Citi Field, The World's Greatest Food Court

By Jaap Stijl
Posted Monday, April 20, 2009

Although I wasn't around when Teatro all Scala opened in Milan in 1778, something tells me the reviews of the Salieri's opening performance of Europa riconosciuta in the world's greatest opera house weren't overrun with laudatory verses about the spaghetti alle vongole being sold during intermission.

Yet after a week's opening run of official baseball at Citi Field the recurrent observation by the media and even fans seems to focus more on the ponderous abundance of quality nosh than it does on the quality of play on the field.

Time after time we hear about the wonders of Nathan’s, the Shake Shack and Blue Smoke concessions, Box Frites, Premio, The Original Cascarino’s, Mama’s of Corona, the Brooklyn Burger and El Verano Taquería stands, as well as the posh eateries at Delta Sky360, Caesars and Acela.

One almost begins to believe that Citi Field is little but a glorified Food Court which just so happens to have a baseball field to have a quick peek in on when you get bored from queueing to eat or eating or going to the toilets after eating.

After a disappointing 3-3 opening home stand which typified and regurgitated all the repugnant themes of Met teams for the last two seasons, perhaps this indulgence of food over baseball is understandable.

But repeated camera shots of those six games of mobs of people milling around in informal queues for a chance at a taco or seated in the food pits shoving pulled pork into their watering gobs whilst watching television broadcasts of the games they've paid hefty sums to see live and in person makes one wonder why these good people paid money to be there in person to begin with.

This isn't happening in the late innings of a blow out, mind. This commences with the game and lasts throughout. Why in yesterday's broadcast alone, in the first inning, the crowds were unimaginable and there in the eating area, where hordes of people sat shoveling it in and watching the game on monitors instead of from the seats they paid to watch the game in.

It buggers belief why anyone in their right mind would pay $40 minimum for a chance to queue for food and oh yeah, maybe watch a baseball game for a few innings.

Food aside, the Mets' initial home stand was a bust.

Exceedingly winnable games were squandered by a repeated inability to hit with runners in scoring position. You might, as the Mets attempted to do after yesterday's loss, try and shine an optimistic light on those losses by pointing out how many hits the Mets are getting. True enough. But the hits are essentially meaningless when the well runs dry every time the game is on the line and runners are left stranded in tight games. Of the three losses, the Mets were only outscored by a total of 4 runs. A lone well placed hit in any of those games, in any of those innings, could have easily swung the result in the Mets favour. Instead, more excuses.

And whilst it's easy to point out how many hits the Mets are producing as a sign that it's only a matter of time before they start hitting with runners in scoring position, it could be equally argued that eventually, those hot hitters will cool off and then there won't even be runners in scoring position to leave stranded.

There is no one player to anoint as the sacrificial goat. This failure is team-wide, a collective disease like an air borne virus that spreads throughout until each player become almost immune to victory.

Surely it's premature to wring our hands in disgust and declare the season a loss already. However, with two seasons of abysmal and unprecedented failure lurking not only in the minds of the fans but in the players as well, it isn't difficult to imagine a season playing out much like the beginning of last season did before Willie was sacked; a frustrating inability to find any consistency, excruciatingly calibrated to maximise supporter pain and frustration.

So we can hope that it was the distraction of all this: the novelty of the stadium, the food concessions and the season, which has temporarily hamstrung the ability of these 2009 Mets to find hits when they matter most.

Or, if precedent is any indication, we can begin to weave the traditional sob story of another Met season frittered away by lost opportunities and this time at least, distract ourselves with the great assembly of eateries ever established in one baseball stadium.