New York Mets (Major League Baseball) @ Citi Field (Queens, NY)

*This trip occurred on April 30, 2026 - exactly one year after my first visit to their nearest minor league affiliate. It also marks the first Major League Baseball game on this blog after so many minor, independent, and summer league games!

I'm not really sure how deep I should go into the history of the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club here...partially because I actually have already! From an old post on this blog:

The New York Mets are one of baseball’s most...curious franchises. They’ve had some notably GOOD things happen, such as being the first expansion team to win a World Series (the ‘69 “Miracle Mets”), and then being the first expansion team to win a second World Series in 1986 because of John McNamara (you’re welcome). On the other hand, they set the modern era record for futility in their first year when they went 40-120 in 1962 (since passed by the 2024 Chicago White Sox losing 121 games), famously collapsed at the end of both the 2007 and 2008 seasons (with the Phillies the beneficiaries of both collapses), have had some other memorably WILD losses (like an infamous 2019 implosion against the Washington Nationals), were owned by someone implicated in the Bernie Madoff scheme, and also...Bobby Bonilla Day (which is actually connected to the Madoff saga)¹.

As someone who has more or less been "kinda cool" with the Mets despite the 1986 World Series (mainly due to the fact that they ALSO hate the Yankees), it's hard for me to get behind what's gone on in Queens over the past two decades of overspending, collapses, and the tease that was the 2015 World Series. However, there is at least one nugget not in this summary that I think is relevant:

I mentioned this the first time I visited Brooklyn on this blog, but the New York Mets are, in essence, the National League replacement for the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants (both of whom moved to California in 1958); in fact, their colors of blue and orange are an homage to the two teams. However, there's actually a bit more to their founding story than that.

A year after the Dodgers and Giants moved, a rival league - the Continental League - was announced. New York was one of eight cities announced to be getting a team in this league, but before the league could start (as it was due to start in 1961), the National League announced that it would add new teams (the first expansion in MLB history), and thus NL baseball came back into New York in 1962 with the establishment of the New York Metropolitan Baseball Club - better known as the New York Mets. With NL baseball back in New York City's boroughs (and the prospects of further expansion), the Continental League abandoned its plans and disbanded².

The main driving force behind the Continental League was an attorney by the name of William Shea. In honor of him, the Mets' original stadium was named after him: Shea Stadium (kinda sorta - they spent two years at the famous Polo Grounds before it was opened). It hosted not only the Mets, but also the New York Jets (until they moved to the Meadowlands in the 80s) as well as...the Yankees (when Yankee Stadium was essentially rebuilt). In 2009, however, Shea Stadium was closed and demolished, and the Mets' current home was opened: Citi Field³.

Similar to how the new Yankee Stadium was meant to emulate the original 1923 structure, Citi Field is meant to honor another stadium of New York City’s baseball past: Ebbets Field. This homage is very much seen in the main entrance, which is designed to mimic the facade of Ebbets Field and whose main area is known as the "Jackie Robinson Rotunda". The stadium also features something that has been unique to the Mets for a long time: orange foul poles (every other stadium in MLB has yellow ones).

The main level concourse fully wraps around the field...but the seating bowl does not. There is a part of the seating bowl which is disrupted by the two bullpens in right field, and the concourse goes over the bullpens via a "bridge" called the Shea Bridge (named after, of course, William Shea). This bridge features a very significant feature on it: the logo the Mets used during their final season at Shea Stadium⁴.

There are also two other levels, each with their own concourse. I honestly feel like there's not much to discuss in terms of what's on them (at least for now), but it MUST be mentioned that the uppermost concourse has its own "plaza" area behind home plate (or at least I THINK it's behind home plate).

Behind center field (i.e. the scoreboard and the famous Home Run Apple) is a plaza which features a mini field and the first Shake Shack I can recall seeing outside of the original Madison Square Park location (and do NOT get me started on my opinions of Shake Shack). This plaza also features a "mini field" as well as other activities, but the thing that was the Mets Museum. There isn't really a whole lot here except for a bunch of old memorabilia, but the team's two World Series trophies are displayed here.

I've seen the Mets at Citi Field a few times before, but those games were so long ago that I honestly don't remember much about them (outside of one of them being a walk off win). To be honest, this game wasn't on my radar until literally last week; yes, I know the Mets are mired in last place (in all of MLB) and recently lost 12 games in a row, and while that probably dulls excitement around the team...it also lowers ticket prices! Case in point: I saw tickets going for as low as NINE DOLLARS a few days before this game, and I ended up spending just over eleven dollars for a seat which "normally" costs $27! However, what I didn't realize until I got to my seat was that the eleven dollars I spent also got me access to not one, not two, but three lounges in the upper concourses!

The lounges are, more or less, very similar to one another: slightly fancier than normal concessions with tables to eat which are largely indoors (which helps on a day like this one, which was fairly cold). One did not have field views, however, and while the other two had large windows to see the game, one of the lounges on the middle concourse in left field also had an "outdoor patio area" where I spent most of my "game watching" time.

Part of the reason this game was so "cheap": it's a 1 PM weekday game against the Washington Nationals (who haven't exactly been "good" after somehow winning the World Series in 2019⁵). It ended up being a bit of a back and forth game, but true to form, the Mets...found a way to lose. Throw in the Phillies winning game one of a double header, and the Mets find themselves in 30th place out of 30 teams in Major League Baseball - which means that a repeat trip is VERY MUCH a possibility later this year.

MERCH

Fun fact: the jersey in my collection that I've had the longest is a Mets jersey I bought at a Marshalls in 2005⁶, and the first "authentic" baseball hat I got was a Mets hat at a Modell's Sporting Goods (RIP Modell's AND the Livingston Mall). In addition, while Citi Field hosts the only "official" Mets stores nowadays, I remember there being a Mets Team Store in a mall near Penn Station in Midtown growing up, but it closed a VERY long time ago (RIP Manhattan Mall), and there was also a Mets pop-up store in Union Square last spring which I visited the first time I went to NYC's OTHER MLB stadium.

Anyway, back to the ballpark: there are, as you might expect, a plethora of merchandise areas amongst the concourses at Citi Field. The main store is just inside the main entrance (as you'd probably expect), each outfielder has a (fairly small) team store in their part of the outfield, plus there's a store in the plaza on the highest deck⁷. This last store is the most interesting one IMO, as it holds the stadium's "clearance section" where old hats/jerseys are sold at reduced prices. Unfortunately for me, most of the jerseys were replicas, but they did have a FEW authentics. Also, I usually don't mention food in these posts (even though I tend to go for ice cream helmets at games), but I do have to mention the "Home Run Apple ice cream bowl" sold here, as it's WAY COOLER than your standard "food in a helmet".

There's also a memorabilia store on the main concourse which sells game used items such as uniforms and baseballs. This store also has a "grab bag lottery" where for a set price, you can have a chance at items such as jerseys, field dirt, and baseballs signed by soon-to-be-fired Mets manager Carlos Mendoza.

However, the thing I found most interesting about the memorabilia store is that it had baseballs from events not related to the Mets (i.e. old All Star Games and World Series) - and one of them caught my attention quite a bit...more on this tomorrow.