Where Was I: Citi Field, Queens Borough, New York City, May 10th, 2013

Stadium count:

- This trip: 2nd.

- Active MLB: 14.

- Overall MLB: 22.

Seat: Section 110, Row 4, Seat 11. This is the 10th row or so, on the first base side, beside the photographers' pit, I would say about 40 feet or so up the foul line.

Result: Pirates 7, Mets 3.

First, I had the interesting trek getting to the stadium, as I had spent the afternoon at Coney Island.  It took me 90 minutes or so and three trains (F, G from first to last stop and 7) to get from the south end of Brooklyn to Willets Point in Queens.  NYC is big.

I have not been able to put my finger on why, but watching a game here felt a lot more laid back than it did at New Yankee Stadium. Maybe it was the cheaper ticket: I paid roughly $30 less for a substantially better seat.

The crowd was sparse (in fact, I do not remember them announcing admission, which usually means a pretty bad crowd...),  yet vocal, especially expressing its discontent with Shaun Marcum, who frankly stank out the joint.

While New Yankee Stadium has its Great Hall, Citi Field has the Jackie Robinson Rotunda at its main entrance. (You think maybe both teams were keeping an eye on each other's new ballpark projects...) It is exactly what it sounds like: a rotunda, spanning the height of the stadium, highlighting the career of Jackie Robinson, a former Dodger. Fine, he played in Brooklyn and broke the MLB colour barrier far, far later than it should have been broken, but still, what is the link to the Mets?

The concourses are very wide, but that should be expected in a modern stadium. Concession stands generally all feature the same standard ball park items (e.g., hot dogs [Nathan's Famous, of course], Brooklyn burgers, pretzels, etc) however, there is a fairly substantial food court in the right field concourse that provides some much diverse, and higher-end, fare: gourmet pizza, steak sandwiches, fish, etc.

There are some really nice touches:

- During the Mets' one and only rally in the 9th, a video was shown on the big screen of famous NY Met fans (e.g., Don Cheadle, Will Smith, Kevin James, John Cena) exhorting the crowd to cheer on the Mets.

- There are supersized replicas of Topps baseball cards of former Mets throughout the stadium.

- They showed a 'This Day in Mets' History' feature on the video board several times during the game. Now a lot of those items were day-to-day baseball peccadillos (i.e., 'In 1977, such and such hit a home run in the bottom of the 9th to give the Mets a win'), but it is a nice link to the team's 50+-year history. It was also nice to see that not everything that is flashed on the video board needs to have a corporate sponsor...

Of note, they did not play 'God Bless America' during 7th inning stretch.

There are a number of plaques on the walkway/sidewalk around the stadium highlighting key moments in Met history.  I made a particular point of stepping on the 1986 World Series Game 6 Met comeback one. I would have done worst, but there were people meandering about.