NewsMusings on Shea Stadium's opener
A trek back in time to the beginnings of a futurist park
By Marty Noble / MLB.com
04/12/09 6:14 PM ET
NEW YORK -- In the beginning, Shea Stadium was a pitcher's park, but not because of anything accomplished by Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman or Dwight Gooden. The seeds were sewn April 17, 1964, the day it opened -- three years before Seaver and Koosman threw their first big league pitches, 244 days before Gooden was born. Pitchers ruled, at least for one inning.Pirates first: Dick Schofield popped to second. Bill Virdon grounded out to third. Roberto Clemente struck out. No runs, no hits, no errors, none left on base. Mets first: Tim Harkness grounded out to shortstop. George Altman popped to second. Ron Hunt grounded out to shortstop. No runs, no hits, no errors, none left on base.
From such humble beginnings -- six routine outs -- did Shea take hold. The first game was a 4-3 Pirates victory achieved against Jack Fisher and Ed Bauta, replete with a home run by Willie Stargell, a complete game by future Met Bob Friend and a gathering of 50,312 who had pushed the arms of turnstiles.
But of course, it was more than that. It was an event, a grand opening -- even if the Pirates did prevail. Given the Mets' performance in early-season games in those days -- they had lost their first nine games in 1962, their inaugural season, and their first eight in 1963 -- a 4-3 loss on the third game of the 1964 season constituted a just cause for celebration.
On that day, not yet six months removed from the assassination of JFK and months before the Beatles' invasion, it was the stadium and not the baseball that mattered. Shea was the story and pomp came before pitching. The city hadn't had a new sports arena since Yankee Stadium opened in 1923. And no city had a stadium quite like Shea. So vast, so open, so round, so modern. So Jetsons.
The World's Fair was across the street, providing glimpses of the future. But there was Shea, glistening in the sun, awaiting Fisher's first pitch to Schofield, already in operation. It WAS the future.
All those escalators and rest rooms. And that scoreboard with the likeness of the player on top. And when the Mets season ended, it could accommodate football too. The Astrodome was still under construction. Shea was a wonder, for a while. It was round and symmetrical at a time when round and symmetrical seemed to matter.
"It looked bigger than any ballpark I'd ever seen," was Al Jackson's first impression -- and his lasting impression.
Little Alvin Jackson, as Murph loved to identify him, would pitch a shutout April 19 in the Mets' fifth game. And they even won when he did. Shea had magic, Jackson would say decades later. The woeful Mets required merely five games to produce a first victory in 1964. Jackson acknowledged it was "slow acting magic."
But the magic finally did work. The Mets' overall record, beginning with their first game in 1964, is 164 games under .500. But their home record is 145 victories better than breaking even.
The Mets were in their third season in April, 1964, but their identity still was tied to their New York City baseball ancestors, and not only because their orange and blue color scheme had incorporated Dodger Blue and orange of the Giants.
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium -- virtually no one knew it as that and, thank goodness, even fewer referred to it in that heavy-handed way -- was christened the day before it opened for business. Two bottles of water were used in the ceremony. The contents of one had come from the Gowanus Canal that ran a few Carl Furillo throws from Ebbets Field. The other bottle contained water -- and who knows what else? -- from Harlem River that ran a few Mel Ott home runs from the Polo Grounds.
In one way at least, Shea opened early. A first coat of paint was being applied to the outfield wall while batting practice was underway on April 17. Sod was being laid in the outfield. And not all the kinks would be eliminated in 45 years. The Diamond Club elevator broke down on that date and on untold occasions thereafter before the doors closed in September last year.
