Initial note:  I'm getting behind No Mas's I'm Calling It Shea campaign.  Citi may have given the Wilpons a bunch of money to get their logo all over the place (and it is all over the place - when you were at Shea it didn't say "Shea Stadium" a ton of different places, because the Mets had no contractual obligation to do so, but there are ubiquitous Citi logos around New Shea and the terrible Domino's Pizza logo has worked its way in as well, in particular in the scoreboard graphics I noticed), but they didn't give me any of that money so I have no obligation to drop their name.

I guess I'll do this chronologically, as best I can:

Stadium approach:
- Parking, like everything else, is more expensive - $18, up from (IIRC) $12 last year.  Also, a couple of lots closer to the stadium are reserved for suites/club seats, and also for prepaid parking, so if you're just driving up and paying to park, you're paying more to park further away.  My father and I decided that from now on, unless we're really in a hurry to get out, we're parking on a side street off Roosevelt Avenue and walking an extra ten minutes.
- Tangentially related, after a quick browse through the Mets website, it isn't immediately apparent how you would buy prepaid parking, if you were so inclined.
- The walk to the stadium from the subway platform is nice.  Landscaping and bricks with fan messages on them and all that.

Stadium entry:
- Going in through the Rotunda isn't so bad if you're there early, but the lines get bad closer to game time.
- They should have signs saying which lines are for people with bags and which lines are for people without.
- They should have more people working at the security lines.
- There's a learning curve for fans with regard to the self-service ticket scanners mounted to the turnstiles, and we're not to the top of that curve yet.

Stadium aesthetics:
- Too much black (the outfield wall, say), not enough blue.
- I like the optimism indicated by the fact that there are four currently-unoccupied flagpoles out where the championship flags are flying.
- As has been noted many times, there really do need to be more references to the Mets and their history.  I don't think the Dodgers stuff is overwhelming (and I think it's mainly Jackie Robinson stuff rather than non-Jackie Robinson Dodgers stuff), but there needs to be more orange and blue and Doc and Ed Kranepool and Fonzie and all the rest.

Food (yes, I know everyone else has already talked about food, but I'm going to anyway):
- The Box Frites are very good, only a little more expensive than regular fries, and the lines there are short and quick.  Definitely worth a try.
- On the other hand, as much as I like Shake Shack, the lines are pretty long.  Unless I have lucky timing and catch them at a lull, I think I'll just take a book to Madison Square Park and satisfy my Shack Burger craving there.
- I thought the tacos were pretty good, and while $9.75 for three isn't cheap, after browsing on menupages, it's not really significantly more than what I'd pay at places near my apartment (save for FresCo, and that's obviously a big step down).
- I had my first Mama's of Corona experience yesterday, and that is a very tasty Italian hero.  Loved the mix of hot and roasted peppers and mushrooms.  (Hated the fact that the woman put it into the box upside down for some reason.)
- I know it's a silly thing to get excited about, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE the little Fixins Bar (or whatever it's actually called) that they have by all the regular concession stands.  One thing that annoyed me about Old Shea was that there were zero hot dog vendors on the upper deck where you could get sauerkraut; now you have that plus red onions (over a burner to stay hot, even), raw onions, relish and hot peppers everywhere you can buy a hot dog.
- I didn't eat them myself, but heard from friends that the wings and ribs at Blue Smoke were tasty, but the pulled pork was a little dry.

Baseball-watching experience:
- The out-of-town scoreboard is nice, in my opinion (everything it had at Old Shea, plus an outs indicator and late in yesterday's game it looked like they were starting to use the men-on-base lights as well; I'll post a picture of that later), but it's ridiculous that probably 1/3 of the stadium can't see it.
- Likewise, the video lineup board is nice, but it's frustrating that it's a multipurpose video bard rather than a dedicated board, so you can't see the lineup until right before game time.
- More leg room, wider seats, wider concourses = WIN.
- Fewer mens rooms (come on, it's a baseball stadium, not a club) and no dividers between urinals = FAIL.

How it plays:

- If these two games are any indication, you're going to have to work hard to have something scored an error rather than a hit; there were at least three plays (Wright's bobble, Reyes' triple and also his infield single) that I thought could've been scored errors instead.
- It may just be that Corey Hart is a bad fielder, but I think we had our first indication yesterday that RF might be a bad sun field, in addition to the possibility of weird caroms off that wall.
- Speaking of that wall, I hate contrived quirks like that.  Old stadiums had things like that because they had to.  New stadiums that try to look like old stadiums have things like that just for the sake of having things like that.
- Any home run to right center is going to be earned; it's a long way out there.  On the other hand, a line drive in that gap is a good bet to be a triple (as Omir Santos demonstrated yesterday).
-Ending it with a question: if a ball hits the facade of the Pepsi Porch, is it a home run or is it in play?

Today 11/19/08 only, until 11:59pm PT, the MLB.com Shop is offering 30% off everything, including personalized items, authentic jerseys, the works.  The only stuff that doesn't qualify for the discount is gift cards, tax and shipping.  I think that's a better percentage discount than I've seen them offer before for holiday sales; the only time I've seen bigger discounts is for crappy clearance items (Mo Vaughn jerseys and Kaz Matsui bobbleheads).  Thought you folks might want to know in case you'd been putting off buying your customized Voltron t-shirt, new hat, jersey w/ Shea Stadium patch or whatever else until prices came down.

