Our 2009 MLB Trek: Citi Field, which doesn't have a good nickname other than the suggestion by a couple NY city council members: "Citi/Taxpayer Field"...

...which is a comment on Citigroup getting a little help in more than one economic bailout, of course.

When it was raining very heavily in the afternoon we worried we might have another rain delay or even a rainout on our hands. Instead, it rained while we were at Times Square which was a bummer mostly because they had put away the lawn chairs on Broadway because of it. Speaking of that, there was more than one instance when we encountered a jaded New Yorker who assumed they knew better than us but were actually mistaken. Like this girl who said, when we asked where the lawn chairs were, "They're out on Broadway. They go all the way down to 42nd." with a face that read "Idiot tourists." We were like, "Bitch, don't look at us like we're stupid. We came from 42nd, there are no chairs out." at which point she said maybe they put them away when it rains. Here's a tip, lady, if you work at a place called "Times Square Information" maybe you should know the policies of stuff that the Times Square Alliance sponsors.

Anyway, so Citi Field. It has a facade built to be reminiscent of Ebbet's Field, as do a couple other neo-classic ballparks. When you enter, it's through the gorgeous Jackie Robinson rotunda that makes you feel like you're walking into the lobby of a luxury hotel.

It's a beautiful tribute to Robinson and features the character traits he embodied. It's kind of fancy at this park in general. They even have elevator attendants who wear suits. Not very ballparky feeling until you reach your seats, but nice. There's much less seating there than Shea had (I think like 15,000 less) but Shea was just way huge so it's still a decent size.

We were hoping that a Met would get a home run because we wanted to see the Home Run Apple rise up from in front of the batter's eye. This apple is much bigger than their previous apple in Shea (which I guess is by the bullpen, but we didn't see it). So then Jeff Francoeur did hit a home run in the 4th but they didn't raise the apple!! Everyone protested and chanted, "Ap-ple, ap-ple..." until finally they did bring it up and all was well. Poor Cory Sullivan, the next batter, probably wondered what he did to deserve the booing that occurred as he went to bat.

The out-of-town game scoreboard was very nice. I like ones with detail that would allow you to follow the game, as I had an eye on what was going on with Chicago and Houston.

As I said in my Facebook status, Kris and I were both happy that Josh Willingham of the Washington Nationals hit not one but TWO grand slams in their game against Milwaukee, who I am always happy to see get beaten. Our Mets/Colorado game had its own grand slam, from Fernando Tatis, which occurred in the 8th right as I was reading on the big screen that he is the only batter in MLB history to have hit two grand slams in one inning (1999 vs. Dodgers as a Cardinal) and the first Met since 2000 to hit a pinch-hit grand slam. It was very cool and finally silenced the loud Rockies fans seated behind us a couple rows. Nice to see the home team win. They've been in a bit of a dry spell, and they'd had a bad day in that one of their front office guys, VP of player development Tony Bernazard, was fired, which was accompanied by some weird stuff regarding a Daily News Mets reporter and his connection with it, which could have been distracting to the team. Final score was 7-3.

I'll leave you with our self-portrait - looks like it's sunny but that's just the big stadium lights.

Also, a photo of my phone showing my GPS location using mobile Google maps Latitude (the program that theoretically allows me and Ed to spy on each other's location whenever we feel like it). It's accurate! Mostly. In this case anyway. It shows me in an empty lot next to Shea Stadium.