Dear the New York Mets Baseball Club,
There once was a day where your ballclub was considered the kid friendly team in New York. Unlike the über serious Yankees, you have a mascot, you let the kids run the bases after some games, you have 12 noon start times in the summer for camp kids, the kid friendly list is plentiful.
Even the last time I took my twin infants to your ballpark was a wonderful experience. So I'd like to think that today was a mere aberration. But I'm worried.
Today was a terrible experience. Your security guard was completely flummoxed when we entered her territory as we approached the entrance. "Uh oh trouble," she uttered. She was completely perplexed as what to do with babies. She asked her co-worker who didn't want to have anything to do with it and ignored her.
She told us, "I need you to take the babies our of their carriers so I can check them." I asked her if she was kidding. She was not. I asked her if she thought we were hiding guns with our babies. She said, "You'd be surprised what people try to hide on their babies." I'm not sure why I didn't ask her what things are smuggled in but I'm dying to know.
Her co-worker checked me in a quite perfunctory way in the usual "security theater" kind of way. Then it was SHR's turn. She repeatedly asked why this hadn't happened the first two times we took the babies to game. The guard refused to answer, told SHR to step aside, and called her supervisor to defuse the SITUATION.
He appeared out of nowhere ready to do battle with the babies! He patted down the boys, didn't find any guns or alcohol and deemed the soon-to-be 5 month olds safe to enter. Phew. If the infants hadn't been patted down, clearly the terrorists would have won. What a joke.
I'm sorry ma'am but your babies might be hiding razor blades.
I need help. I need help. We have a situation!
Before the patdown.
Safe!
SHR asked the supervisor why this hadn't happened before. She explained that we were just here on Sunday. He looked her in the eye and said, "We just had a meeting about this yesterday." Um ... right. A meeting about the extreme security threat that infants pose. What a joke. I would love to see the minutes of this meeting. I bet they are truly entertaining.After the game, we were getting the boys ready to go. All told, there were three babies. A security guard came walking by and told us, "Time to clear out. You have to leave now." I replied, "Yes sir, we are working on it."
30 seconds later, another security guard came by and said, "Time to clear out. You have to leave now." Donovan replied, "Yeah, we're getting there. We have 3 babies." The guard didn't like being spoken to in such a factual manner. "Alright youse. Calm down."
Seriously, what sort of organization are you running here? A Yankees fan friend of mine refers to your organization as a Cracker Jack operation. After today's events as well as the ridiculousness of the way you handled last Wednesday's game, I'm inclined to agree. Granted, this isn't nearly as bad as kicking a fan out for trying to use a restroom during the singing of God Bless America, but it is turning me off to coming to games.
I have been a season ticket holder for 10 years. I don't spend Bernie Madoff money at your ballpark so maybe you don't care. But treating fans like this isn't smart business. I hope my boys are big baseball fans. You should be trying to make families happy. There are a lot of dollars to be made off of us over the next few years. Just because you put the label "hospitality attendant" on your worker's shirts doesn't mean there is all that much hospitality going around at your new "world class" ballpark.
Yours in sub .500 baseball,
A truly disgruntled Listmaker
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21 comments:
the one time I took Henry to a Red Bull match at Giants Stadium, I was walking in w/ him in my arms and tote bag over my shoulder. Beefy security guard w/ on hand on bag asks, "Is this your diaper bag?" I reply, "yes," and he recoils as though instead I answered "yes, and there's also some enriched uranium in there." waived me right through. the mets are totally on my shit list. I'll probably come crawling back at some point, but at this point, I'm really glad I didn't renew my Sunday ticket.
dn
The Mets are the laughing stock of pro sports. Cracker Jack in every way you can define it: on the field, doctors, ownership, gm, pr and now apparently their already tired old new stadium.
Sam & Otis, Bart and I are hear to teach you a little Yankees baseball!
chris larry
i still can't believe you like the yankees so much. nats - i can see for the boys. but the yankees?
the team that kicks people out for not god blessing america?
the team that kicks out kids from their park and then doesn't rebuild the park that they had promised to do.
the team that billy crystal roots for?
i mean - come on!
i can't defend the mets right now but at least they aren't the yankees. and that is enough reason to keep going to flushing.
oh - and how could i forget - the team that has suzyn waldman, michael kay, and john sterling on air.
the team that plays god bless america every god damn game.
and the team that invented bullshit security tactics that the mets apparently have decided to emulate hence the title of this post.
weak list of greatest hits. Were you stammering spittle as you typed? "And a another thing...!)Mets are the new yankees, yankees are the old yankees...winners!
