Eagle & Bell go out to see the Mets!

We got to the ballpark early to make sure we got our towels!

To celebrate springtime and reward our kids’ efforts this school year, Journalism teacher Mr. West organized a field trip to Citi Field to see the New York Mets. As you might know, the Mets have currently asserted their presence in the National League playoff race, led by an exciting young pitching staff and powered by slugger Lucas Duda. It was a good day to get to the park early: Mets Beach Towel Day! The first 15,000 fans at the arena received their own free beach towel with the New York Mets logo on it. We were among the first few hundred people in line, and all of us got our very own towels (see below for pics)!

It was a warm, sunny, breezy day, and the sun shone brightly as Mr.West, Ms. Jeannie, Mr. Nazario, Mr. Shelem, Mr. Ramirez, and Ms. Domeville watched the teams take batting practice with a whole host of Eagle kids. Angel Ramos, of the Eagle Academy middle school baseball team, even went home with a baseball!

This was Mr. Nazario’s first MLB game!

After batting practice, we went down to the Jackie Robinson Rotunda and checked out the baseball museum inside the stadium. There was tons of gear on sale, as well as old memorabilia from baseball’s earlier generations. There was also a huge blue number 42 in the rotunda area, in honor of the great Jackie Robinson.

After the museum, Mr. West took the group on a little walking tour through the park. We checked out Shea Bridge, named after the stadium where the Mets played for a couple of generations before it was recently replaced by Citi Field. Shea Stadium was the site of most of the greatest moments in Mets history, including Endy Chavez’ famous Game Seven catch as well as both World Series victories and tons of other memories. Next to Shea Bridge is a big area where fans congregate to watch the game from center field…and it’s also where the stadium’s biggest food court is! Citi Field has a wide variety of tasty food, and our field trip camped out for an inning so the kids and chaperones could have a bit of lunch. While we were enjoying our food, the Mets jumped out to an early 1-0 lead!

After lunch, we migrated to our seats. The Marlins took a 5-1 lead, as slugger Giancarlo Stanton his a booming line-drive home run. But the Mets roared back with a thrilling four-run comeback in the middle innings. The stadium was jumping, and our staff and kids made tons of noise to cheer on the home team (except for a couple of stubborn Yankee fans)! Two of our journalism students, Triston & Torrae Swindell, each wrote their own accounts of our trip. You can link to Triston’s here and Torrae’s here.

Mr. West and the crew. Let’s go Mets!

After the Mets’ thrilling comeback, it was back and forth for a little bit. There were a couple of nice defensive plays, and overall the game was really exciting. And during the 7th-inning stretch, the whole stadium joined in a singalong of ‘Take Me Out To The Ballgame’…see below for a series of pics of Ms. Jeannie and Mr. Nazario helping fuel the vibe!

Unfortunately, Stanton hit his second home run of the day, and the Marlins dropped four late runs on our beloved Amazins. But everybody had a blast, and after the game the kids continued to bop around and enjoy themselves as our field trip migrated down to the exit. Check out some more pics below.

Thanks to our chaperones (including a few of our kids’ family members and a couple of our teachers’ loved ones) for a great effort on a day that went off without a hitch. And thanks to our kids for being generally awesome and providing a day full of smiles, cheers and good vibrations. Let’s go Mets!