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Hope you guys don't think this question is stupid, but I'm really curious:
with all the elements of Ebbets Field and the Dodgers that have been incorporated into Citi Field, did the Mets manage to put anything from that other, oft-forgotten part of their heritage: the Polo Grounds and the Giants?
I realize that Queens and Brooklyn share a LI location, but keeping alive the memories of the Brooklyn Dodgers should also mean keeping alive the memories of the New York Giants.
The Mets started life in the Polo Grounds, not Ebbets Field. Their intertwined "NY" belonged to the Giants. And they sport Giant orange every bit as much as Dodger blue.
I'll get off the soap box now: so, can anyone see any of the PG in Citi Field? I'm seeing the high wall in left and the large scoreboard in center as some connection...but not sure.
Does anyone know if they did try to incorporate the PG in any way into the new park?
Apparently not. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Polo Grounds (which was originally designed for, it's true, polo) was long and oval--much better suited for football than baseball. Ebbets Field was designed specifically for baseball. So Citifield, whose prices are insane and serves mainly to take real fans away from the game, nonetheless incorporates the best of a genuine old-fashioned baseball stadium. Minus the columns that made for some truly bad seats!
And just for the record...
While it's true that the Mets incorporated Dodger Blue and Giant Orange into their logo, and they did begin their existence in the Polo Grounds, an identity with the Giants was never really established. Even on Cap Day, when they give out Brooklyn Dodger and New York Giant caps, they have to have three times as many Dodger caps on hand. For whatever reason there might be, the Mets are the heirs to the Dodgers, and not the Giants. That's just the way things have worked out.
Apparently not. But that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Polo Grounds (which was originally designed for, it's true, polo) was long and oval--much better suited for football than baseball. Ebbets Field was designed specifically for baseball. So Citifield, whose prices are insane and serves mainly to take real fans away from the game, nonetheless incorporates the best of a genuine old-fashioned baseball stadium. Minus the columns that made for some truly bad seats!
And just for the record...
While it's true that the Mets incorporated Dodger Blue and Giant Orange into their logo, and they did begin their existence in the Polo Grounds, an identity with the Giants was never really established. Even on Cap Day, when they give out Brooklyn Dodger and New York Giant caps, they have to have three times as many Dodger caps on hand. For whatever reason there might be, the Mets are the heirs to the Dodgers, and not the Giants. That's just the way things have worked out.
Fred, I don't disagree with you on this. You are spot on with the design and layout of the Polo Grounds in comparison with Ebbets Field. No question that Flatbush beats Cogans Bluff when it comes to what a ballpark was supposed to be.
And, true, from the move to Shea, the Mets fan base was more Brooklyn, Queens, and the parts of LI outside of the city to the east.
But the Mets were still the product of heritage. They came on the scene some 4 years after LA and SF got the Dodgers and Giants and their birth as NY's NL franchise was seen as the continuation of the Giants/Dodgers tradition in New York and that wonderful era when NYC was truly the master of the MLB universe: 3 out of 16 teams and for those ten years or so before the Calif shift, one or two of them were in most of the WS's.
The Giants are the oldest franchise to represent NYC that still play ball, albeit 3000 miles west. They were NYC's first super franchise. And while no ballpark should be built to look like the Polo Grounds, it would make sense, IMHO, to have PG elements as a respect to Giant heritage (to go along with Dodger heritage). Who knows? Such deverence might even be appreciated in people in places like Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island, Westchester, and Jersey.
The Mets are not only about what is east of the East River.
But the Mets were still the product of heritage. They came on the scene some 4 years after LA and SF got the Dodgers and Giants and their birth as NY's NL franchise was seen as the continuation of the Giants/Dodgers tradition
Do you know the story of the Continental League? That was the gigantic bluff pulled off by Branch Rickey (who'd been dumped by Walter O'Malley) at the behest of Joan Payson--she was, you'll note, the original owner of the Mets.
Payson had been a Dodger fan all her life, and like all the others, was devastated when they left Brooklyn. So she got a little conspiracy together with Rickey, and they announced the establishment of a third major league: the Continental. In fact, they never had sufficient backing and if Major League Baseball had called their bluff, it would've collapsed like a house of cards.
But what really happened was, MLB was frightened half to death that Rickey was going to succeed. So they offered to buy him off. And what was his asking price? Expansion of the National League in both New York and Houston (MLB was dead set against any expansion, or even talk of it, at the time). Rickey put on a good show, and pretended to give the offer serious consideration...before accepting it.
And thus the New York Mets, owned by none other than Joan Payson, came into existence. That's their history--they were direct successors to the Dodgers, and not the Giants. (Although of course you're right about the Giants' provenance: they were the original baseball club in New York. They just didn't happen to give birth to the Mets!)
Do you know the story of the Continental League? That was the gigantic bluff pulled off by Branch Rickey (who'd been dumped by Walter O'Malley) at the behest of Joan Payson--she was, you'll note, the original owner of the Mets.
Payson had been a Dodger fan all her life, and like all the others, was devastated when they left Brooklyn. So she got a little conspiracy together with Rickey, and they announced the establishment of a third major league: the Continental. In fact, they never had sufficient backing and if Major League Baseball had called their bluff, it would've collapsed like a house of cards.
