I may be back from spring training, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spend the day at the ballpark, even if it is drizzling.

The Mets opened up Citi-Field today to host the St. John’s/Georgetown college game, and to do a test run of the ballpark and the staff.  It was quite a good thing, as their were still a few bumps in the road.  Some signage wasn’t quite in place, distance markers were not on the outfield walls yet, and staff did not quite know their way around just yet.  I was there with two friends, one in a wheel chair and finding out seats was a little like playing stump the Schwab Usher/Security team.  Eventually, we found them right down by the third base dugout.  Great location, though they clearly still needed to work out some details for those seats.

After a few innings, we headed up to the rest of the stadium, to check out the Mets new digs.  There were a few sections from our primo seats that I wanted to check out.   After so much publicity about how the team wanted to make the park smaller to create intimacy from all corners, I wanted to see how they did.  The truth is they did exactly that.  Are there some seats that are far away?  Sure.  But with players on the field, it was easy to see that no matter where you sat, you could watch the action on the diamond easily.

Citi- Field from the upper deck.

Note how far down the left field line I am to take this picture, and its from the upper deck.  Anyone remember what the view was from similar seats at Shea?

No matter where we moved around the park, the seats were angled to see the action.  There were a couple of places where upper decks jutted out and obscured the scoreboards, but in those places, flat screen TV monitors were put in place to show whatever image was on the enormous video board.

In a couple of places, the concourses narrowed because of vending lines and trash cans, and egress became difficult.  And, I think when the park really is sold out (there probably weren’t more than 20,000 there today) moving around the park could get quite difficult. But even the oufield center seats at the highest level made you feel like you were right in the middle of the action.  To quote a man checking those seats out today, you can “really see the play develop” from those seats.  Having sat down the seats at Shea’s loge, just past the foul pole, that is not something I ever felt I could have noticed there.

The food wasn’t all up and running yet, but near every concession stood at least one condiment stand.  These weren’t counters hidden around a corner with some ketchup packets, but rather mobile carts with relish, ketchup, mustard, fresh tomatoes, sliced onions and beautiful green lettuce, hot peppers and fresh sauerkraut.  Each one also had an attendant, so if something runs out, there is someone who actually pays attention to it.

The new apple looks nice.  The team took the top of the old scoreboard and used it (or a replica) above the outfield center concession.  The out of town scoreboard looked nice, except they didn’t have it working completely, so you couldn’t tell just what half of the inning the game was in.  That’s just one of those kinks to work out.

One last thought.  I am not sure if its just the new stadium, or if something else happened to the staff in the off-season, but everywhere you went there were ushers, security, vendors that were happy to be there.  Everyone went out of their way to be helpful, and they seemed genuinely nice!  Something that was rare at Shea.  Kudos to all the staff.

Lastly, I had the chance to see Jeff Wilpon in the Jackie Robinson rotunda, and caught his eye briefly to tell him I thought it was nicely done.  And it is.

Two last shots, giving you a look at the new scoreboards, and the view from the right field seats.

Citifield Scoreboards

Citi Field from the right field seats.

PS Georgetown won and Sean Lamont hit the first home run in Citifield history!