Honestly people who would you rather be...The Evil Empire or some cracker jack org? Look into your souls, you know the truth.
whoops anon was me
chris larry
chris larry, your yankees argument/defense is so predictably weak and hackneyed!
not that i am in any mood to defend the mets, but at least you can bring a bag in. and by bag, i mean something other than a clear plastic contraption to hold all your belongings. the yankees make it really pleasant to catch a game after work with that rule.
let us not forget the stinkees are also the team that ostracized yogi berra for all those years. yogi berra, folks - the ted kennedy of baseball. classy move georgie boy!
what does "the mets are the new yankees" even mean?
chris,
i could go on and on but i didn't feel like getting into rooting for players like alex rodriguez is like selling your soul.
i was appealing to your sense of being a liberal. the yankees are corporate america. they are the ones who destroy neighborhoods. they are the ones who persecute atheists and agnostics. they are the ones who equate the singing of god bless america with being a "real" american. if you weren't a yankees fan (which i still don't understand why you are since you grew up in va) you would see what bullshit the yankees are.
i was also appealing to your sense as a redskins fan. it still amazes me that you don't see how the yankees are the cowboys. it completely perplexes me that you are a yankees fan.
since my post was about security, i wanted to mention the crap that is the yankees security detail but shr mentioned it herself.
on the field, of course, they are better than the mets. no argument. i like them as the evil empire in this respect. they are good villains for the league. it makes baseball more interesting to have such a fascinating villain.
no spittle - but there was definitely still some baby drool on my sleeve as i typed my comments last night.
i would like to point out that those security guards may have saved your lives. what if those "innocent" babies had, in fact, slipped shivs made of sharpened pieces of rattles into their diapers? what if, then, they tried to cut you and the missus so they could get to the milk/formula that they knew you had stashed in the diaper bag? what then, huh? huh? i bet you feel silly now, mister.
You both sound ridiculously silly...its baseball not geo politics.
Dan if you knew 2% about football you'd know there was no bigger corporate overload in sports than Dan Snyder, The Skins are hardly some saintly org.
And for 50th G-damn time I have been a yankees fan since i was 5 b/c my dad, a native NYer, was. I fell in love watching the bronx zoo team with my dad as a lad, and since baseball in DC was no go...they were my team. I cried when munson died. So enough questioning my fandom ok? I mean why are you a Mets fan....b/c they are indie rock ironic NYC team. Didn't you grow up an Orioles fan....so let me see sticking with team since childhood, vs turning back on team.....
I love fighting about Sports, but this hyper emotional it must say something about your philisophical/political/ethical outlook is goofy.
chris "melky" larry
ps arod may be a dueche, granted, but there is no lamer player in MLB than Jose Reyes...
Willie Randolf rulz
reyes droolz
i stand corrected on why you are a yanks fan. i tuned out the first 49 times you told me i guess.
all teams are super corporate. it is more what the yankees have always represented and continue to represent.
i'm not getting emotional - i'm just stating the facts. the yankees organization lacks a soul. the fact that you continue to defend their nefariousness amuses me to no end.
last i checked, i'm still an orioles fan. i guess it is ok for you to root for 2 teams, but not me. that's cool. i also didn't realize that the mets were an indie rock hipster team. now i like them even more! i guess it is better than being an upper east side wankfest of a team like the yankees are.
the yankees are the cowboys - there's no way around it larry.
reyes may be a lot of things but he is (for better or worse) no alex rodriguez.
for worse obviously, at least arod attempts to come back from injury....
Have i ever defended the yankees as being not evil? your right they have no soul. But i HATE the bullcrap poetry/americana ken burnness about baseball so the lack of soul is a plus. (for the record i like baseball, just not the mythos...and as a documentary burn' baseball is quite good)
jose reyes is the nate robinson of MLB (ask sujan to help you with the NBA reference)
melky larry
now we're just saying the same thing.
i already said that i like that the yankees are evil.
shr doesn't see the comparison. she says that david eckstein if the nate robinson of mlb.
clarry, you'll need to expound further on the nate robinson analogy cause i don't get it. also, comparing willie randolph to reyes doesn't make any sense either. that's as random as saying andy pettite droolz, angel pagan rulez. huh? also, what are your reasons for hating jose so much? did he taunt you on the redskins insider blog one too many times?
what does football have to do with anything in this post? i think it's safe to say that a non-slimy owner is as common in sports as an pro athlete who voted dem pre-Obama. the steinbrenners are assholes. the wilpons are assholes. they are all assholes who could care less about the average fan.
mets = indie rock ironic NYC team is a good one! you're always good for nuggets like these. i suppose given your absolute disdain for indie rock, except for inexplicably, dean and brita (of all the bands?), this makes sense.
also you are the biggest hyper emotional fan of them all! i love watching sports with you because of it!
