Any regular readers of The Feisty Foodie know that I’m a huge baseball fan, and specifically a Mets fan.
As a Mets fan since 1985, my life has been filled with disappointments and heartache such that you almost get used to it. I witnessed firsthand many of our epic collapses – collective gasps and pindrop silence in an entire stadium in 2008, 2009, as we lost all hope of a postseason run. I’ve been there through it all, silently sitting in my seat, mentally girding myself to watch another Yankees postseason.
I BLEED ORANGE & BLUE
because YA GOTTA BELIEVE
Last year, my team didn’t just go to the postseason. We went to the World Series. We did not win, but from a very loyal and yet reasonable standpoint, my team did not play at World Series caliber. The Royals capitalized on every mistake made, and they deserved to win the Series. That doesn’t make me want it less or make it hurt less, but at least I can respect that the other team played better. Losing to a team that isn’t playing better really sucks (and does happen occasionally).
Aside from that, from 2008 (last season at Shea) through 2011, I was the proud owner of a Sunday Ticket Plan, which meant every Sunday home game, you’d find me at the Stadium, cheering my head off and bleeding o&b every time we lost. After 2011, the Mets organization changed the structure of the plans, making it impossible for me to justify (and I wrote a very calm but firm letter to my ticket rep explaining what I needed from him before I would re-up – which was, very specifically, tickets to every Sunday home game, but the change restricted me to 10 Sunday home games and 5 random weekday games, NO THANK YOU). I went on to boycott baseball for most of 2012, attending a low of 2-3 games the entire season and barely watching on TV.
I missed baseball terribly as a result.
2013 saw me attend the All Star Game through a very fortunate and well-timed hookup.
2014 I began attending more and more baseball games, but all the while buying “student rush” tickets (with valid student ID, $10 a ticket to be purchased morning of the game from ticket windows).
2015 I went to nearly every Sunday home game, also via student rush tickets.
Given that we just went to the World Series, I was very aware that tickets would be harder to come by this season, the stadium would be more crowded, and buying a ticket plan guarantees you access to postseason tickets. I knew what I had to do, so I purchased a plan for myself and now am the proud bearer of tickets to a record high of 26 games on the season (so far; usually as the season goes on, I wind up receiving gifts of tickets to other games, or people invite me to more games, and I eventually go to about 3+ more games than I’d intended at the start of the season).
I went to my first 2 games of the season this weekend.
Opening Day, David Wright’s first at-bat! My favorite view will never get old. Well, it’s my second favorite view, my favorite one is a specific view when driving west on the LIE. I’m a NYer and a Queens girl through and through.
I got to see them raise the NL Championship Banner, which was really cool!
But, you know, you’re probably here for the food, wondering why I went into this long intro about disappointment, detailing my years at the stadium, how much I love the game, all of that.
Well, remember this? The year I was so excited to be invited to the concession preview at Citi Field because it combined all of the things I love (food and baseball) and validated all the money I have spent at Citi Field researching exactly that – what the best concessions are based on your specific situation (“I only go to one game a season, what do I eat?” vs. “I have tickets to 20+ games this season, what should I eat?” which are very very different!), where the best views are, where to sit, where to bring your kids, and all of that wonderful stuff.
Oh, and because it meant I didn’t need to spend my first game of the season running around like a madperson trying to get pictures of all the newest menus and updated prices, to compare for you like I did pretty much every year since the stadium opened??
YEAH REMEMBER THAT?
I am going to run the risk of sounding like a huge brat, but I feel extremely justified (which is the sign of a huge brat – my harsh sense of entitlement here).
Well, a week or two ago, I happened to log into social media and realized that the media preview of concessions was occurring at that moment.
And that I hadn’t been invited.
To add insult the injury, the people they DID invite were people who – take your pick – know nothing about food, and/or know nothing about baseball, and/or just have tons of followers on Instagram, and/or are total morons who just claim to like the Mets/baseball, and the list goes on. Yes, I know some of the people who attended personally, and I was incredibly upset that I wasn’t invited.
Of all the people who write about food in NYC, there is exactly one who lives and dies by the Mets.
That person is me.
There are other people who write about food in NYC who like baseball, who like food, and I know some of the chefs around NYC are actually Mets fans. Cool.
When it comes to someone who writes about baseball (as I have for other sites), who writes about food, and who is a Mets fan?
THAT PERSON IS ME.
As a result, when I went to Citi Field this weekend, I staunchly refused to take pictures of the menus to report to y’all. Not to punish you, but hell, if they don’t care about me sharing those things with my readers, why should I spotlight the stuff? You can read about it from someone who literally goes to the stadium, oh, never. And only knows what’s offered because they attended a 2 hour event with the food items in question.
Also, I decided to eat some boring food.
Opening Day: hot dog, pretzel and a cheese cup. I wasn’t planning on complaining about the food, but they gave me reasons to complain about it. The cheese cup was cold, and the cheese was white. What. The guy didn’t fill it up all the way, but I paid $2 for a tiny little cup, so I politely handed it back and asked him to fill it all the way (before I realized it tasted gross). He told me it was ‘white cheddar’. And… I know it’s the first day of the season so the cashiers have no idea what’s going on. But nearly all of the mustard and ketchup dispensers up on mezzanine level were empty, from the 3-4 spots I tried before giving up on getting mustard on my dog.
Jinx was NOT happy.
But we won the game, and took apart the Phillies bullpen, so that was nice. 7-2.
Today’s game was a total crapfest. Someone told me I should complain to the Mets, but I don’t know what they can do. I arrived at the stadium at 12:55, plenty of time to make it to my seat by first pitch. Ummm, I didn’t get into the stadium until 1:40 – 45 whole minutes later!!! – and missed the first 2.5 innings. This line did not move at all – I thought the scanners were broken or something? Why are we not moving? It should not take 45 minutes from where I stood, to get into the stadium. Ridiculous. I was shaking with anger and hunger by the time I entered. And cold, since I walked to the stadium and had brought extra clothes to change into once inside, but I totally cooled down waiting in line and eventually began to shiver.
Nachos and another hot dog, both from the Nathan’s stand. One nice thing about my ticket plan is that it affords me access to the Promenade Club, which is behind home plate — but it has an obstructed view of the field. Haha. I sat in there to eat and warm up because I was so uncomfortable and unhappy at this point. The nachos were okay, a bit sad, and the hot dog was a hot dog. At least I had enough cheese to dip the dog in! but the nacho plate was supposed to have salsa and cheese…
I’d already missed DW’s first at-bat of the game – shameface, I haven’t missed taking a pic of that at a game I attended in the past 4 years! – so here is a pic of his second at-bat.
We lost. 5-2. A bit of spark when Cespedes hit his first HR of the season, and I see some life in my players – I’m not worried. It’ll come together, I’m excited for more baseball.
It’s early in the season.
I’m not all that keen on how my experience was today with the long line to get in, but hopefully things shake out soon and all works out! Though I’m still bummed I wasn’t invited to the media preview.
Okay, bratty rant over.
LET’S GO METS!!!
Oh yeah, then a bear got up and blocked my view!!!
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