Braves @ Mets

The final game of my roadtrip was the first game of the final season series between the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets.  The journey to the stadium was without incident tonight, after the previous night's trek through Queens.  I didn't have such a great seat for this game, as the same seat costs several times more for a game against the Braves than against the Pirates.   The Mets classify opponents into one of five pricing levels, where the Braves are in level 2 whereas the Pirates are in the bottom level 5.  However, the view from my $100 seat in section 414 was OK, and I had access to the Promenade Club on that level, plus the Acela club and Caesars Club in the level below.   The clubs are worth having access to - very nice, although I thought that the food was on the expensive side for what it was.

Whilst being able to see the whole field well, I also had an excellent view of many of the planes that pass over Citi Field.  The game itself was pretty close except for the inning in which the Braves scored all 6 of their (unearned) runs which carried them to an eventual 6-4 victory.  An error and a walk to the opposing pitcher were the keys to the big inning, as Jason Heyward eventually hit a 3-run homer to cap the inning.  Sadly, the Mets seem to have packed in the season already although they have a player with a great name: Duda.  He hit his first MLB homer tonight to give the Mets fans in attendance something to look forward to next year, at least.

The funniest inter-inning event of my roadtrip occurred tonight.  Often fans at the ballpark will have the opportunity to win something in a lottery or by answering questions about the team.  Tonight, the promotional item involved the following sequence of messages on the giant scoreboard, with a live video feed of one particular section of the stands.  The messages went something like this:

"An important announcement"

"for the Mets fan in section xxx, row yyy, seat zzz"

(at this point, the fan in question stands up and starts to look excited)

"You have ..."

(fan gets even more excited, wondering what he's won ...)

"B.O.!!!"

(fan looks slightly deflated and tries to sit down, but is being kept standing by his "friends" in the adjoining seats, and eventually manages to leave the stadium)

This was followed by an advert for the deodorant for which this was all a promotion.  General concensus is that this was all being filmed for a TV advert, on the basis that the same thing happened a couple of days later too.

See also the MetsPolice blog (a fan blog, not actually the police force)