Nate Robinson: A young, semi talented player who overvalues his own talent and is on his way to making himself irrelevant. Style over substance.
Jose Reyes: A young, semi talented player who overvalues his own talent and is on his way to making himself irrelevant. Style over substance.
On balance Reyes is better but analogy holds. Also Nate plays through boo boos.
Jose Reyes was a leader in tuning Randolf...and pouted when he got coached and was unbelievably un-clutch. I love Willie Randolf, and thus severly dislike Reyes.
Reyes: What is to like exactly? He's fast?
Your boy Listy brought up football.....Dallas/Yankees...how can you as a skins fan like the yankees horse shit.
Angel Pagan does kinda rule.
"they are all assholes who could care less about the average fan."
Obviously. That is why Listies whole thesis is silly.
I like indie rock, just not the fans. Big difference. And white Mets fans are the epitome of the "I semi care about baseball in a detached irony way and the Mets are underdogs so i have to like them. But I won't watch if MGMT is playing the Bell House" crowd.
Hyper emotional in game is fine. Actually its all fine.
Melky Larry
you make good points about reyes. but until this year at least, he's been a fantasy baseball beast!
i don't have a thesis. i was simply writing about an annoying day. i also find it odd that they choose to pick on people with babies.
your whole indie rock thing makes no sense to me at all but i love it. where did you come up with this theory? just because stuart murdoch likes the mets?
If I squint hard enough I can sort of see where you're going with this Robinson / Reyes analogy, but it's still flawed.
How is Reyes overvaluing his own talent when in the past 3-4 seasons, excluding this current one, he's been 1st or 2nd in stolen bases and triples, top 5 in runs and averaging probably about .290 and 12-15 HRs. Has he asked to renegotiate his salary? I agree that Nate Robinson thinks he's a whole lot better than he is, but what undersized athlete in pro sports isn't overconfident like that? If they weren't, they wouldn't be playing.
Re: Reyes being injury prone and not being clutch - two things anti-Reyes fans who don't know what they are talking about always bring up.
From 2005-2008, he averaged 158 games a season. 2004 and 2009, he had major injuries! Shall I come over and whack up your knees a bit and see how you do?
Career numbers with RISP: .291 - higher than overall career average. With RISP and two outs, it jumps to .302.
My bad on the football, though Cowboys = Yankees is spot on. I usually go one step further and throw in Manchester United.
If you're going to blame anyone on the Mets for showing Willie to the door, it's gotta be Beltran, due to his chumminess with Bernerzard, who most certainly wanted Willie out.
Players pout when they get coached. Rollins/Manuel, Zambrano/Pinella, it's nothing new. Across the board, players are big babies.
I think Dan will be the first one to agree with the fact that owners don't care. But they hire people to make it seem like they care. Their ROI has not been very good.
You have a very strange relationship with indie rock. Are you kidding me, all you ever talk about is how much you hate this band and that band!
Who are these white Mets fans you are referring to? And how do they differ from the white Yankees fan who claim they are a fan because they are the team with more championships but couldn't tell you a player outside of Jeter?
Rollins dont pout. Leave the Kit Kat Kid out of this.
unless i missed it, nobody has metioned one thing that really does make the yankees the worst: their no long hair and beards policy. how could you like any team that woudlnt let Conan play for them?
got to run, MGMT is about to go on.
Was that you Chris Larry or was this Plumley in disguise? It's had to tell because nothing is really misspelled.
Facial hair ban as reason to hate the Yankees is a given, but you're right. It should always be at the top of the list and used in every possible situation to illustrate the evilness of the empire.
See you at the park! I hear Matt and Kim are opening.
Anti facial/long hair I can't argue against...mad lame.
I will also give the Mets the substantial edge in media. Way better TV crew....worlds better radio crew and a better TV network.
But still..
Yankees rule
Mets drool
ML
i just noticed that SITUATION is in red. it really drives the severity home!
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