Welcome to Citi Field, the new world-class home of the New York Mets. The Mets won the World Series in 1969 and 1986 and the National League pennant in 1973, 2000, and 2015. The Mets were born out of the loss of two National League teams that moved West, the Los Angeles (nee Brooklyn) Dodgers and the San Francisco (nee New York) Giants after the 1957 season. Overnight, New York went from three Major League teams to one, the Yankees. The thought of even thinking of rooting for the rival Yankees was distasteful for the vast majority of the displaced fans.
New York attorney William Shea spearheaded a movement to start a third league, the Continental League. Five franchises were awarded and play was to start in the 1961 season with up to 8 teams. Eventually, the American and National Leagues acquiesced and awarded franchises to Washington and Los Angeles (AL) and Houston and New York (NL). New York was to be a National League town again and the name Metropolitans was chosen. The first owner was Mrs. Joan Payson. The team colors represent the past as they took the blue from the Dodgers and the orange from the Giants.
The Mets played their first two seasons (1962-63) in the Polo Grounds in Manhattan, former home of the Giants while their new stadium was being constructed in Flushing Meadows, Queens, also the site of the 1964 World's Fair. The Mets opened Shea Stadium in 1964 and shared it with football's New York Jets for twenty years before the Jets joined the football Giants in the New Jersey Meadowlands. The lower stands (orange seats in later years) were designed to swing out to enclose the football gridiron in parallel but required electricians and plumbers every time to disconnect and reconnect the infrastructure.
When the Mets were the only tenant, a number of changes were made to make the stadium more baseball-friendly but it still shared the characteristics of many dual-purpose stadiums built during the time period, that is, acceptable but not great for either sport.
After Fred Wilpon became majority owner by buying out Nelson Doubleday in 2002, he pursued building a new baseball-only stadium. The design of the new stadium is evocative of Ebbets Field, the home of the Brooklyn Dodgers and a place that Wilpon had visited many times as a child.
Ground was broke in 2006 and Mets fans watched over the next two seasons as the new building rose behind the left-field fence. Shea Stadium was closed in September 2008 with the two faces of the franchise, pitcher Tom Seaver and catcher Mike Piazza sharing one last pitch and walking through the center field wall to "close the door" on the old stadium. For the opening of Citi Field in April 2009, Seaver and Piazza came in from the bullpen and took the ceremonial first pitch in the new stadium. Although a lot of criticism was given at the opening of not feeling like the Mets stadium, many touches such as the opening of the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum in the rotunda have made it feel more like home.
The Wilpon family was not well-liked by the fan base for many reasons, many feeling that they would not spend money, especially after the Bernie Madoff scandal that enveloped the ownership due to their investments. In 2019, the Wilpon family decided to put their controlling interest up for sale. Hedge-fund billionaire and life-long Mets fan Steven A. Cohen acquired 95% of the team and stadium for $2.4 billion in November 2020. Cohen's fat wallet and willing to spend like a fan have breathed new life into the franchise.
In honor of the new stadium, I have placed a cache at the following location:
Zachry Dykstra Olerud Seaver Staub
K.Rogers Wright Wilson Ordonez Backman Kranepool
Subtract 3 from the North coords and 18 from the West coords to get the new location!!!
NOTE: There may be multiple answers for some of the names and numbers.
If you are scratching your head, you probably do not recognize the names of some famous and infamous Mets of the past. A little legwork will help you to find the answers, an extra star if you can do this from memory! Use common sense when approaching GZ, no major roads need to be crossed to access the cache. Lets Go Mets!
Congratulations to *Jeremy* for the FTF!
