Alas, it will be a quiet post-season for the city’s baseball fans. Last week, the Yankees bid farewell to their old stadium amid much fanfare; by contrast, the Mets final loss to the Marlins was marked by familiar frustration — yet another late season collapse and an ignominious end to a 44 year run at Shea.

(Half an hour before the Mets’ final out, The Brewers did their part to clinch the NL wild card with a 3-1 win against the Cubs.)

This night in late August, though — my second game of the season — the Mets’ playoff hopes were still alive. J and I arrived during the second inning to find our team had already posted up five runs in the first against the Braves. It was a perfect night for sitting in the stands — unseasonably cool for late summer — and what followed was probably the quickest game I’d ever seen at the stadium.  Just about 90 minutes later, we found ourselves chiming in on the eighth inning sing-a-long song: The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer“. (Bitter irony there.)

From up in the nosebleeds, we had a prime view of the Amazins’ future home, whose construction progress we’ve been watching all year.

Soon this will all be reduced to a pile of blue rubble.  While Shea was hardly ever a paradise, it will be strange riding the 7 next year, and finding it paved over to put up a parking lot.

Tonight: the second home game of the season, number 2 in a 3-game series against the Phillies. (The Mets fell in Tuesday afternoon’s home opener, 5-2. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one feeling nostalgic for the dingy ugliness of Shea; the day before, two Mets fans were arrested after they kicked a stadium seat to pieces and attempted to smuggle out the “souvenirs” under their shirts. (The Post, in its inimitable way, referred to the bumbling pair as “sit-for-brains fan ‘vandals’.”)

The weather during these early season games can be iffy, and I arrived at Willets Point on a chilly, damp night just in time for the Mets’ 6-run third inning. The thundering cheers, which I could hear from the subway platform, continued as I climbed my way up, up, up to the upper deck nosebleeds to meet my friends, JL and the brothers B.

We huddled under the Mets fleece blanket as best we could as the cold and damp settled into our bones; at some point it actually began drizzling lightly, forcing us to move even farther back and up to seek shelter under the overhang. Not nearly enough precipitation to interrupt play, but enough to make us a little unhappy as we shivered in our seats. We (all of us except HYB) were determined, though, to stick it out at least until the 8th Inning Sing-A-Long.

The week before, the Mets had asked fans to vote on the song which would be used for the Shea sing-a-long. Calls to write in Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” were circulated wildly, and when the voting concluded on April 7, the so-cheesy-it’s-awesome 80s dance song was the overwhelming winner with over 5 million votes. That’s the power of the Internets!

Team officials, though, were having none of the Rickrolling. Citing some loophole language in the online contest rules that the final poll tally would only “help decide” the song to be used, they decided instead to pick a winner based upon in-stadium reaction during the first six home games. Inherently flawed methodology aside — applause-o-meter? adjustments for game attendance? — I take issue with the Mets deciding to undermine the results of the democratic voting method, and their subsequent qualifying of the massive write-in as an “Internet attack.” As a conciliatory gesture, Astley’s tune was the first of the songs to be auditioned. It was booed — heartily! — making it highly unlikely that the song will ever be heard at Shea again. Ah well.

Eighth inning came around, and the first (and probably best) of the runoff songs started up: Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Granted, it’s a lot more Dirty Jerz than New York, but would we rather have say, the theme song from “Friends”?! Good grief!

We did our part, belting out the blue-collar plight of Tommy and Gina at the tops of our lungs. Um, I don’t think this is how “Whoa” is spelled… is it?

Most of the online options were pretty horrid so in the end we were left with five song choices, none particularly inspiring. In addition to “Livin’ on a Prayer,” the stadium will be trying out The Monkees’ “I’m a Believer,” Billy Joel’s “Movin’ Out,” Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” and The Foundations’ “Build Me Up Buttercup.”

Oh, and the Amazins won, 8-2 — the first of what we hope will be many wins this swan song season at Shea. Check out the rest of the game flickr set here.

incidentally, why isn’t Google commemorating Cinco de Mayo with a festive homepage logo? Is Dennis Hwang on vacation?

The event was part of “Curly Neal Weekend“; the day before, the Harlem Globetrotters retired the popular player’s #22 jersey in a ceremony at Madison Square Garden. With that, Neal became just the fifth Globetrotter in the team’s 82-year history to have his number retired, joining Wilt Chamberlain (13), Meadowlark Lemon (36), Marques Haynes (20) and Reece “Goose” Tatum (50).