MLB.com Mets Shop

We are running a FanPost Swag Contest, which calls on you to submit your ideas for how best to fix the Mets' bullpen, which I'm told has been inadequate of late though that may just be anecdotal evidence. The contest runs through Friday, and here is one of the better entries so far. --Eric

I'm going to make one further assumption beyond those specified by Eric, which is that I'm free to make changes as I see fit without having to answer to asinine broadcasters and WFAN callers.  This assumption is important because one of the central elements of my plan is unconventional.

That plan:  use Pedro as a relief ace.  I haven't been able to find a great definition for those unfamiliar with the concept, but to sum up, a relief ace is a pitcher who's used out of the bullpen in high leverage situations (close games, great hitters up, runners on base) as early as the seventh inning; it's been advocated by Bill James as the optimal role for the best pitcher out of your bullpen.  Realistically, though Wagner is that guy (i.e., the best relief pitcher on the team) once he's healthy, he seems to pitch less effectively in non-save situations, so I'm going to keep him in the traditional closer role.

As for why I'd like to use Pedro in such a role, as much time as he's missed, and at his age, I don't think he's got the longevity to be a starter this season.  Maybe he'll be able to do so in the future, but the Mets are in a tight race and don't have the luxury of letting Pedro work himself into shape.  Lack of longevity from our starters has led to the bullpen being overworked, and Pedro is part of that problem.  Instead, he's going to be part of the solution.  Looking at this quantitatively:  In innings 1-3, hitters are OPSing .756 against Pedro.  That's pretty good.  In innings 4-6, they're OPSing .998.  That's pretty bad.  So to conclude:  use Pedro in situations that play to his strengths as they've been this year.

To fill the empty spot in the rotation, call up Jon Niese.  He was very good in Binghamton, and his first three starts in AAA were strong.  (19 IP, 5 BB, 14 K, 2.37 ERA, 1.00 WHIP)  Let's see what he's got.  Until Maine is ready, your rotation is Santana - Perez - Pelfrey - Stokes (he was good enough to get another start) - Niese.  Once Maine is back, he replaces whichever of Stokes and Niese has been less effective.

Niese takes Carlos Muniz' spot on the roster.  He's overmatched at this level.  Until Wagner is back, the remainder of the bullpen is Heilman, Sanchez, Feliciano, Schoeneweis, Smith, Kunz.  This is obviously the same collection of garbage we've had in the recent past, but hopefully with a younger rotation they get a little less work, and Pedro takes many high-pressure situations off their hands.  By lightening the load in this manner (which should hopefully help the performance all around), I'm going to use Feliciano and Smith for lefty-righty matchups in the 9th inning.  I'm as disappointed as the rest of you that Feliciano hasn't been effective against righties like he was last year, but he's still pretty good against lefties, and Smith is the flip side of that.  Once Wagner is healthy, DFA whoever has been performing the worst.

Summing up:

Now:
Santana - Perez - Pelfrey - Stokes - Niese
Pedro (Ace) - Smith (RHCL) - Feliciano (LHCL) - Kunz - Heilman - Schoeneweis - Sanchez

Everyone healthy:
Santana - Perez - Pelfrey - Maine - Stokes/Niese
Pedro (Ace) - Wagner (CL) - five of (Smith, Feliciano, Kunz, Heilman, Schoeneweis, Sanchez)

Postscript:  This plan hasn't included any players obtained from other teams, not because I wouldn't pursue such angles, but simply because I'm not really sure what's out there.  If I could pick up a reliever from a team that's out of contention without giving up too much, I'd do so.  If we wanted another lefty, I'd look at Tim Byrdak from Houston or Brian Tallet from Baltimore; from the right, Cincinnati is dumping and David Weathers is having a good year, and would probably be available as a rental.

Has anyone ever had to use the Mets' ticket rainchecks?  My folks had tickets for the Saturday game against Texas that was rained out, and need to exchange them.  I received an email (I bought the tickets for them) saying that they should use the exchange policy shown on this page, but while it describes the policy about what the tickets can be exchanged for, it doesn't actually say HOW to go about doing so.  So...  how does one go about doing so?

Thanks!

(promoted from FanPosts. --eric)

Not sure if anyone heard about it, but the New York Emmy Awards were announced about a week ago.  The 2007 Mets RS telecasts won for Live Sports Event: Program/Special, Series.  In other words, Gary, Keith and Ron are the best booth crew in New York, as we all already knew.

Other honorees included a Telemundo piece on Jose Reyes, Len Berman's sportscasts on NBC, Yankees' pre/postgame shows on YES, MSG Networks' "50 Greatest Moments at Madison Square Garden" miniseries (which was itself responsible for nine awards), Al Trautwig for Sports Anchor, Marv Albert for play-by-play, and Billy Jaffe (who I think does Islanders telecasts) for sports analysis.

In addition to the Mets telecasts, SNY was also recognized for children's programming (Kids Clubhouse) and historical/cultural news (Baseball in Africa).