Peanuts and crackerjacks

When I moved to Chicago in October 2005, the Chicago White Sox won the World Series and the city just erupted.  I watched all the games in that Series, and notwithstanding the fact I had no idea what was going on, I totally got swept up in baseball fever.

Inspired though I was by the Sox victory, I could see Wrigley Field from my house, so I ended up adopting the Chicago Cubs as my team.  I remember spending many happy afternoons and evenings cheering them on, not that it ever helped much.  But I reckon when you're new to the US and you have no idea what is going on in baseball, the Cubs are the perfect team to support.  They win some, they lose some (ok, they lose most), but the atmosphere at the hallowed Wrigley Field is totally electric and that alone kept me coming back for years.

You'd therefore be forgiven for thinking I'm quite the baseball fanatic these days, but that's hardly the case.  I mean, up until tonight I hadn't been to a game in nearly 5 years.  But when a friend invited me to come up to Citi Field ballpark in Queens to see the New York Mets take on the Pittsburgh Pirates, I was totally on board.  As the 7th inning stretch song goes, let me root, root, root for the home team, right?  I had my game face on all day.

Are grey skies gonna clear up?

If you look on a New York subway map, you might think that the journey to Citi Field will take you forever, but it's actually a very easy (and direct) ride on the Number 7 subway from Grand Central Station.

Express trains obviously don't stop everywhere, but they take about 25 minutes from Grand Central - or else there is the local train that takes about 45 minutes.  And once you get to the Mets/Willets Point subway station (the second-to-last stop on the line), you just follow the signs to the stadium - it's right there.  Even I couldn't get lost.

Zeppole by any other name...

The ballpark is still pretty new too - it was only completed in 2009.  It has seating for nearly 42,000 people but it also has heaps of food stalls and refreshment stands to cater to your every deep-fried and calorific whim.

There is something quite nice about ballpark hotdogs and beers - but the fried dough (zeppole) would have been a bit of a stretch, even for me.  Plus the hotdogs come from Nathan's (the famous hot dog place at Coney Island) so I had to represent.

Our tickets were up in the nosebleed section, and I think the grey skies kept a lot of people away tonight.  But it didn't matter to us in the least because we had a birds-eye view of all the action, and the big screen/jumbotron was nearby, so we could see and hear everything.

Trying to decipher all the baseball statistics was a waste of time, so we just watched the players and remarked on their excellent throwing arms and thwarted attempts to steal bases.

It was a pretty close game throughout, but it was a really slow one too, and the seventh inning stretch took forever to come.  When it finally did, I leapt to my feet and joined the crowd to sing "Take Me Out To The Ballgame".  I tend to start that song really strongly, get a bit fuzzy in the middle, and then belt out the ending.  But this time, the lyrics were on the jumbotron, so I gave it my all throughout.

With storm clouds growing about as fast as our fatigue, we called it quits before the end of the game.  Unfortunately we missed the Mets victory (4-2), but I definitely had a great time back at the ballpark, and I reckon I'm ready to tackle Yankee Stadium next.