CitiPark CitiField, Where The Rich Come To Spend

"There is no calamity greater than lavish desires.
There is no greater guilt than discontentment.
And there is no greater disaster than greed."

--Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu

I think it was the photo of Mayor Buffoonberg trying desperately to look blue collar with a shovel of dirt in his hand that set me off this morning. The ONLY guy/gal out there who wasn't wearing a hard hat. Whatsamattah Mikey, afraid you'll muss up those gorgeous locks of grey and your gorgeous age-spotted scalp?



What we can note about CitiPark (CitiField), which is a deceptively catchy name with far less dignity than Jackie Robinson Stadium - (I mean if we're standing on history here, Jackie Robinson has alot more to do with baseball and the Mets than bloody Citibank, doesn't he? But Jackie Robinson wasn't a kazillionaire unfortunately for him and his family, so he'll get a nice little rotunda instead.) Yeah, let's celebrate the Mets for being capitalist whores like the Yankees because well, we can see how many World Series the Yankees have won over the last half dozen years employing the greed is good philosophy.

What we can note about the new stadium is that the number of toilets will increase, to 646 from 568. The new stadium store will be 7,200 square feet; the store at Shea is 2,600 square feet.

More importantly and far less imaginative in a baseball sense, the evil Citigroup name will be integrated into the team’s marketing and publicity campaigns and appear on walls, scoreboards, videos and automated teller machines throughout the ballpark.

In other words, you'll stand less time in line to take a piss, (because you'll then have more time to spend money instead of watching the game) have more room to sell overpriced merchandise and will hear and see big brother Citibank (whose cash machines will be everywhere to facilitate buying more overpriced merchandise) everywhere around the stadium, the whispers: citibank, citibank, citibank.

Mr Met will be replaced by a walking, singing Citibank cash machine with a mouth that spits fake dollar bills into the crowd (replacing the high powered tee shirt tubes) and Meet the Mets theme song will be replaced by I Love Citibank Mets, whose lyrics cannot be revealed this early in the planning because its authors are still researching new vocabularies to obfuscate and sugarcoat the growing chant of greed and corporate filth that is spilling all over the architects blueprints of the new stadium.

What I would have liked to have seen was discussions on how each section could be themed after a neighborhood in Queens or to the rich and diverse culture of Queens rather than the simplistic and automotonic paen to the rich and corporate. Is that baseball's message? I suppose it is, sadly so. Nonetheless, I would like to have seen a rich, carb and fat-laden Dominican menu, as unhealthy as it is, in honour of all the Dominicans who work for the Mets both on and off the field. For example, instead of the Boog's BBQ like they have at Camden Yards, a job for retired Pedro, like Pedro's Pastelones and long lines for the sancocho, aspopado or chicharrones de pollo. In fact, why stop at the Dominicans, why not a whole Latino section, right next to the Jackie Robinson rotunda, dedicated to Hispanic culture generally?

Because they don't make enough fucking money that's why. They can't stuff Wilpon's gob with dollar bills and turn this into a fat and sadistic revenue producing bonanza to lead them into the 21st century of modern baseball, that's why.

All I can say is Wilpon and Citibank had better put the best bloody team in baseball on the field after this blatant pandering to filthy money. And CitiField should be about winning and winning is about money. The Mets should change their jerseys to white and Citibank green with the sort of pinstripes going through the jersey numbers like lines going through the S of a $ sign. Yeah, I like that. A team with class. More toilets, bigger restaurants and more money machines to buy it all with. They've got their new stadium, their own revenue-producing baseball channel, and the wind of soul-less capitalism at their sails. They'd better start winning every World Series for the next decade because otherwise, I'm going to have to start rooting for a team like the Mets that I root for used to look like - a simple, every day working man's baseball team. Not a cheap history-poor version of the Capitalist Pig Yankees.

*****

Just say SoriaNO - a wonderful little piece on the evils of Soriano by one of my favourite American sportswriters, Bill Conlan.