Well, with all this focus and angst on the pennant race I must confess that it hasn't really sunk in yet that Shea Stadium will soon be gone. I just saw this clip and I must confess to getting a bit teary-eyed over the realization that this home field of mine, where I have felt so much joy and pain over the years, where I was able to join other sufferers in my common obsession, where I have grown from a kid celebrating his birthday to a teenager playing hooky to a twenty-something wondering who all these bandwagon jumpers are, to a grown-up bringing my kids to experience a piece of the same joy that I felt, well, it's all going away.

I have so many wonderful memories of this place that it's hard to catalog them all. I cherish even the tragic ones (and believe me, unfortunately there are far more tragedies than miracles). I remember Jerry Koosman's leg kick, I remember Cleon Jones' grace. Tom Terrific turning us from laughing stock to champions and I had something to rub in the noses of all the Yankee fans I went to school with (I grew up in the Bronx so it was truly my comeuppance). Rusty Staub's loping gait as he drifted back to the fence to glove the ball. Felix Millan signing an autograph for me, then going three for three with a double. Dave Kingman monster blasts, and Benny Ayala's first major league at bat in which he sent one over the left field wall. I was sitting with my dad in the left field mezzanine in the same section as some of Ayala's family and they went absolutely BERZERK, dancing, hugging and kissing everyone including us. It was a memory I shared with my dad until his death several years later.

I sat through double headers on rainy days in the late 1970s where there couldn't have been more than 2,500 fans left by the end. I baked in the upper deck on 100 degree days in August while the Mets were getting blown away by the Padres, another awful team. I luxuriated in the fantastic organ music of Jane Jarvis and watched as the scoreboard grew, as the Jumbotron was installed, and then the "Mets Magic" apple that popped out of the hat. I knew which field level gates were left unguarded in late innings so I could sneak down to watch the end of the game.

And oh, those mid-80s. I will never forget sitting in the upper deck watching Dwight Gooden strike out 16 Giants in a game in which one wondered how the other 9 could have possibly gotten the bat on the ball.

And I saw John Milner rip an RBI single to score Cleon Jones in a losing effort in game 1 of the 1973 series. And I saw Gary Carter rip a single up the middle off Charlie Kerfeld in Game 5 of the 1986 NLCS. And John Maine put down the Cardinals in game 6 of the 2006 NLCS, with help from Jose Reyes and Shawn Green.

So I would never call it beautiful, or comfortable, or convenient, or architecturally anything but an eyesore. It has always been too loud, too hard to get to, the lines too long, the bathrooms gross, the food awful, the sightlines horrible. But to me, Shea Stadium will always be my home field. I don't know how many games I will be able to get to in the new Corporate Home of the Corporate Mets. Sure it will no doubt be more comfortable and have better food. But honestly I feel sorry for my kids, knowing that they will never have the same relationship with a baseball team that I was able to enjoy with the Mets. First they take away affordable seats, then they take away the ability to stay up until the end of a postseason game. Now, another big blow, they take away Shea.