Shea Stadium Hosts Final Mets Game

by Jon Azpiri | September 29, 2008 at 09:00 am

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The New York Mets' final game in Shea Stadium turned out to be a massive disappointment for Mets fans. The Mets, who were tied for a wild card playoff spot going into the last day of the season, lost their final home game and ended up missing the playoffs. Minutes before the end of the Mets final home game, the Milwaukee Brewers defeated the Chicago Cubs 3-1, giving them 90 wins. The Mets needed to win in order to stay in contention, but lost 4-2 to the Florida Marlins. It marked the second year in a row that the Mets were eliminated from the playoffs on the last day of the season by the Marlins.

This year's loss was even more painful since it meant that end of baseball at Shea Stadium. After the game, the Mets hosted a 50-minute presentation that included several former Mets greats like Dwight Gooden, Tom Seaver, Willie Mays, and Mike Piazza.

Next season the Mets will move into Citi Field, a $850-million stadium sponsored by struggling US financial services company Citigroup. As for Shea, the stadium that saw the Mets win two World Series in 1969 and 1986, demolition crews are set to begin work in two weeks. Parts of the stadium, however, will live on.

The Parks Department, which owns both Shea and Yankee stadiums, plans to salvage countless items in the days after the Mets play their final game - stockpiling doors, toilets, sinks, lights and other workaday supplies that will be installed in city parks for years to come.

"Our guys will come up, just unbolt everything, take them right to the skids, ramp them right out to the truck and ship them out to the boroughs," said Parks Department technical services chief Arthur Rollins from inside a women's rest room, where just about everything attached to the walls - even soap dispensers - will potentially end up in a park.