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.

 

TBB's Worst Ballpark Moments

As promised last week, to compliment the post discussing our greatest ballpark moments, we are bringing you our worst moments. Truthfully, this post will probably be infinitely more entertaining. Great moments are boring. Terrible moments are hilarious.

• The worst hot dog ever put into our mouths, unwashed children, and the infamous Mandanna.
• Short story: The Phillies and their wonderfully charming fanbase. The long story: kids threw ice cubes at us, one man screamed in our face, and our one brief moment of happiness where we made contact with the Phanatic was destroyed by a-holes. A-holes that promised to take our photo and only successfully photgraphed his furry green ass and Lisa clapping her hands and giving the stink eye. Basically Citizen's Bank Park was one giant worst moment. 
• Drunk three's company coupled with being showered by a spitting sunflower seed monster sitting behind us. 
• Nearly getting killed when a relief pitcher overthrew his warm up partner, sending the ball in the direction of our precious cabezas. 
• The waiter at McFadden's f*cked up Lisa's birthday dinner and by extension, making us so late that she missed the opportunity to meet TOWSNBN.
• The Ball Tip Steak Sandwich.
• The Invasion of the Twins Fans and Baby Jesus.
• The Screaming O's Fan.

This list should be a lot longer, but really the worst moments of all of our stadium tours involve our travels to the ballpark and our hotels, which really don't count as a ballpark moment. So, here we are. Enjoy re-reading all of our past adventures since we were clearly too lazy to summarize them for you. 

Braves @ Mets 8-11-12

This was an eventful weekend for the TBB. For starters, Lisa has bronchitis. Second of all, Lisa's birthday is tomorrow (be sure to post Happy Birthday wishes to our Facebook wall or else suffer her wrath!). Third of all, we ran in the Runyon 5K at Yankees Stadium today like champions. Fourth of all, Tuesday is Tim Lincecum Appreciation Day. Do you feel that tingling in your balls? That excitment for terrible photo shopping and awesome fun facts about our one and only Timmy? Finally, to celebrate Lisa's birthday and send Chipper Jones one last farewell from the TBB, we had a Mets game to attend on Saturday evening. This is the part of our weekend that we're going to focus on today (don't worry...we'll get to the other stuff in the upcoming weeks), but first we need to talk about our poll results from last week. Having a bit of fun with the fact that the Yankees Facebook page had gotten hacked, we asked you which MLB player's Facebook account the TBB should break into and mess with. 2 of you voted for TOWSNBN and the following status: "Going to the 98 Degrees concert with my certifiable crazy girlfriend, Lisa, where I will serenade her with I Do Cherish You." 2 others voted for Alex Rodriguez and the following status: "Reading such a hard book! I wonder how Green Eggs and Ham will end!" Just a little background information on this joke: Serena is convinced that this is the reading level that Alex Rodriguez is at. Beautiful to look at, painful to listen to. For some bizarre reason, no one chose Barry Zito and "Just did yoga! Off to get my hair did comb-over style, then call Tom Seleck on moustache advice, and then finally write back to that girl, Serena. Busy day ahead!" No one voted for David Ortiz either. His status would've been "Hope they choose me for a season of Dancing with the Stars. I think I would do a mean fox trot and look hot in spandex." Was it the spandex that turned you off?

Okay, time to discuss the Mets game. Since it was Lisa's birthday, Serena had a little surprise in store for Lisa AND we had an additional sidekick with us: Miss Sylvia, The Fit Fem. We started things off by having lunch at McFadden's. We got there so early (4:00) that the place was nearly empty. We were seated immediately and our orders were taken shortly after. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, Serena had scored a major favor from Danny Ryan to reach out to his "contacts" and arrange for Lisa to be on the field for batting practice. Mets batting practice began at 5:00. Hence, the early lunch. Sylvia was aware of all of this. Lisa was not. So when the gap-toothed idiot of a waiter forgot to order Lisa's pulled pork sandwich, making us wait for our lukewarm food until 5:05, Lisa didn't know why Serena and Sylvia were so agitated. Delaying food delivery to starving animals is a nuisance, yes, but is it bad enough to warrant Serena's threat to stab him with a butter knife? Probably not. After we inhaled our food (which is mediocre, so if you're in town, just check out the bar scene. Don't bother with food), we speed walked to the Jackie Robinson Rotunda (on the other side of Citi Field, mind you) to meet Bill, a supervisor who is awesome, to be escorted onto the field (Lisa was still oblivious at this point). When Bill met us at the top of the escalator, he informed us that the Mets' batting practice was now over, but that we could see the Braves. It was at this time that Lisa understood the ramifications of that f*ckass waiter's ineptitude. As Bill escorted us to parts of Citi Field that we should never be allowed to see because we can't be trusted, Lisa whispered, "That waiter made me miss David Wright, didn't he?" Through gritted teeth, Serena replied, "Yes, Lisa. That was the plan. Now you get Chipper Jones." The vein in Lisa's forehead throbbed. TOWSNBN, just know that it all could've ended right here. Thank you, McFadden's. Thank you.

