http://www.newsday.com/sports/ny-spw...orts-headlines
Henry Goldman can remember a time when the Mets were so hard up for witnesses to their futility they would give prospective ticket buyers a tour of the ballpark before asking for their money.
"Back in the Eighties, when they were dying, they actually took us around and showed us the seats and asked us where we wanted to sit," remembers Goldman, who chose three seats in the loge, section 8, down the third-base line and just under the overhang.
For the past 25 years, Goldman, 79, his wife, Janet, and either their daughter Lisa or his grandson Jake occupy those same seats every weekend the Mets are in town. From there, the Goldmans have a fine view of the construction of Citi Field and, they fear, the end of their weekends at the ballpark.
"It doesn't look like there's going to be any place for us in that new stadium," he said.
Henry Goldman's fear stems from the stated policy of the Mets ticket agents stationed throughout Shea Stadium that the partial season ticket plan he and his wife have enjoyed for a quarter-century will no longer be available at Citi Field.
"Being senior citizens, we can't afford to go to every game," he said. "Weekends are our time to go. If we can't get that plan anymore, we're finished. We won't be able to go."
From all indications, the Goldmans will be anything but lonely while pressing their noses against the glass of the shiny new ballpark.
From the drastically reduced seating capacity -- 42,000 as opposed to the current 55,000 -- to the apparent elimination of affordable ticket plans like the one Henry Goldman uses, to the hard-sell announcements that issue from the video screens between innings, "informing" fans that only Shea full-season ticket holders will receive priority when it comes time to shell out for seats in the Mets' new crib, it is clear that Citi Field will be fan-friendly only to New York's wealthiest fans.
The Mets are getting the deal Walter O'Malley wanted 50 years ago, the one he wound up getting in Los Angeles. But they are doing it in reverse, downsizing the number of seats in order to increase the number of luxury boxes, and thereby vastly increasing revenue while decreasing the average fan's chances of seeing a game live.
It will work out fine for the Wilpons and fine for their corporate sponsors and fine for the well-to-do clientele they are so avidly courting. As for the rest of us, well, they have a seat for us, too -- in our living rooms, watching the Mets on SNY for the relatively modest monthly cost of a cable tier.
"Right now all we can say for sure is full-season ticket holders will have priority," Dave Howard, Mets V.P., said. "We're very sensitive to the issue but we can't give any assurances about partial plans right now."
Henry Goldman's calls to the Mets' ticket office have drawn little in the way of encouragement.
"We've been spending our weekends here for a long time. We suffered through some bad teams and now that they're getting a new ballpark, we don't know if we are going to be able to go. We've been loyal to them and we get absolutely nothing in return."
Goldman grew up in the Bronx rooting for the Yankees, served in World War II as a Marine, moved to Long Island after the war and fell in love with the new team that would make its home in Flushing Meadows.
"It seemed like they were a lot more friendly to us back then," Goldman said. "And we stuck it out, when the team was bad, through the deterioration of Shea Stadium, everything. "We're still there, but it just seems like they don't care about the little people anymore."
It certainly does. A few months ago, I wrote some columns detailing the plight of businesses in the Iron Triangle of junkyards, foundries and factories across 126th Street from Shea Stadium. Since then, Mets officials customarily greet me as follows: "Hey, how are your buddies in the junkyard doing?" As if displacing businesses and residents is some kind of joke. As if their lives and livelihoods don't matter, or at least not as much as the Mets getting a new ballpark.
Sadly, a lot of fans and the local media have fallen in line, having swallowed the canard that Citi Field will be good for everyone, even those who are being bulldozed, trampled over and kicked out to make way for it.
Sooner or later, a lot of Mets fans are going to realize what Henry Goldman has already learned: If you can't afford a season ticket, you will be about as welcome in Citi Field as a junkyard dog.