But what really happened was, MLB was frightened half to death that Rickey was going to succeed. So they offered to buy him off. And what was his asking price? Expansion of the National League in both New York and Houston (MLB was dead set against any expansion, or even talk of it, at the time). Rickey put on a good show, and pretended to give the offer serious consideration...before accepting it.
And thus the New York Mets, owned by none other than Joan Payson, came into existence. That's their history--they were direct successors to the Dodgers, and not the Giants. (Although of course you're right about the Giants' provenance: they were the original baseball club in New York. They just didn't happen to give birth to the Mets!)
The Continental League accomplished its goals which you stated very well: it really was about getting the NL and AL to expand and, I believe, that some of those who were "awarded" CL franchises actually got the NL and AL franchises for their cities. If I'm not mistaken, the only city listed as part of the CL that never got a MLB franchise was Buffalo.
What I find amazing is how NY's original gold standard franchise, the mighty Giants who allowed the Yankees to share their Polo Grounds, the franchise with, I believe, the most NL pennants even today became so marginized and basically the third wheel, squeezed out by a city dominated by the Yankees and Dodgers (despite their own success in the late 1940s and 1950s) that when 1957 and the California move dominated NYC, it was the Dodgers who got virtually all the attention and anger as the Giants fate was pretty well expected and didn't hit the emotional chords the Dodger move did.
And that, as much as Citi Field's Queens location, may help explain how the Giants and Polo Grounds are not nearly as significant factor in the new ballpark the way the Dodgers and Ebbets Field are.
The Giants, for all their history and great players, simply didn't draw like the Dodgers. In fact, it got to the point where, by the 1940s, the only thing that kept the Giant attendance solvent was the fact that they played 11 home games against the Dodgers. Those were guaranteed sellouts. (And a rivalry that has not been equaled since).
Incidentally, don't you find it peculiar that the Dodgers left Brooklyn because they couldn't get a larger stadium built (Ebbets was the smallest field in the NL, seating just over 37,000) and now, the Mets have scrapped a stadium that sat over 55,000 in favor of one that holds only 45,000--and this, in the city where baseball was born!
The Giants, for all their history and great players, simply didn't draw like the Dodgers. In fact, it got to the point where, by the 1940s, the only thing that kept the Giant attendance solvent was the fact that they played 11 home games against the Dodgers. Those were guaranteed sellouts. (And a rivalry that has not been equaled since).
Incidentally, don't you find it peculiar that the Dodgers left Brooklyn because they couldn't get a larger stadium built (Ebbets was the smallest field in the NL, seating just over 37,000) and now, the Mets have scrapped a stadium that sat over 55,000 in favor of one that holds only 45,000--and this, in the city where baseball was born!
The Giants, as you noted, simply couldn't compete with the Dodgers and Yankees in the post-WWII era. The irony, Fred, was their strength in the years before that, often when Bkyn was fielding horrible teams.
I do know that the DT Bkyn stadium discussed for the Dodgers would have been larger than Ebbetts Field, but I don't think capacity was the real issue. Parking was, however. EF was hemmed in inside its tight Flatbush neighborhood. The park was deteriorating along with Brooklyn around it and the massive move to suburbia was definitely on. The era of taking the subway to Dodger games was ending as much of the fan base was moving to LI. Ebbets Field was certainly in line with the capacity of NL parks of its day. The fear on the part of O'Mally was that the first relocation in modern MLB history, the Braves shift to Milw, was giving them an edge in County Stadium in revenue the Dodgers couldn't gain.
The real era of the larger ballparks came after the 1950s and they weren't even ballparks but the cookie cutter set that Shea belonged to: Busch, 3 Rivers, Riverfront, Veterans, Fulton Co, built for baseball and football and serving neither.
Don't forget that it really was Camden Yards that brought intamacy, scale, and reasonable size back into fashion and virtually every park built since has some connection to it (with the possible exception of YS). Citi Field definitely has its roots in Ebbets Field, but it has them in Camden Yards as well.
Fred, I have to tell you, even if I'm just talking to you, I'm enjoying it.
One note: I give the Mets a lot of credit for transcending baseball and honoring Jackie Robinson with the classic and touching rotundra. also, I think it was great that the Mets kept capacity as low as it is in what you rightfully call the baseball center of the universe. This is the first NYC ballpark that was not built on monumental scale since Ebbets Field. It is a park. And, as such, creates a nice contrast with Yankee Stadium which had to be a stadium to work.
Fred, I have to tell you, even if I'm just talking to you, I'm enjoying it.
One note: I give the Mets a lot of credit for transcending baseball and honoring Jackie Robinson with the classic and touching rotundra. also, I think it was great that the Mets kept capacity as low as it is in what you rightfully call the baseball center of the universe. This is the first NYC ballpark that was not built on monumental scale since Ebbets Field. It is a park. And, as such, creates a nice contrast with Yankee Stadium which had to be a stadium to work.
Unfortunately, the ticket prices are at the other end of the universe from intimacy. I'm sure that corporations are wonderful things--in their place. But when they take baseball away from the fans, there's a problem.
Somewhere in the newspapers, I saw a piece mentioning the fact that the Jackie Robinson rotunda is unique in baseball: it's the only instance of a team honoring a man who never played for them! (Robinson was much more than a Brooklyn Dodger in name only; when it was announced after the 1956 season that he was going to be traded across town to the Giants, Robinson retired rather than report!)
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