{"id":563,"date":"2013-06-15T11:36:41","date_gmt":"2013-06-15T15:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/?p=563"},"modified":"2013-06-20T09:31:39","modified_gmt":"2013-06-20T13:31:39","slug":"the-queens-jewel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/2013\/06\/15\/the-queens-jewel\/","title":{"rendered":"The Queens Jewel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Game 11: Citi Field, New York, NY<\/span><\/p>\n

Chicago Cubs vs New York Mets – Friday, June 14, 2o13<\/span><\/p>\n

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We sure hope the beginning of this trip is not an indicator of how the rest of it is going to take shape. With torrential rains pelting NYC on Thursday, our early afternoon flight out of Portland, ME was cancelled. We were rebooked on a later flight and that, too, was delayed by a couple of hours. So, instead of 2:30 PM, we made it to the Big Apple around 9:30 in the evening. It was good to be back in this city, finally, although we were a little bummed that our tickets to a guided tour of the Tenement Museum, that was scheduled for earlier that evening, had to be sacrificed. Drat!<\/p>\n

Friday turned out to be a much nicer day. In the morning, we took the subway out of Queens to Manhattan and then to the Brooklyn Bridge. We walked over to the J&R Electronics mega-store and purchased a pair of binoculars. We then took the subway uptown toward Yankee Stadium in the Bronx. We had tickets for a tour of the ballpark in the afternoon. It was AMAZING! We visited Monument Park and then went up to the Yankees museum. That was followed by a trip to the press box and finally to the Yankees locker room. We saw the lockers of Derek Jeter, Mariano \u201cMo\u201d Rivera, Robinson Cano, Andy Pettitte, C. C. Sabathia, Mark \u201cTex\u201d Teixeira, Travis Hafner, and Brett Gardner, among others. Jeter and Rivera actually have two lockers each, apparently because they get so much mail! After the tour, we ate at the Yankee Stadium Hard Rock Caf\u00e9 and then got on the subway to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met was fascinating as usual. We spent about two hours there, spending most of our time looking at paintings by American artists.<\/p>\n

After the MMA visit, we took the subway back to Queens and made it to Citi Field, nearly two hours before game time. So we walked around the outside of this impressive and really beautiful ballpark, and took plenty of pictures. The Fanwalk in front of the stadium is really awesome, and punctuated with tiles commemorating important events in Mets history. This new facility just opened in 2009, the same year as the new Yankee Stadium, and is easily among the top modern ballparks that we have seen so far. It is also the site of this years All Star Game. When we got inside there was still enough time to take in the Mets Hall of Fame Museum. There were all kinds of really cool memorabilia including those of the Mets World Series trophies in 1969 and 1986. After visiting the museum, we went up to the top level of the concourse and leisurely strolled around. Batting practice was still going on and that was fun to see. We then walked over to our seats that were on the third level above the first base line, about halfway between home plate and the right field porch. Soon, we were joined by Victoria Gonzalez \u201910 (a former Thamattoor student) and Professor Dina Merrer of the Barnard College chemistry department. Professor Merrer spent the previous four days with us in Maine, when she came up with three of her students to run a few experiments. It was good to see her again in New York. And it was fun catching up with Victoria, who is now in medical school. Believe it or not, she plays for a softball team with the splendid name of \u201cYour Worst Enema!\u201d<\/p>\n

Closer to game time, we were a little worried as the sky turned dark and ominous, but fortunately, it cleared up and the evening turned out to be quite spectacular. The first pitch of the game was thrown by Kelly Hansen, the lead singer of the multi-platinum rock group, Foreigner, who were scheduled to play a postgame concert. Foreigner also provided a riveting rendition of the national anthem prior to the game.<\/p>\n

The game itself belonged to the Cubbies. They scored in the first inning on a two-out homer to right field by Nate \u201cThe Great\u201d Schierholtz. The Cubs loaded the bases in the second and, after an RBI single by Darwin Barney and a bases-clearing triple by David DeJesus, added another four runs to go up 5-0. The Mets got a triple of their own in the third, but it came on a gruesome play. Juan Lagares hit a fly ball to deep center and DeJesus, in an attempt to catch it, careened into the wall full force and hurt his shoulder. He was in considerable pain, but after some assistance from the medical staff, was able to walk off the field. He was replaced by Ryan Sweeney. Lagares, who made it to third on the play, subsequently scored on Daniel Murphy\u2019s single to center field. The Cubs got the run back in the sixth when Luis Valbuena, a former Indian, doubled to center to bring home Anthony Rizzo, who had also doubled to center, earlier in the inning. The Mets tried to make it close. In the seventh, an RBI single by Murphy brought home Chris Cowgill, who had doubled earlier and then advanced to third on a wild pitch. The next batter, David Wright, hit a single and the Mets had men on first and second with only one out. Lucas Duda then hit a line drive to left that scored Murphy for the Mets\u2019 third run. On that play, however, Wright was thrown out at third. Too bad for Wright, who otherwise had a great night going 3 for 3. The rally fizzled and the final score ended up being 6-3. Cubs closer Kevin Gregg got the save.<\/p>\n

After the game, we were treated to a spectacular concert by Foreigner. The stage was assembled quickly on the outfield grass just behind second base, the lights were turned down, and the band started working the crowd with their classic songs (e.g. Cold as Ice, Head Games, Waiting for a Girl Like You, Double Vision and Feels Like the First Time). We also purchased their greatest hits collection, Jukebox Heroes, especially since the band was donating the entire proceeds from their CD sales at the ballpark to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy.<\/p>\n

As much as we loved the concert, we reluctantly left just after 11 PM as we had to be on an early morning flight to our next destination. After getting back to our hotel and packing up, we retired for the night.<\/p>\n

See you at our next stop. Hope you will be able to come along. Bye now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Game 11: Citi Field, New York, NY Chicago Cubs vs New York Mets – Friday, June 14, 2o13   We sure hope the beginning of this trip is not an indicator of how the rest of it is going to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":428,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/428"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=563"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":640,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/563\/revisions\/640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/ldbaseballtour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}