My Favorite Shea Moments

In honor of Shea Stadium being demolished and Citi Field being opened next year, I decided to write about my favorite memories at Shea. I have not been to many games in my lifetime because everyone in my family is Yankee fans. However there are two games in particular that I attended that were truly amazin' in my mind.

The first game that sticks out was on Saturday, April 15, 2005. My godfather called my dad the day before and asked if we wanted to go to a 1:00PM game the next day. The Mets were playing the Marlins and injured starter Kris Benson was being replaced by none other than Mr. "Jeckle and Hyde" Aaron Heilman. For the Marlins, former World Series MVP, Josh Beckett was starting and newly acquired 1b Carlos Delgado in the heart of the lineup. On teh way to the game my godfather tells us that he could have gotten us tickets for Sunday's game but he couldn't have gone with us. Of course my two favorite starters were pitching against each other, Pedro Martinez and Al Lieter. We joked around with my godfather giving him grief for not giving us tickets to Sunday's game instead. We were kidding of course and just glad to be going to in the first place. My dad joked and said "Watch Heilman pitches the first Mets' no-hitter in history." He nearly did. The game was amazing as Heilman blanked the Marlins to throw a one-hit complete game shut out. The one hit by Luis Castillo was a dribbler to 2b Miguel Cairo which I thought could have been considered an error but the offical scorers disagreed. Regardless, the game was great. Heilman only walked 3 and struck out 7 Marlins including one to the heavily booed at the time, Carlos Delgado. To make the game even better for me my favorite Met Mike Piazza went 2 for 4 with 3 RBIs. Reyes had also had a double but Wright unfortunately had the day off because of back spasms. The Mets won 4-0. The Mets won the Sunday game 4-3 with a walk off single by Ramon Castro, but I don't think it could have matched the Mets game I went to. Even Wright not playing could not take away from a great game and possibly the best game I've ever been to.

Game two was this July 27th, my birthday. My friend had tickets to the game and the four of us took the ferry and the train to the game. New Met ace Johan Santana was going up the Cardinals' Kyle Loshe. The Mets would go on to win the game 9-1 with Johan Santana tossing his first CG as a Met and the first CG by a Mets pitcher in 2008. The game was amazing with Johan taking a no hitter into the 5th. Wright, Castro, and one of my new favorites, Fernando Tatis hitting home runs. Johan Santana became a new favorite when he got a hit and ran the bases like a real player, not wearing the jacket and running hard. The CG came after the Mets bullpen struggled the night before and the Mets needed a long outing from Johan. He delivered and didn't give up a run until 7th giving up a solo shot to Albert Pujols. The Pujols HR came right after Carlos Beltran robbed Ryan Ludwick of a HR and being the top play of the day on ESPN. Another great play in the game came in the third when Endy Chavez bunted Jose Reyes to third. Chavez was hustling to first and dodged the tag and slid head first into first. My friends and I were going crazy. It was truly an Amazin' game which I will always remember. The game just helped give me one of the best birthdays of my short life.