Tearing Down Memories

This past Friday night/early Saturday morning, I was driving home from a friend's house and my route took me past Citi Field and Shea Stadium.

I had not been to Shea Stadium since mid to late 2008, and when I drove past it, I was pleasantly surprised at how pretty the basically finished Citi Field looked like. Then right next door, I saw Shea was in the process of being demolished already, and I won't lie to you, it tugged at my heartstrings. I had gone to Shea many many many times to root for my Mets, and there were a lot of happy and sad memories associated with that stadium for me: Johan Santana's first start at Shea, Mike Piazza's first home game as a Met, Darryl Strawberry hitting the longest homerun I have ever seen in my life, Pedro Martinez pitching against the Mets as a Red Sox and getting chased out of the game and it turns out later he was hurt, an injury which he never really recovered from completely...

Now, the place looks like a bomb site; but I am really looking forward to seeing the team play in the new stadium in a few months. Only thing I wish that Shea Stadium could have witnessed was a no-hitter by a Met pitcher. Hopefully Citi Field will have better luck with that.

Here's a site that has pictures of the Shea demolition.