Lisa's attitude changed as soon as Bill opened the door that led to sunlight, rich people's seats, and the motherload: the area behind home plate.

The first thing we noticed is how enormous these guys are in person. Except for Dan Uggla. He's pretty damn short in comparison to Chipper.

Sylvia noticed that David Ross kept looking over at us. This could have been for a few reasons. One of them being that he thought we were f*cking hot. Two, and more likely, our "whispers" are louder than we think and he heard us talking about how big he (and his teammates) looked, how big their sausages must be, how thick their thighs were, etc. Three, he has a staring problem. So, Serena asked him to come take a picture with the birthday girl because apparently batting practice makes her extremely social. He politely informed us that he doesn't like to be yelled at (though we're not sure that we actually DID yell at him), but happy birthday, and that we should come to his cookout. Where the hell was he having a cookout? The Citi Field parking lot? Also, would Chipper be there? We have much to discuss with him. Like are his teeth real?

We also coerced him and Martin Prado to autograph a baseball for Lisa.

Bill felt bad that Lisa missed the Mets and asked her who her favorite player is. Despite his frequent attempts at ditching her, Lisa still admitted that she loves TOWSNBN. Bill said that he could TRY to fetch the royal highness from his throne in the Mets Clubhouse, but he doubted it would work. We understood. TOWSNBN was probably too busy Skyping with Kate Middleton and Prince William. Lisa said that she was also smitten with Johan Santana. Bill was more optimistic about this, offering to escort us to the bullpen while Johan was warming up for the game. Before we left the field, Bill took a picture of us.

Again, we followed Bill through the underbelly of Citi Field, only this time, we ended up in the Mets' bullpen.

From here, he posted us just outside the bullpen to wait for Johan. While we waited for him, Bill told each relief pitcher and coach that it was Lisa's birthday so every single person entering the bullpen wished Lisa a happy birthday. Among them was Dan Warthen, Jeremy Hefner, and Ricky Bones. We got video of Bones wishing her a happy birthday. He also tossed us all baseballs, a special one going to Lisa.

Finally, Johan made an appearance. He darted passed us and Bill chased him down, reminding him it was Lisa's birthday. Johan turned, tripped over his own two feet, cheerfully waved, and in a little adorable accent, wished Lisa a happy birthday. Unfortunately, he was faster than a lemur, so we had to settle for Serena taking a few pictures of him pitching rather than video feed.

Bill arranged for us to meet one of his buddies in Field Level section 126 to get an upgrade to our seats as well. Note: our seats to begin with weren't bad. We were going to be sitting next to the home run apple, but why decline an upgrade when one is offered to you? We had no idea what we were in store for. Bill's buddy led us down the steps and ended up seating us in the third row behind the Braves dugout.

TOWSNBN had no idea just how close Lisa was for several hours. No clue that the shark was slowly circling.

As you can see by the over-joyed look on our faces, we were like kids that have been unleashed in FAO Schwartz for the first time.

Unfortunately, Johan didn't have nearly as much fun as we did. In 1.1 innings, he gave up 8 runs. Woof. It was brutal. Lisa was sitting next to two very sweet Braves fans, but the chick wouldn't stop whoo hooing. Yo, your team is up by 8 in the first inning. Enough. Jeremy Hefner replaced Santana in just the 2nd inning.

Our sweet southern neighbors were also appalled by the greeting Mets fans gave Jason Bay. She sadly observed, "it's horrible. His own fans are booing him." Lisa looked at her and said, "Yeah, this is what happens in New York when you don't do anything." Needless to say, the rest of the game didn't go much better for the Mets. One guy did offer tickets to Jersey Boys because he supposedly "owned" Jersey Boys to Eric Hinske in exchange for a ball. Not even an autographed ball. We are pretty sure that Hinske gave him the ball more out of fear of a lunatic than a desire to see Jersey Boys. Basically the Braves went back to their hotel that night talking about how New York is full of crackheads thanks to that buffoon.

The Braves would go on to win 9-3.