Catching Up With Tradition At Citi Field

By Shannon Shark
Posted Monday, August 10, 2009

With the season in ruins I thought I'd take a look back to when hope sprung eternal. Back then on The Mets Police I called for some new traditions for Citi Field. New rituals for a new building. Let's see what has happened.

1. Bring back Old Timer's Day. Well, David Howard has told us it is a poor investment, so this list is off to a rotten start.

2. Bring back banner day. This one boggles the mind. Perhaps the Mets are afraid of being criticized. Wait until they discover the internet.

3. Rusty's Ribs. I had forgotten about this one. A "homegrown" food place would be more fun and blue collar than some of the stores at Citi. I'll give the Mets a pass.

4. "Meet Me At The Apple." - well I didn't know they were going to hide the apple under the stairs of the least used gate. They might as well have placed it in the actual junkyard across the street. I will change this request to "meet me at the Seaver statue" which should be in front of the rotunda entrance.

5. Seaver Always Throws Out Opening Day. They are 1 for 1 and this list is 1 for 5.

6. Hang a 17 on the fence. Even way back in March my spidey sense was tingling that the new place could use some more Mets.

7. Wear pinstripes and blue hats 6 days a week. Charlie Samuels seems to disagree, but I think I could drive cross-country with Howie Rose and not run out of things to talk about.

8. Bullpen cars with cap-tops. Like in the 70's at Shea. I think at this point I'd settle for bullpens we could see.

9. The new sign man. I keep hoping someone will take up the tradition, but I don't think any self respecting sign man could afford seats on the main level.

10. No wave. So far so good. I haven't seen that many waves this year. Have you?

11. Organ music. The season started promising and then the noise idiots started getting carried away again. This will be an easy fix once I buy the team.

12. The traditional Take Me Out To The Ballgame recording using the PA announcer from the 80's. Ding, winner!

13. The Curly Shuffle. They went for Meet the Mets in the 8th so I will just smile and wave nicely at Jeff Wilpon and be glad we didn't get stuck with Sweet Caroline (it olnly took two months for them to figure that one out.)

14. Lady Met returns. Not a chance.

15. The traditional booing of Luis Castillo. It took a Subway Series for this to take root, but hey at least we have a tradition to call our own!