can go on. If that’s a glimpse of what’s going down in the boudoir then it’s true you all must be bad in the sack. One malicious person voted for “The TBB are stupid. Go Diamondbacks!” Well we think you’re stupid AND were pretty sure you’re probably bad in the sack. You seem to be taking out your sexual frustrations on two innocent females. I mean c’mon did you see our Epic photo. If that photo does not scream celebration then I don’t know what does. We are too legit too legit to quit. Shakalaka Shakalaka !

Baseball Notes:

Jose Reyes needs a lesson in baseball etiquette. On Wednesday at the last NY Mets game of the season Reyes bunted the second pitch he got in the first inning once he was safe at first he then took himself out of the game. This sneaky move basically won him the Nl batting title as well as the first batting title for the NY Mets team. Reyes was up against Milwaukee Brewers Ryan Braun who would have had to have gotten 3 hits on Wednesday night and sadly went 0-4. It was reported that fans booed Reyes which I could not agree more. Fans pay a lot of money to go to these games and to even hope to witness something special and you pull that bullsh*t. This is why it makes it so hard for me to be a fan of you again. Who are you Reyes? I feel like I don’t even know you anymore.
When Reyes was asked about his covert operation he was quoted as saying this- “They have to understand what's going on," Reyes said. "They have to feel happy if I win the batting title. I do it for the team and for the fans, too” No you did not do it for the fans. I am pretty confident that most Mets fans like me could careless if a Mets player took the NL batting title. I would much rather see hmmm… I don’t know maybe a miraculous appearance in the playoffs and for the team to win the NL East Division again. Let’s not kid ourselves Jose you did it so that you could get more money from hopefully some other team next season now that you have this lame title under your belt. Don’t use us poor fans as an excuse for your poor sportsmanship! I am making Ryan Braun Super Hero of the week for when he was asked about the situation he was extremely classy about it something Jose Reyes knows nothing about!

Besides buntgate happening on Wednesday. Wednesday night proved to be quit the entertaining night. Many baseball fans eagerly waited to see the playoff matchups with both Wild Card division titles still up for grabs. The St Louis Cardinals would go ahead and lay the smack down on the Houston Astros winning 8-0. The Cardinals eagerly awaited the results of the Braves vs Phillies matchup. A Braves lost would send Albert and the boys on there merry way to the playoffs and that is precisely what had happened. Atlanta lost 4-3 to Philadelphia in 13 innings. Speaking of Extra innings the Rays were battling it out with the Yankees while Boston went on and lost to the last place Baltimore Orioles. Boston’s only hope was ironically to root on their arch nemesis the Yankees for a Tampa Bay loss would cause a one game Wild Card playoff between them to decide the AL Wild Card winner.

As we all know since it is Sunday and the playoffs are happening as we speak that did not happen. Evan Longoria crashed Boston’s pipe dream when he hit a walk off homer. I am so happy that for once it was not the NY Mets that CHOKED this year! They took themselves out as early as opening day so I was well prepared for failure this year. Feel my pain Braves and Red Sox fans. Doesn’t feel so good does it? So ladies and gents our first round playoff match ups are as followed.

Tigers vs Yankees

Rays vs Rangers

Diamondbacks vs Brewers

St Louis vs Phillies

On Thursday it was announced that the Chicago White Soxs have parted ways with manager Ozzie Guillen by trading him to the Florida Marlins for two minor Leaguers Jhan Marinez and Osvaldo Martinez. Marinez, a 23-year-old right-hander, finished the season in Double-A Jacksonville. He went 3-8 with a 3.57 ERA and three saves in 56 games. He struck out 74 and walked 42 in 58 innings. Martinez, a 23-year-old shortstop, hit .245 with three homers and 26 RBIs in 88 games with Triple-A New Orleans this year. I had no clue you could trade a manager. If I knew this I would of so tried to talk the Mets into trading Jerry Manuel for some little league players.

Terry Francona manger of the Boston Red Sox who led the club to its first two World Series championships since 1918 will not be returning next season. Francona said multiple times it was his decision not to return. The Red Sox held option years for Francona for the next two seasons, and had until Oct. 8 to decide to pick up the 2012 pact, which would have paid him $4.25 million. Francona met with general manager Theo Epstein on Thursday which just so happened to be the day after the Red Sox managed to blow a 9 game lead in the standings in September and not make it to the post season. Now that’s an Epic collapse!! I’m thinking that’s far worse then any Mets collapse I had to deal with. Francona was asked if he would consider improving some of his techniques, rather than stepping down. He indicated that one reason he didn't do that is because he didn't know if ownership was as much behind him as in years past. Farewell Francona I wish you well!

Exciting news is that the TBB attended game 1 of the Yankees vs Tigers game not once but twice. Due to the Asstastic weather in New York our game was postponed and we had to trug on out to the boogie down Bronx again on Saturday night. Keep your eyes peeled for that post!

So as of Saturday night here are the teams that have taken the lead. The Yankees took game one last night against the Tigers. The Rays and Rangers are now tied after playing game two. St Louis disappointed me losing to the Fugly Phillies. Phillies lead 1-0. The Brewers won last night and lead the series against the Diamondbacks.

Late breaking news here! I got a text from Serena that Darth Vader is at the Autism Speaks walk at Jones beach! Go get Darth Serena! Use the force!

That’s all folks enjoy October baseball!!!

-Lisa