SUBERBIA, USA – So, I went out in the freezing cold to my mailbox the other day and it seemed as though a warmth was emanating from it. Sure enough, I opened it and saw a beautiful glow – and was blasted with the warm fuzzies. They found me. The crazy, mentally-challenged bastards found me. After all these years, like a lovelorn stalker, they tracked me down and were sending me this love letter. This; the shiny, new promotional piece for the Mets – New Home of Amazin’!
I found it very odd and thought perhaps one of my wiseass friends had signed me up for it. Regardless of how it found me, I felt it needed to be the subject of my next column – literally. I was extremely impressed the piece got to me at all. Many years back, I decided to spend some coin on tickets for a friend of mine to a Mets vs. Reds game. Not only was I willing to endure a Mets game but I did so in the freezing cold rain, just so my buddy could heckle then-Red Ken Griffey Jr. (I told you it was many years ago.) When the tickets arrived from the Mets box office (yes, there was no Stub Hub back in the Stone Ages), the envelope looked like it had been dragged all the way from Queens to Manhattan – under an elephant. Not only that, it was addressed in the hand of someone who clearly was on a day pass from the mental ward and who barely knew how to write. It had my name but the address was: 20 Avenue, Apartment L, New York. The only thing crazier than it being addressed this way by some mental midget, is that it actually got to me by hand of the mental midgets at U.S. Postal Service. So, imagine my surprise when I got this nice piece of solicitation from the NY Mets as they move into their new, temporarily named CitiField. Am I a good candidate to spend money to get in there? Nope. Like Angry Ward, I’m taking a vow to not set foot in it unless a ticket is gifted to me, or unless I can launch a MeetTheMatts t-shirt out of the cannon launcher. Phone lines are open for offers of either, by the way.
While you all might find yourselves in awe of this Met marketing, think again. A fifth-grader could have written something better. Heck, a third grader or even that Stamford chimp may have written it – before he took the big slide into the grave on a banana peel. Whatever the case, anyone in need of a job and dreaming of a job in the Mets organization, send your resume and clippings now. The Mets can’t do any worse.
Case and point? The exact copy from said brochure, with Yankee ready comments in parentheses:
The Mets’ new world-class sports and entertainment destination, opening in April 2009, will serve as the setting of shared experiences and celebrations (new urinal cakes??? HOORAY!!) for Mets fans today and generations (of heartbroken fans) to follow. Bridging the Mets’ beloved past (1969 and 1986) with their equally promising future (I’ll let Yankee Joe smack this one out of the park), Citi Field will deliver warmth, intimacy (to those fitted with the CitiField expensive beer goggles) and modern amenities to enhance the fan experience, bringing you closer to the (terrible) action with superior sightlines from every level of the ballpark. Citi Field provides the best fans in the world the home you truly deserve.
• Baseball-specific design and features (meaning, a diamond and some bases)
• Superior sightlines with all seats closer to and angled toward the infield, and sections that follow the contour of the field. (Superior sightlines?!?! Pesky pole ticketholders got nothin’ on this!)
• Wide, comfortable seats (Wider than the airplanes flying overhead. Very exciting.)
Spacious aisles and rows, with generous legroom (Someone from American Airlines wrote this.)
• Wide concourses that invite fans to move around the entire ballpark (But move about only when the Fasten Seatbelt sign is off. OK? By the way… notice the theme here with ‘wide’ mentioned a few times and ‘spacious.’ Leads me to believe that Mets fans were large and busting out of their seats in the old stadium. Either that, or their tails were getting wide from being left on their behinds for so long due to lack of something to stand and cheer for.)
• Upscale dining options, including exclusive club spaces and a climate-controlled restaurant featuring full views of the field. (Really, after the prices, who has $$ for ‘upscale’ dining options. I’m sure they’re not that ‘upscale’ anyway. Shake Shack does not qualify in my book.)
Then it goes on with the package pricing – The Matts have already detailed their absurd names. The prices, though, are just as absurd; with packaging for the Delta Club/Ebbets Club “… starting at $14,275 per Season seat.” Yipes! Anyone hear about the recession?? And before you start, I know the Yankee prices are the penultimate in insanity. However, they saved the coin on the marketing material to me (which I am sure is more enticing than the Mets’ mailer). Here’s an idea: Mets get Manny and have him do the mailer. That’d be most ‘amazin!
