(gentleman on the left, failing to see the humor in the youngster on the right’s joke of “how many third basemen does it take to knock up a Hooters waitress?”, explaining that you can’t really use what oughta be the punchline as your setup)
David Wright’s RBI double off the left-center field wall in last night’s 4-1 loss to Atlanta was yet another deep drive by the former All-Star that would’ve probably been a home run at any other Major League ballpark. But if there’s any mitigating circumstance to Amazins’ ownership commissioning a partially taxpayer-supported venue that diminishes the effectiveness of (what used to be) their most popular player, it’s the knowledge that Citi Field is a bummer for the Braves’ Chipper Jones, too. “It’s funny to see them hit the ball off the wall and look at me like, ‘God-damned, what do I got to do?'”, Jones tells the New York Daily News’ Filip Bondy,
It’s not lost on Jones that the Mets are struggling to contend in the NL East, while his Braves emerged from their franchise slump and will likely make the playoffs for a second straight year. Both Jones and Terry Collins share the opinion that the Mets’ lousy home record might be the result of those imposing walls, plus the absence of a jet stream out to right-center, which sometimes carried Jones’ balls out of Shea.
Will the Mets ever do something about this? Not Jones’ problem, really. He dragged his sore quad and surgically repaired knee one more time into Flushing, and the new place was something of an unpleasant reminder about how the romance and aura of the venue had flown.
“Not the same atmosphere,” said Jones, who named his son after Shea.
“The fans were right there on top of you. It’s a little more laid-back now, the same thing in Atlanta. You can still yell at the fans. But you got to scream a lot louder.”