Memorial Day 1964 was My First Visit to Shea Stadium

My first Mets game at Shea Stadium was on Memorial Day 1964. That was before the holiday was moved to Monday... It was Saturday May the 30th. Shea was sparkly and new: to the eyes of this 10 year old, space age -- almost hinting of the world we saw on The Jetsons. Tall and metallic looking, lots of escalators and a very modern, wide-open design. It seemed a perfect compliment to the World's Fair going on just on the other side of the number 7 subway.
It was also a dramatic contrast to the dark, dank, crumbling Polo Grounds, their home for the club's first couple of seasons.
And my first visit to Shea was a success -- a "big" win over the Giants, one of the teams that abandoned New York a half dozen years earlier. Even with future Hall of Famers Willie Mays (hitting over .380) and Orlando Cepeda in the lineup... Duke Snider, as well, having been sold to the Giants by the Mets just before the season...the Mets pulled off a win. Charley Smith -- who later in career would infamously be remembered as the player the Yankees received for Roger Maris -- belted a three-run homer and Casey Stengel's crew somehow beat big bad San Francisco 6 - 2.
While the doubleheader the next day is the game from the series folks remember -- the second game went 23 innings and finished up at nearly 11:30 at night (and even got mentioned on the network game show What's My Line that was live on CBS, several of whose panelists were caught up in the marathon) -- this was the game I'll remember.

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