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ALL STAR GAME: 1964
As an expansion ballclub, the New York Mets were fortunate to get such a big venue as Shea Stadium, after spending only two years in the ancient Polo Grounds. Their new home gained huge fame when the Beatles performed concerts there in August 1965 and 1966. Although managed by Casey Stengel, the new team was something of a laughing stock at first. Nevertheless, led by pitcher Tom Seaver, the Mets proved in 1969 that miracles can happen as they stunned the Orioles and became the first expansion club to ever win the World Series. The Mets won the hearts of millions of New Yorkers who had been miserable ever since the Dodgers and Giants left town in 1958.
Shea Stadium was the second of the dull "cookie-cutter" circular hybrid stadiums (designed for baseball as well as football), being built two years after D.C. Stadium (later called RFK). It was the first stadium with the "paired swivelable circular section lower deck" (PSCSLD) configuration. (See FAQs.) The combination of the circular stadium shape and the high, recessed position of the upper deck means that thousands of fans sit hundreds of feet away from the action. This was not a good baseball venue. Shea Stadium has the biggest diameter of any circular stadium, and there were even plans to extend its three main decks and complete the full circle, which would have raised the capacity to 90,000.
The outfield fence has remained in the same position as when Shea Stadium first opened. However, in 1979 new inner fences were constructed in the right and left field corners, reducing the distance from 341 feet to 338 feet. One rather subtle attractive feature of this otherwise featureless stadium are the brick walls behind the foul poles. The scoreboard behind the right field fence is the largest one in the major leagues. When a Met gets a home run, a Big Apple arises from a big top hat in center field. The location of Shea Stadium is rather convenient in terms of its proximity to the subway, the freeways, and the Long Island suburbs, but the location factor is on balance rated as neutral because of the proximity to La Guardia Airport which sometimes exposes fans to loud noise from airliners taking off.
In 1974 and 1975 the Mets were kind enough to let the Yankees play in their home while Yankee Stadium was under reconstruction. After a support beam in Yankee Stadium collapsed in early April 1998, the Yankees had to play a home game in Shea Stadium on an emergency basis until repairs could be made.
CINEMA: Shea Stadium was featured in several scenes of the classic movie Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), starring a youthful Robert De Niro and Michael Moriarity.
From 1964 until 1983 the New York Jets played football in Shea Stadium. In addition, the New York Giants were tenants of the Jets in 1975, awaiting completion of Giants Stadium in the Meadowlands of East Rutherford, New Jersey. No other stadium has ever served as home to two baseball teams and two pro football teams at the same time. The Jets followed the Giants to the Meadowlands after the 1983 season, and their departure eliminated the whole rationale for the hybrid stadium design. Never mind!
At some time during the 1990s there were three small modifications to Shea Stadium: First, since there was no longer any reason to swivel the lower deck for football games, grass embankments were added in the left and right field corners. (In the final year or two, small picnic terraces were built on those embankments.) Second, a series of small, semi-permanent bleacher sections were built behind the left field fence, gradually expanding every couple years or so. Third, the section of seats behind home plate was rebuilt, reducing the distance to the backstop by several feet. NOTE: Lowry (2006) still gives the original distance behind home plate as 80 feet, as he had indicated in the previous edition (1992), but that is not consistent with photographs. I estimate the original backstop distance to have been about 64 feet.
Now that RFK Stadium has "retired," the Mets' home is now the fourth oldest stadium in all of baseball. In the early months of 2006 they announced plans to build a new stadium on the east side of Shea Stadium, and after some legal challenges to the project's tax-exempt status, funding was approved. The new stadium will be named Citi Field, under a naming rights deal with Citibank. With most of the construction completed, it should be ready in time for the 2009 season.
SOURCES: Lowry (2006), USA Today / Fodor's (1996), Rosen (2001)
FAN TIPS: Brian Hughes
