The very last out of the very last Saturday game ever to be played at Shea Stadium. And the very last game I would see from Loge 7, Row E, Seat 1. Let's finish up with the concluding installment of my essay "The Saturday Plan" which was published last year.
Saturday, July 22, 1989. Mets 4, Braves 2. An otherwise meaningless game as the Mets spend another summer uselessly chasing the Cardinal Cub Pirates Braves. It would be the last baseball game my father ever attended. In the latter years of my Saturday plan, my father only acted as a last minute fill-in for a Seat 2 cancellation. He didn’t feel up to it that day, but he went anyway. It was the day that I couldn’t park in my usual lot, because my father couldn’t walk far. It was the day that my father winced every time somebody in Row E went to the concession stand. It was the day I realized that the prostate cancer had probably metastasized in his right leg. He told me not to count on him as a fill-in anymore. About a year later, I knew that I was going to have to do a lot more than that.
Things were going to change again, as they always did in my life as a Met Saturday plan holder. From Hodges to Randolph. From Seaver to Pedro. From high school to career. From best friend to best friend. From $ 2.50 to almost $ 50.00 per loge reserved seat ticket.
And, in 1997, from coast to coast. My writing career created a bi-coastal existence, with Southern California the provider of my oxygen intake 75 percent of the year. Yet, I held onto Loge Section 7. The Wilpon’s bottomless pit of a bank account made it easy to sell tickets to my friends and associates. Indeed, I still Saturday-ed at Shea four or five times a season. I made a point of always traveling back for the Yankees’ inter-league visit and praying that Mike Piazza would somehow propel us to a victory.
There’s yet another group of regular Section 7 denizens, all of whom seem to be consistently unimpressed with Aaron Heilman. But, on my Saturday forays now, I see a difference. The experience is noisier. The advertisements never stop. And T-shirts are used as heat-seeking missiles. I look around and do what my parents and my grandparents did. Remember the good old days.
In 2008, on the eighteenth hole of the Shea Stadium golf course of life, Section 7 in the Loge has become painfully aware that our days as Saturday plan holders may be winding down. Carefully worded disclaimers attached to our final invoices can be de-coded to reveal that, with 10,000 less seats, there is probably no room for any of us in the new Citi Field. At the very, very least, we might wind up with Saturday seats next to a Korean BBQ on Northern Boulevard. I curse the person who coined the phrase, “all good things must come to an end.” I regret that I may never ride the Citi Field elevator.
Some good friends in Los Angeles have completed their CIA brainwashing and there is now a computer chip in my head that responds only to commands from Vin Scully. I am now a full season ticket holder at Dodger Stadium. On the first base side. In the loge. I can be found there on most Tuesdays and Fridays and Sundays.
But, ironically, I’m never in Dodger Stadium on Saturdays. That will always be reserved for only one special stadium. In two special seats. With one special friend.
On a lifetime of very special Saturdays.
Ultimately, we now know that there is room for us in Citi Field. I will be there for the first time on Saturday, April 25. But it will never ever be the same. Or as much fun. Dinner last night: Chicken ala Romana at Fabiolus
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