I’ve had a soft spot for the Globetrotters since I was a girl; the Hanna-Barbera animated series (1970-1972) may have predated my time, but I fondly recall their appearances on Scooby Doo and one very special made-for-TV Gilligan’s Island movie. You know: the one where the Globetrotters represent the Castaways in a winner-take-Island basketball game against an evil corporate raider, who is represented by a team of robots? Um, yeah. Though it made for riveting drama in elementary school, I suspect that the movie may not hold up well under repeat viewing.

I don’t know what frame of reference kids today have for these talented ballplayers and their hijinks, but there were plenty of little ones in attendance tonight.

To kick things off, there were the Jabali Acrobats from Mombassa, Kenya: flipping, tumbling, limboing, jumping rope, and creating improbably precarious human pyramids. The troupe returned to entertain at halftime.

Globie the mascot, rallying the crowd for the team introductions:

Before the game, the Globetrotters thrilled the crowd with their signature circle warm-up, set to to the familiar whistling tune of “Sweet Georgia Brown.” After some rapid passing, the players each took a turn in the center of the circle to show off his impressive ball handling skillz.

What to say about the game itself? Over the years, the Globetrotters have played more than 20,000 exhibition games in over 100 countries, mostly against deliberately ineffective teams like the New York Nationals and tonight’s opponents, the Washington Generals. So technically this may have been a competition, but mostly we were there to observe the fun, games, and gags. The Globetrotters are miked during the entire game, so we were treated to running goofy commentary and trash-talking (all very PG, of course), plenty of slam-dunking, ball-spinning, dazzling dribbling, behind the back passing and alley-oops. There were breaks for audience participation and comedy skits; at several points, the game clock continued to tick down even when there was no actual basketball being played on the court. Details, details.

The Generals won their last game in 1971, on an overtime basket for a 100-99 score that ended a Globetrotters’ 2,499-game winning streak. No such luck tonight for the battered team. (The crowd was stacked against them from the very first moments: their coach was introduced as a Patriots fan, earning hearty boos in this arena adjacent to Giants Stadium.)

Throughout the evening, the Jumbotron broadcast a commemorative film, “Number 22 Counts Down His Top 22 Moments,” as fans cheered the familiar-looking bald man on the sidelines. I bet B that the Gilligan’s Island movie appearance would be #1; he believed that guesting on Scooby Doo would garner the top spot. Turns out we were both wrong — our picks were #4 and #7, respectively. Neal’s #1 moment was being inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame (as a team member) in 2002.

I guess that’s pretty good, too.

Check out the rest of the game photos on flickr.

In March 2006, the Mets received approval for $632.1 million in bonds for construction of the new ballpark. (Corporate sponsor Citigroup will be paying $20 million a year over the next 20 years for the naming rights to the park.) HOK Sports‘ plans were unveiled a month later, and on November 13, 2006, the Mets officially broke ground for their first new ballpark since 1964.

The concrete arches and brick, limestone, granite and cast stone façade were inspired by Ebbets Field, home of the bygone Brooklyn Dodgers.

I’ve been able to track the progress of the construction going on adjacent to Shea on my weekly rides out to Queens on the 7 train. This Saturday, avoiding the Chinese New Year parade madness in progress at Main Street, I got a closer look at the project from Willets Point. As of mid-February, about 85% of the stadium’s structural frame is complete.

Mets pitchers and catchers report for duty on Valentines Day!

And now, on to the celebration! (People of Boston, in the meantime, cried.) On my commute into the office this morning, the subways were crammed with rowdy, banner-wielding, face-painted, blue-jersey clad fans — more than a few of whom looked suspiciously young — all heading into the Financial District for the Giants victory parade through the Canyon of Heroes.

An estimated 3 million football fans attended the ticker tape parade which began at 11AM at Battery Place and culminated with a 1PM City Hall Plaza ceremony, where winning Mayor Michael Bloomberg presented keys to the city to the team’s players, coaches and owners. Streets around the downtown parade route were closed beginning at 7AM to accommodate early-arriving spectators, some of whom began staking out spots along Broadway the night before.

The forecast was for showers on Tuesday morning, but after a few light sprinkles, our Giant heroes were deluged mostly with 50 tons of confetti and shredded paper that rained down on the donated floats. The bells at Trinity Church rang for 45 minutes — mostly drowned out by the cheering crowds — and Trinity’s rector Reverend Dr. James H. Cooper, clad in a Giants cap, offered his blessing over the procession.

