Citi Field

It is no secret that we love to visit baseball stadiums.  I had only been to one stadium in the last two years and it was a repeat.  A quick glance at the 2011 baseball schedule reminded me that time was short to get one in this year.

I saw that the Mets had a home day game for 9/28 and it just so happened that my wife and daughter had no school that same day.  It was on!

The game was New York Mets versus Cincinnati Reds.   It was the final game of the year at Citi Field and both teams were out of the playoffs so it was very easy to get tickets.  We bought our tickets from Stubhub for $5 each.

We took a 7am flight from Indianapolis to New York-LGA.  It was Delta 5891, an EMB-170.  I was in coach seat 8A.  It was a routine flight of just under two hours due to air traffic control.

  There was a chance of showers so we would visit NYC in the event of a rained out game.

When we arrived into LGA, we still had several hours so we sat down for a bite to eat.  We had some pizza, breadsticks and a drink for $4.99 employee discount.  Not a bad deal for airport food.

At around 11am, we caught the Q48 bus to Citi Field.  It took about 20 minutes to get there.  We headed to our seats and waited.  It was still a good hour and a half until the start.  A co-worker of mine named Brian came with us so he and I walked around the stadium to look around.  It was looking to be very empty that day and I would be surprised if there were more than 10,000 fans that day.

We were seated in section 420, row 2, seats 9-12.

  They were pretty good and had a face value of $24.75.  It really looked like you had a nice view no matter where you sit in Citi Field.

At 1:10pm, the game started.  It was two good pitchers going against each other and the game was very close for a few innings.  The Mets finally scored a run in the 4th inning and added two more on a home run in the 6th inning.  That would be it for both teams.  The Reds actually only had two hits in all that day.  Mets pitcher Miguel Batista pitched a two hit complete game shut out.  Because of the low score, the game only lasted for 2 hours and 10 minutes, which is very fast for a baseball game.

We ate some food from the Shake Shack which was really good.  I had a great hot dog and fries with a bottle water to drink.

When the game was over, we decided to take a taxi to JFK airport.  The JFK flight left 2 hours earlier than the LGA flight.  Since public transportation was going to be $31 for the four of us, it made sense to get a taxi for $35.  The ride was about 30 minutes in heavy traffic.  We passed through security pretty quick and just waited around for the 6:29pm departure back to Indianapolis.  All four of us cleared for first class and soon we were on our way.

It was Delta 2669, a CRJ-900 aircraft.  I was in seat 2D.  The flight was a quick 1 hour and 30 minutes.  I enjoyed two gin and tonics and dozed off for a little bit.  We were back in Indianapolis at about 8:40 pm.

Another stadium has been checked off the list!   I will make it a point to visit more of them next season.

These are what I still need to visit:

Petco Park in San Diego

Target Field in Minneapolis

Yankee Stadium in New York

Rogers Center in Toronto

Tropicana Field in Tampa

Marlins Stadium in Miami

Nationals Park in Washington DC

Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia

PNC Park in Pittsburgh

Miller Park in Milwaukee

Wrigley Field in Chicago

Busch Stadium in St Louis

Turner Field in Atlanta