Shea Stadium
Shea Stadium (/ʃeɪ/ SHAY), formally known as William A. Shea Municipal Stadium, was a multi-purpose stadium in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park, Queens, New York City.[7] Opened in 1964, it was home to the New York Mets of Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1964 to 2008, as well as the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL) from 1964 to 1983.
This article is about the former stadium in Queens, New York City. For other uses, see Shea Stadium (disambiguation).Full name
William A. Shea Municipal Stadium
Flushing Meadows Stadium
(1961–1962)[1]
123–01 Roosevelt Avenue
New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (1964–1981)
New York Mets (1964–2008)
| Left Field | 338 ft (103 m) |
| Left Field ('64-'77) | 341 (104) |
| Medium Left-Center | 358 (109) |
| Left-Center | 371 (113) |
| Left-Center (deep) | 396 (121) |
| Center | 410 (125) |
| Right-Center (deep) | 396 (121) |
| Right-Center | 371 (113) |
| Medium Right-Center | 358 (109) |
| Right Field | 338 (103) |
| Right Field ('64-'77) | 341 (104) |
Kentucky Bluegrass
October 28, 1961
April 17, 1964
September 28, 2008 (Final game)
October 14, 2008–February 18, 2009
Praeger-Kavanagh-Waterbury[5]
Carlin–Crimmins J.V.[6]
The stadium was named in honor of William Shea, who was most responsible for bringing National League baseball back to New York after the Dodgers and Giants left for California in 1957. It was demolished in 2009 to create additional parking for the adjacent Citi Field, the stadium built to replace it and the current home of the Mets.
History[edit]
Planning and construction[edit]
The origins of Shea Stadium go back to the relocations of the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants in 1957, which left New York without a National League baseball team.
Prior to the Dodgers' departure, New York City official Robert Moses tried to interest owner Walter O'Malley in the site as the location for a new stadium, but O'Malley refused, unable to agree on location, ownership, and lease terms. O'Malley preferred to pay construction costs himself so he could own the stadium outright. He wanted total control over revenue from parking, concessions, and other events.
New York City, in contrast, wanted to build the stadium, rent it, and retain the ancillary revenue rights to pay off its construction bonds.[8] Additionally, O'Malley wanted to build his new stadium in Brooklyn, while Moses insisted on Flushing Meadows. When Los Angeles offered O'Malley what New York City would not—complete ownership of a stadium—he left for southern California in a preemptive bid to install the Dodgers there before a new or existing major league franchise could beat him to it. At the same time, Horace Stoneham moved his New York Giants from Manhattan's Polo Grounds to San Francisco (although he originally considered moving them to Minneapolis), ensuring that there would be two National League teams in California, and preserving the long standing rivalry with the Dodgers that continues to this day.
In 1960, the National League agreed to grant an expansion franchise to the owners of the New York franchise in the abortive Continental League, provided that a new stadium be built. Mayor Robert F. Wagner Jr. had to personally wire all National League owners and assure them that the city would build a stadium.
Unlike O'Malley, the owners of the franchise that would eventually become the Mets felt Queens was the logical home for their new team's ballpark. From the outset, they wanted to secure the loyalties of both Dodgers and Giants fans, and feared a team in Manhattan or Brooklyn would be seen as a de facto revival of the respective borough's former franchise, thus possibly alienating fans in the other borough. A club playing in Flushing Meadows (located roughly the same distance from Manhattan and Brooklyn) would not only likely avoid the same perception, but presumably capture the loyalty of fans in Queens as well, thus potentially confining support for the New York Yankees of the American League to their home borough of The Bronx on the mainland.
Nevertheless, Moses and William A. Shea, the New York lawyer who had led the effort to bring National League baseball back to New York, faced a problem. New York state law of the time did not allow cities to borrow money in order to build a stadium. The only way for the city to finance a stadium would be to demonstrate that the stadium could pay for itself. With this in mind, Moses and Shea proposed to have the new team pay substantial rent in order to pay off 30-year bonds. This provision would come back to haunt the Mets years later; they would never live up to that monetary commitment, and the ensuing financial woes would be an albatross around the team for years.[9]
On October 6, 1961, the Mets signed a 30-year stadium lease,[10] with an option for a 10-year renewal. Rent for what was originally budgeted as a $9 million facility was set at $450,000 annually, with a reduction of $20,000 each year until it reached $300,000 annually.
In their inaugural season in 1962, the expansion Mets played in the Polo Grounds, sharing the facility with the New York Titans of the upstart American Football League which had began play in 1960. The original plans were for both teams to move to a new stadium in 1963. In October 1962, Mets official Tom Meany said, "Only a series of blizzards or some other unforeseen trouble might hamper construction."[11] That unforeseen trouble surfaced in a number of ways: the severe winter of 1962–1963, along with the bankruptcies of two subcontractors and labor issues. The result was that both the Mets and the football team (by then renamed the Jets) were forced to play at the Polo Grounds for one more year.
Features[edit]
Design[edit]
Shea was a circular stadium, with the grandstand forming about two-thirds of a circle around the field and ending a short distance beyond the foul lines. The remainder of the perimeter was mostly empty space beyond the outfield fences. This space was occupied by the bullpens, scoreboards, and a section of bleachers beyond the left field fence. The stadium boasted 54 restrooms, 21 escalators, seats for 57,343 fans (although as seating configuration changed constantly over the life of the stadium, that number varied often, dropping to 55,601 by the 1986 World Series, and then increased again over following years to between approximately 56,000 and 57,000, until its closing), and a massive 86' x 175' scoreboard. Also, rather than the standard light towers, Shea featured lamps along its upper reaches. Some deemed Shea a showplace, praised for its convenience, even its "elegance".[70] The stadium's scoreboard in right field, one of the largest in MLB when it opened, weighed over 60 tons. One of its distinctive features was a giant rearview slide projector screen on the top center of the scoreboard; it was intended to display a picture of the current player at bat (a groundbreaking innovation at the time); however, due to lighting issues (it only worked at night when the light was really low; during day games, the picture would not show up at all), it was not used very often and was eventually covered with a giant Mets logo (or a Jets logo when they played).[75][76]
The stadium was located close to LaGuardia Airport. For many years, interruptions for planes flying overhead were common at Shea; the noise was so loud that radio and television broadcasts could not be heard. Players would usually ask for time during noisy flight approaches and takeoffs.
Four players in the National League named their children after Shea Stadium.[90]
John Matlock, who played center for the Jets at the stadium, named his daughter Shea.[92] Major League pitcher Shea Spitzbarth was named after the stadium.[93] Actor Kevin James, a devoted Mets fan, named his youngest daughter Shea Joelle.[94]