The Giants’ parade was the city’s first ticker tape celebration since the Yankees won the 2000 World Series, and the first ever for a Super Bowl championship. Most significantly, this morning’s parade was the first to take place in the Financial District since September 11.

Super Bowl XLII MVP Eli Manning and the Vince Lombardi trophy:

Of course, although the event is called a “ticker tape” parade, financial institutions no longer use ticker tape to record stock prices, as the ticker tape machines became obsolete in the 1960s. The streams of papers are more likely these days to be of the bathroom tissue variety, unfurled from oversized institutional rolls swiped from the restrooms of office buildings lining Broadway.

On the topic of defunct technology, it seems that Polaroid has quietly halted production of its signature instant cameras and film. Does that mean that years from now, kids will have no understanding of what it means to “shake it like a Polaroid picture“? Or will the phrase continue to retain relevance a la “You spin me right round, baby, right round like a record, baby, right round, round, round“?

He smiled back and replied in halting English, “Very good. It is a good day. A very good day.”

Yes, it is.

Naomi Emmerson stars in the title role (as well as also being responsible for the set and costume design and stage direction) with Carmela Sinco accompanying on the piano. Emmerson grew up one of three daughters of a Quebecois Anglophone family — the only one to speak French fluently. She first performed Piaf: Love Conquers All at The Limelight Supper Club in Toronto in 1993, re-creating the role for the 2005 Toronto Fringe Festival. The show had its American debut at last summer’s FringeNYC festival, where it won an Overall Excellence Award for Outstanding Musical. Thirteen of Piaf’s songs were interspersed among the biographical anecdotes whose plot points were familiar to me from La Vie En Rose — the Piaf biopic, which earned French actress Marion Cotillard her Oscar nomination and Golden Globe win (not that anyone noticed.)

As a revue of Piaf’s songs, the show worked well; we were admonished at the outset to resist the urge to join in singing the more familiar tunes, a temptation avoided by most in the audience. Most. I was less moved by the show as a story framed around the singer’s loves and heartbreaks. Act I (“Marcel”), set in 1949 with flashbacks, closes with the plane crash death of middleweight championship boxer Marcel Cerdan, the man generally perceived to be the love of Piaf’s life. The second, shorter half fast-forwards to 1961 and features a visibly diminished Piaf – wracked by rheumatism and addiction. Her post-Cerdan lovers for the most part don’t even warrant names — the pair of cyclists, “the artist,” “the actor” — and though this act is titled “Theo,” after Piaf’s second husband Théo Sarapo, a Greek hairdresser-turned-singer and actor two decades her junior, the man seems less a great love than the singer’s last ditch hope for love at last. As in the film, the show closes on Piaf’s defiant declaration: “Non, Je ne Regrette Rien.”

It was such a beautiful day that I decided to walk uptown. At Father Demo Square:

As dusk approached, the sidewalks began emptying of people as everyone gathered around the communal televisions for Super Bowl XLII. By now, we all know how that turned out, no? And after our underdog Giants quarterback hit receiver Plaxico Burress for the winning touchdown with 35 seconds left in the game, following that incredible, fortune-changing Hail Manning… well, for an otherwise “miserable city,” there was an outpouring of joy in the streets.

Inase on the Upper East Side does not open on Sundays, nor does midtown’s Sushi Yasuda, which left us with Shimizu in Hell’s Kitchen. Except not quite, as we discovered upon our arrival on 51st Street: that restaurant is closed on Sundays as well.

Clearly, we were not meant to dine on sushi tonight. Down the block at the House of Brews we reassessed our options, and briefly caught part of what would be the Giants’ victory over the Dallas Cowboys, 21-17, that would send the team to the frozen tundra of Green Bay for next Sunday’s NFC title game. (Thanks, “Jessica”!)

We ended up at Uncle Nick’s Greek Cuisine a block away, on Ninth Avenue.

I’ve read gripes that “Astoria is better,” but all in all, Uncle Nick’s is a solid choice for simple Greek fare, a casual and more reasonably priced alternative to the other mid-to-upscale Greek restaurants in the neighborhood (Estiatorio Milos, Molyvos).

My favorite part of the meal — aside from the company, of course — was the “Four Combo Dip” platter: scoops of tzatziki (yogurt, cucumber and garlic dip), scordalia (potato and garlic dip), melitzanosalata (eggplant dip) and tarama (a fluffy, tangy fish roe dip), served with wedges of warm, grilled pita. I’d come back just for this.

Cretan Keftedakia (fried Cretan spiced meatballs):

Pastitsio (oven-baked macaroni, spiced chopped sirloin, and whipped potatoes, layered with Béchamel sauce) — like a Greek lasagna, or Shepherd’s pie.

