Five Decades of Stadium Memories (Triumph Books, 2008)
Compared with some of the wonderful books that have been published about Yankee Stadium’s last season, this slim paperback comes across like a poor stepchild, an afterthought in the world of recorded memory. I know the Mets’ home since 1964 doesn’t have the same cachet of the august Yankee Stadium, and that Shea was a low-rent affair, but even so…
It’s as if the publishers of So Long, Shea decided they have “X” amount of pages (in this case, 128), so they really had to focus. “X” amount of space for each ten years, regardless of how much they had to skimp on the great team and players (where’s Jerry Koosman? Gil Hodges? Ed Kranepool? Marv Thronebery, for crying out loud?). By trying to do too much, the book accomplishes very little. It its on the most major of moments: the 1969 world Championship, the 1973 “You gotta believe” club; the brawling boys of 1986, and the Subway Series bound 2000 team. There’s also passing glances at the Jets, the Beatles ad other musical groups, boxing, and the Pope’s visit.
On the other hand, the photography is good, the text crisp, and even the captions manage to convey the history nicely. Triumph also had the good grace to wait until the final season was actually completed before publishing (unlike the Yankee Stadium titles). Still, I can’t believe there wasn’t a better way to present it.
Here’s hoping that somewhere down the line, someone will write the definitive book about the humble home of the Mets.
Rating: ◊◊ (out of five diamonds)
is available on Amazon.com,
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