FINDING THE OLD ‘NEW’ AGAIN

Recently I went to the new Citi Field ballpark that replaced the old Shea Stadium. As you know, watching the New York Mets play can be time consuming, painful and demoralizing, and if you are a fan of theirs, it is even more so. Fortunately, I do not suffer alone: I have a couple of brother-in-laws who are Mets fans, a son and a few nephews who also root in a similar vein.



Heading out to the ballpark for the first time with my brother-in-law Don, (Saintly Don, prince of all that is good, and married to one of my sisters, is why I call him all that) Don, a real Mets fan, who like me, likes to suffer. I have another brother-in-law, who could be a Mets fan by nature, if it weren’t for the Boston Red Sox. He too likes to suffer, having married a sister of mine, and what can I say? Being a Mets fan makes you an automatic Red Sox fan, the common denominator being 'hate' the New York Yankees.


Now I am so old that I have witnessed my home team: move, be born again, play in three stadiums and make me cry no matter if they are the Brooklyn Dodgers (I still have mental scars) or the New York Mets, (still getting mentally scared).



The Mets have played in the Polo Grounds, home of the hated New York Giants, (we old Dodger fans hate a lot), then the spanking new Shea Stadium, which turns out to be NOT so new, and now the spanking new Citifield. They tear down a stadium I thought was still pretty new, only to find out it is old!



Well, the results in a new ballpark are pretty much a left over from all the old ballparks. The results are just new again, and disappointment is the same whether it Ebbets Field, of Citi Field. The tears flow about the same, and the pain lingers still the same. I go to the game, my first at Citi Field; they get 2 hits (That is TWO) in the second inning, and don’t get another the rest of the game.

So everything old is new again! Or as they say in Retirement Ville, same old, same old, or in this case: same new, same new!