I’m not saying anything about how absurdly the team is playing. Enough is being said and more is being said than could possibly be of use. I think everybody should calm down. It is April and it is too early to start talking about breaking up the core and how they’re “doing it again.” They’re not doing anything again, yet. And because we’ve been through the last two years and because the eyes of the fanbase are so focused, by the opening of the stadium, on the issue of why we even bother rooting for the Mets, we’re all a bunch of crazy people. This is obvious and this is all I have to say about it. In this abnormal situation, let’s try to create an atmosphere of normalcy so that they can function. Let’s, well, cheer them on.
P.S. Reading The Eddie Kranepool Society and MetsGrrl, I learned about the segregated escalators in the Robinson rotunda (I just bounded up the stairs and I guess I thought that one of the escalators was broken) and the denial of access to the dugout and home plate area in batting practice. I’ll go to Citi Field, I’m sure, at some point on this homestand and I have to check this out. Obviously, the proximity we had to the players during batting practice was one of the most cherished aspects of the Shea experience. This really has to be preserved. It is profoundly wrong to deny this to fans who have always had it. And the idea terrifies me that someone thought it was an acceptable idea to have a Jackie Robinson rotunda at the center of which are two escalators that immediately establish, to anyone entering the building, that in this place there are two separate and unequal categories of fan. I mean, if they want to have a special limited access elevator to the club levels, that’s one thing, but the two escalators are the dominant physical feature of the rotunda. They are the visual entry point to the ballpark. And right now they are saying something, in the Robinson rotunda, that no one could possibly have wanted them to say.
The first time I was there I just bounded up the stairs too. But the second time I was there, when I took the time to really look at the quotes, photos and videos in the rotunda, I notice the exclusionary escalators. They had their sweetest susan-boyle looking attendant standing at the bottom telling everyone “I’m sorry, but you can’t use this escalator.” I believe she truly was sorry. Everyone was very nice, but I felt sorry for her. How in the world could the Wilpons have missed the disgusting irony of that? Can they really be that clueless?
I had not realized that was the case with the escalators either. That is just plumb stupid and could have been remedied just as you’ve suggested — a discreetly placed elevator to some elite seat level. Not smack in the middle of a Rotunda ostensibly devoted to the theme of equality and fairness. “Mr. Robinson spent his life pressing for fair and equitable treatment for all Americans….now back the @#*$ away from the escalator you Promenade Reserve peasant!!”
(Truth is that I found most of the CF staff and ushers almost eerily polite and solicitous in my 2 visits. Kind of freaked me out. My comfort zone is with some ancient and irascible usher giving me the stink eye if I am not eager to tip him for the privilege of wiping my seat with a greasy rag, who also threatens to kill me and my family for trying to move from back rows Mezz 6 rows forward at a game attended by about 42 paying customers against the Expos in the early 1990s)
I had read that the Mets were restricting access during batting practice to some of the most expensive seats. Even at the team workout I attended (for plan holders) they let us sit everywhere and enter every elite club save for those seats behind home plate. Its annoying but could be worse — at Dodger Stadium they wouldn’t let us go to any other level than our own, period, during practice. (Explains a lot about why LA riots have a unique quality to ‘em.)
Given the insane price of the most elite seats at CF, I suppose if I owned one I wouldn’t want some shlub (in other words, me) dribbling beer and Gold’s mustard on my seat while he watches Sheffield take his hacks. Actually, at that price I’d want the stadium ushers and members of the Madoff family to personally warm the seat and clean the pavement beneath it at my command. Democracy is fine, but we do live in a democratic republic, after all.
The separate and unequal escalators in the Jackie Robinson Rotunda is too juicy a detail to bypass, but it’s not all that uncommon to have dedicated escalators to club levels in these newer ballparks. To place them in this particular space, dedicated to who and what it’s allegedly dedicated to, however…only the Mets, I swear.