The coordinates listed will take you to where home plate used to be inside of Shea Stadium, the former home of the NY Mets.
The Stadium was named after William A. Shea, a lawyer, and the man most responsible for bringing National League baseball back to New York after the Dodgers and Giants left for California in 1957.
The Mets played their first game on April 11, 1962 and used the old Polo Grounds for 2 seasons as the stadium was being constructed.
In 1964, the City of New York named the stadium in Shea's honor. After 29 months and $28.5 million, Shea Stadium opened in 1964 on April 17, with the Pittsburgh Pirates beating the Mets 4–3 before a crowd of 50,312.
I am a NY Mets fan. One of my earliest memories was attending a game there in 1964 although I can’t be sure of the date or the team as I was almost 5 years old depending on the date.
In 1969 the Mets were assigned to the new National League East division. In their seven previous seasons, the Mets had never finished higher than ninth place in the ten-team National League and had never had a winning season. The Cubs were division leaders for most of the 69 season but the Mets finished at 100–62, eight games ahead of the Cubs, who suffered a collapse at the end of the season. Who can forget the famous black cat game of September 9, 1969? In that game a black cat ran in front of the Cubs dugout. The Mets won 24 of 32 games in September and October to clinch the division. They went on to defeat the Braves in 3 straight, and then the impossible happened: the Mets defeated the powerhouse Orioles team 4 games to 1 to win the World Series in only their 8th season. Amazin'.
I was there for many games during those 45 years and saw many exciting game wins and some heart breaking losses. On September 12, 1984 I saw Doc Gooden break Herb Score’s record for strikeouts in a season by a rookie pitcher with his 246th strikeout of the year. In that game while Gooden had no strikeouts in the 1st or 9th innings, from innings 2-8 he struck out 16.
I was also at the game on September 17, 1986 when the Mets with Doc Gooden pitching a complete game beat the Cubs 4-2 and clinched the National League East for the first time in 13 years. I even got out onto the field in the bedlam that ensued. That year the Mets won 108 regular season games and played some of the most exciting playoff baseball I’ve ever witnessed including a 16 inning win in Houston in game 7 of the League Championship Series that catapulted the Mets to their 3rd World Series. The best game I ever witnessed, although not in person, was game 6 of the the 1986 World Series against Boston where the Mets won on a slow dribbler by Mookie Wilson with the ball going between Bill Buckner’s legs.
I remember attending the last game at Shea with my son and a close friend. It was a loss to the Florida Marlins on September 28, 2008. Following the game, there was a Shea Goodbye tribute in which players from prior Mets' years entered the stadium and touched home plate one final time so that fans could cheer the players and the stadium the Mets called home for 45 years. The ceremony ended with Tom Seaver throwing a final pitch to Mike Piazza, then, as the Beatles' "In My Life" played on the stadium speakers the two former Met stars walked out of the centerfield gate and closed it behind them, followed by a display of blue and orange fireworks.
In 1981 an iconic symbol of NY, the Big Apple, was installed at Shea Stadium behind center field. It rose every time a Met hit a home run. Shea stadium was demolished in 2009 to create additional parking for the adjacent Citi Field, the current home of the Mets. A new Big Apple was installed inside and the original one was installed on the plaza outside the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.
The logging requirements of this cache are simple: At the Big Apple which sits 596 feet from the original Shea Stadium home plate there is a plaque. Email or message me the following information:
1: What was the name of the marketing campaign that brought the Big Apple to Shea Stadium?
2: What is the weight of the Big Apple?
3: Take a picture of yourself or your group and post it to your log. As per the Geocaching website rules your face is NOT required to be in this photo.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.