And one of tonight’s specials: the Shrimp Santorini (large, white shrimp, smothered with fresh tomatoes garlic and feta). After seeing the waiter bring out my dish, a man at the adjacent table ordered the same.

Back at home after dinner, we took advantage of my free month of HBO, catching the umpteenth cable broadcast of The Devil Wears Prada, a film which until that night I’d not seen in its entirety. Fabulous outfits, and all around great fun.

So what does a $184 ticket get you? A club seat four rows from the glass (watch out for flying pucks!), with a prime view of every pass, check, hook, scuffle and skirmish. And personal waiter service, apparently. Rolled into each of our cup holders was a printed menu from which we could order a variety of food and drink. CG found the opportunity to order Peanut M&Ms just too extravagant to pass up; we put in our requests (no cotton candy this time, alas), and minutes later had the bright yellow bag delivered to us where we sat, along with a box of popcorn, a couple of Amstels and a Johnny Walker Black (hey, why not?)

Singer-actress Hilary Duff was in attendance that night – though we didn’t see her — cheering on her boyfriend Islanders forward Mike Comrie. In between periods, I tried — unsuccessfully — to get a text message posted up on the JumboTron scoreboard. Apparently my proposed missive deviated too far from the usual “Go Rangers!” “Islanders rule!” and “Dear Sharon, I Love You Forever!! Will You Marry Me? Streety Bird,” which aroused some suspicion among my companions. Were the MSG censors hard at work this night? Or was it just that the 18,200 fans inside the arena generated too many messages for all to be displayed? We’ll never know.

The Rangers’ only goal, which came in the second period. (They lost: 2-1 )

Check out the rest of the game photos on flickr, though unlike at the Knicks game a couple of weeks ago, there was a notable lack of cheerleading support on the ice. Sorry, boys, the Rangers City Skaters disbanded after former captain, Courtney Prince, brought a 2004 sexual harassment lawsuit against the club. Is it something in the air at the Garden?

And what would a hockey game be without a brawl? This pile-on ensued after Isles’ goalie Rick DiPietro punched Rangers bad boy Sean Avery in the head. Tsk, tsk.

I hadn’t really followed the team since Patrick Ewing was traded to Seattle after the 1999–2000 season. The former center, who has been an assistant with the Magic since June, was at the game tonight; before the jumbo screens late in the game, Ewing rose to standing cheers in the arena that displays his retired #33 Knicks jersey. (Also in attendance: Carlos Beltrán who, by contrast, was booed.) The most recent team-related story I’d read had nothing to do with basketball at all, but with the immensely popular $15 sneakers in Stephon Marbury’s Starbury Collection at bargain sportswear chain Steve & Barry’s (which also sells Sarah Jessica Parker’s Bitten and Venus Williams’s EleVen budget fashion lines.)

But sitting there in our fancy seats inside The Garden, I remembered what it was I enjoyed about pro basketball. The fast-pacing, the physicality… and watching the action unfold live was an entirely new experience. It’s a simple, but costly pleasure: the face value on our seats, one level up from the floor, approached $100 apiece, which made me wonder how it is that families can attend these types of sporting events together. My guess is that, for the most part, they can’t: even seats in the Mezzanine nosebleeds–five floors up–can run $45 apiece (not including Ticketmaster fees); courtside tops out around $3,000.

Tonight, though, we were there courtesy of SC’s connections, which meant that we still had money in our pockets for a full bag of pink and blue cotton candy, served up in an oversized Knicks felt top hat. Pure unadulterated sugar rush… and darn near irresistible.

The Knicks City Dancers:

A sea of Knicks fans waving thundersticks behind the Orlando basket; the Magic still shot 82% from the line to the Knicks’s 76%:

A dangerous-looking rifle-toss “wave” by the color guard on “Military Appreciation Night”–recruiting tables were set up just outside:

It was a tight game for the first three quarters… but early into the fourth, things quickly began unraveling for the home team. It came flooding back then, all the reasons I had stopped watching the Knicks those many years ago: it was just too demoralizing. As the Magic lead grew to double digits, the mood of the crowd shifted palpably. Exasperated grunts degenerated into increasingly louder boos… by the end buzzer, fewer than half the fans remained in their seats.

Tonight’s 112-102 loss kickstarted what would become an eight-game losing streak for the Knicks–the NBA’s longest this season.

Check out the rest of the flickr set for more of the Knicks dancers and a kiddie dunking contest.