GOODBYE!

You may have heard that the famous Shea Stadium sign guy just passed away. If you went to a Met game in Flushing Meadows anytime during the late 60s, you saw this man and his cornucopia of printed placards. He had one for almost any baseball situation, and it almost seemed like he was lettering them himself during the game.

It's coincidentally nostalgic that he would die during the year where Shea Stadium will close its door to the public for the last time. But, then again, it's all changing for the world that revolves around the New York Metropolitans. Next year, they move about ten feet to the north into the spanking new Shitty Field. Sparkling (albeit fewer) seats and sightlines. Multiple restaurants where you can pay premium prices for microwaved salisbury steak. And vendors who will be roving the stands with your favorite Puerto Rican snacks. "Get your plaintains, get your plaintains!"

My mind wanders back to my first days as a Saturday ticket plan holder. The seats were wooden and so was the pitching staff. To a kid, the place still glistened as one of the original members of the toilet bowl style era of stadium construction. It was still my ballpark and it grew up with me like a neighborhood friend.

Shea felt apart as quickly as Joan Van Ark's last Botox injection. Cracked cement stairs. Paint chipping on bannisters, which were never retouched. Flooded bathroom floors. The blue and orange metal sheets that used to adorn the outside ramps were replaced by...well, nothing. And the warm calming aura of Jane Jarvis on the Thomas Organ was supplanted by, at first, your favorite Z100 playlist and later by that week's sure shots from San Juan radio. T-shirts are shot into the crowd like heat-seeking scud missiles. The ultimate injustice comes when I show up for a game on Hispanic Night and I discover that somebody has left a pile of sick underneath my seat. I looked for one of those ushers in one of those great orange suits and hats, but the best I can find is three paper towels in the bathroom to clean it up myself.

I've recently written a homage to my years at Saturday Met games and it will hopefully appear as scheduled in a book devoted to Shea Stadium. As I wrote it, I realized just how much this world has changed for me. The one thing that I thought would remain a constant is now merely a footnote in a life cycle. I wish the sign guy would be around for one more game and one last sign. That would read...

"IT AIN'T THE SAME."

Dinner last night: A birthday celebration of filet mignon and porcini mushrooms at Madeo's in West Hollywood.