Tag / Tom Glavine

by admin

Ballpark Tour: Shea Stadium

SheaBoard

Stadium Name: Shea Stadium

Location: New York

Home Team: Mets, Yankees

Years in Service: 1964 – 2008

Visits: 1

After a delay caused by labor woes and an exceptionally harsh winter, Shea Stadium, home of the expansion New York Mets, opened on April 17, 1964, with the Pittsburgh Pirates beating the Mets 4–3 before a crowd of 50,312. It continued to be the home of the Mets until September 28, 2008, when the Mets lost to the Florida Marlins. Along the way, the stadium was also the home of the Yankees for 2 seasons while Yankee Stadium was being renovated and, for the 1975 season, it served as the home of both New York MLB teams and both New York NFL teams, the first time a stadium has had that many main major tenants at one time.

My one trip to Shea Stadium was for opening day in 2003 to see the Chicago Cub take on the NYMet.  The last day of March was Tom Glavine’s first appearance with the Mets after coming over from the Braves via free agency.  His grace period with the Mets faithful did not last long, as he was booed after throwing a ball on the second pitch.  The baseball gods were not on the Mets side that day, as the Cubs, behind 2 Corey Patterson home runs, routed the Mets 15-2.  I remember the stadium itself being pretty decent, though we did have some of the best seats in the house, which may have tainted my impression somewhat.

by admin

30 For 30 – Take One Ultimate Road Trip

SheaBoardThe fine folks at away.com have come up with a list of 30 Things Every Traveler Must Do Before They’re 30.  Of those 30, I’ve managed to accomplish 12 of them, or roughly 40% of them, some of which was even before I turned 30.  Today we look at #12 on their list, take one Ultimate Road Trip.  In the year 2003, the Chicago Cubs were scheduled to open their season on Monday, March 31 in Queens against the New York Mets.  What better way to celebrate than with a road trip to New York to take in the festivities?

The trip sort of started out Friday afternoon with a quick jaunt out to the Budget rental facility near O’Hare airport.  They were the one rental agency that didn’t seem to mind that we were taking the car out of state.  It for real started the next morning at 2 AM as we headed out on I-80 heading east.  Very little of interest happened throughout Indiana and Ohio.  Eventually, we stopped for lunch at an Arbys in Pennsylvania.  This particular Arbys happened to have a breakfast buffet, which was weird.  The customers of this Arbys seemed to be more at home in the hills of Appalachia then in Pennsylvania.  One in particular was wearing overalls with no shirt underneath (at least that’s how I remember it) and was waiting patiently for a new batch of bacon to be brought out to the buffet.  Once it was, this hill person got up, emptied the whole tray onto his plate, and returned to his seat to chow down.

After finishing our processed meat sandwiches, we continued on to our final destination: a Howard Johnson hotel in Newark, New Jersey.  From my recollection, the whole trip lasted a little more than 12 hours.  After a brief nap and a few episodes of the Chappelle Show, our plans for the evening required a train ride to Manhattan, which should have been a piece of cake.  There was a train at the airport and an airport shuttle should have come to the hotel every 15-20 minutes.  After waiting for an hour, the shuttle finally showed up, taking us to the Newark airport where we were finally able to take the train into New York City!

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by jim

Zero Point Zero

The results of this year’s Hall of Fame election were announced Wednesday and the esteemed members of the BBWAA managed to elect no one.  Newcomer Craig Biggio, he of the 3000 plus career hits, led the pack with 68.2%, his crime being that he played at the same time as those who used steroids.  Jack Morris, the leading holdover, saw a small increase to 67.7% and has one more shot on next year’s ballot.

As expected, the big three of Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds, and Sammy Sosa did not get much support.  The surprising thing was the 8 voters who were willing to vote for Clemens but not Bonds.

Next year, the ballot gets even more crowded when Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas, among others, become eligible for the first time.  Hopefully, the drama queens in the BBWAA figure out how to handle the steroid era in a way that makes sense without punishing everyone who played in the 90s and early 2000s.