Shea Stadium: Home of the Amazin' Mets

Shea Stadium was never the most beautiful ballpark in New York. It sat in the shadow of LaGuardia Airport, planes roaring overhead every few minutes, in a part of Queens that was more industrial than picturesque. But for Mets fans, it was home — and home, as any Mets fan will tell you, is complicated.

The Stadium

Shea Stadium opened in 1964 in Flushing, Queens, built to house the New York Mets, who had been playing at the Polo Grounds since their expansion debut in 1962. The stadium was named after William Shea, the attorney who had worked to bring National League baseball back to New York after the Dodgers and Giants departed for California in 1958.

The stadium seated around 57,000 and was, for its era, a modern facility — circular, multi-tiered, and equipped with the amenities that postwar American sports fans expected. It was also, famously, loud — not from the crowd alone, but from the constant roar of jets on approach to LaGuardia, which became as much a part of the Shea experience as the hot dogs and the scoreboard.

The Amazin' Mets

Shea Stadium was the site of two of the most improbable championship runs in baseball history. The 1969 Mets — the "Amazin' Mets" — were a team that had never finished above ninth place in their seven-year existence. They won 100 games and the World Series, defeating the heavily favored Baltimore Orioles in five games. The city went delirious. Fans stormed the field and tore up the turf. It remains one of the great upsets in sports history.

The 1986 Mets were a different kind of team — talented, brash, and dominant — and their World Series victory over the Boston Red Sox, featuring the legendary Game 6 with Mookie Wilson's grounder through Bill Buckner's legs, is one of the most dramatic moments in baseball history.

The Beatles

On August 15, 1965, the Beatles played Shea Stadium before 55,600 fans — the largest concert audience in history at that point. The show is widely credited with inventing the stadium rock concert as a format. The screaming was so loud that the Beatles could barely hear themselves play. It didn't matter. The image of four young men from Liverpool playing to a stadium full of screaming Americans remains one of the defining images of the 1960s.

The End

Shea Stadium closed in 2008 when Citi Field opened next door. It was demolished in 2009. The site is now a parking lot for Citi Field — a fate that seems inadequate for a place that hosted so much history.

The Shea Stadium New York Retro T-shirt is for Mets fans and New York sports history lovers alike. Find it in the New York collection.