Thursday, February 19, 2009

Mark the Shea Moments in the Citi Parking Lot

Yesterday I commented on Steve Popper's Amazin' Stories blog about the last pieces of Shea Stadium falling. The site of so many Amazin' moments in Mets history is about to become a dark sea of asphalt.


It's not practical for replaced stadiums to remain in place (for long) while the nails, bolts, and memories begin to fade. However, the Mets can at least preserve some of the history by marking the locations of historical Mets moments.

The Phillies and White Sox mark the homeplate and pitching mounds of previous stadiums among their parking places. There is still part of a wall on the Univ. of Pitt grounds where Forbes Field once stood and there is a pitching mound and home plate to mark the first World Series where Huntington Avenue Grounds was hosting to the Boston Red Sox.

The Wilpon family need to do something similar in the Citi Field parking lot. They need to follow the pattern of their NL East rivals, the Atlanta Braves. The Braves do a real nice job of marking home plate, the bases, pitching mound, and of course the site where Hank Aaron's 715th HR flew over Fulton County Stadium fence.

I'd like to see the Mets mark the plate, bases, and pitching mound. More importantly I'd like to see the mark the location of Cleon Jones making his famous last out catch of the 1969 World Series in the left field of Shea and a spot where Mookie Wilson's ground ball rolled beyond Bill Buckner and first base during Game 6 of the 1986 World Series. Lets add a marker on the location with the exact quotes from Vin Scully's great call on NBC, "Little roller up along first... here comes Knight and the Mets win it!"

I ask the Mets organization and the Wilpon family to preserve these moments of Mets history by marking the locations in the new Citi Field parking lot.

UPDATE: Thanks to Steven Popper for presenting the idea to the Jeff Wilpon Wednesday night, Feb. 18.

4 comments:

gcrl said...

don't forget tommie agee's home run marker!

by the way, there is a commemmorative home plate inside the mall of america to mark the location of home at the old met stadium.

zman40 said...

Those are great ideas. I loved the way they did it in Atlanta. Whenever I took a friend there for the first time, I made sure to run them by that area if we had time.

James said...

Ah, I wish I knew the Mall of America had a homeplate in there! I was there a few years ago and must have missed it. I was probably distracted by the giant lego land!

Anonymous said...

Vin Scully's great call on NBC,
NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bob Murphy's call of the play from Radio- Now that's right