I sense those who really, really love Citi Field off the bat are, in essence, Homer in the episode of The Simpsons when he angered at the high prices and crappy merchandise he continually encountered at the Kwik-E-Mart. But it was all Homer knew, so he put up with it. “If he discovers the discount supermarket next door,” Apu thought to himself, “all is lost.” Citi Field is unsurpassedly awesome if you never went anywhere but Shea or haven't taken a baseball road trip that didn't involve the Vet.

We hopeless romantics in the crowd liked to believe Shea Stadium and the New York Mets represented one another perfectly: too often a ramshackle 71-91 proposition that discouraged you for months at a clip, yet pulsating with enough heart, soul and electrical current built into the recesses of its infrastructure to produce a 97-66 charge we'd never forget. In that sense, Citi Field is a perfect reflection of the Mets as we've come to know them of late: promising a ton, delivering somewhat less and leaving you with the impression that they think they deserve all kinds of credit for coming relatively close to their goal.

Meet 88-74 Park.

That's Citi Field to me at this early stage of its existence (and who wouldn't want to be judged at the ripe old age of six games?). It's pretty good, sometimes very good, ultimately not the most incredible place I've ever been. An 88-74 Mets season — 1997, for instance — can be a great deal of fun, offer occasional surprises and feel extremely invigorating. An 88-74 Mets season — 1998, for instance — can also put you on edge, fail to provide exactly what you need and come up a little short here and there. But 88-74 isn't dreadful by any means. It's definitely above average. An 88-74 Park, unlike an 88-74 Mets season — 2007, for instance — probably won't collapse on you.

Just as you sometimes know by instinct that you've passed through the turnstiles of a remarkable season, you also know when you've come upon a singular ballpark. I knew when I arrived outside Pac Bell in the summer of 2001 and inside Comiskey Park in the summer of 1989 and on the other side of the warehouse at Camden Yards on a brilliant spring day in 1994 that I was somewhere fantastic, the kind of place I'd dream about in my idle moments for years to come. I just knew. When I stepped foot inside Keyspan Park for the first time, I began to wonder, quite seriously, if it would be feasible to move to Coney Island, work the afternoon shift at Nathan's and then spend my evenings watching the sunset reflect on the Atlantic as those circular neon lights beamed to full power (this became my retirement plan for a while, actually). After one trip to PNC Park, I honestly decided that if I ever became what they call financially comfortable that I'd buy season tickets for the Pirates and fly in for weekend series just to sit there for a few hours every couple of weeks. I never became financially comfortable but I haven't fallen out of love with PNC Park.

I haven't fallen in love with Citi Field, not at first sight, not after several sights. I can see us falling into an abiding like over time, getting used to each other, depending on each other for company, feeling each other out until we feel we're reasonably certain we can trust each other. But I'm not in love with Citi Field. Half of that is me, obviously. I brought way too much baggage to its Rotunda gate to let down my guard so easily. Half of that, though, is it.

This is not a lovable ballpark. It's likable enough, as a future president once said of his secretary of state to be, but it's not warm and fuzzy. Maybe the old place wasn't going to be your lifetime sweetheart if you weren't predisposed to see it and feel it that way, but nobody after the giddiness of April 17, 1964 wore off would have referred to World Class Shea Stadium. World Class Citi Field is what we heard for three years. It was overkill. High-functioning would have been enough to draw us in. After Shea's many foibles, functional would have been plenty to sell us. We would have gotten it. “Come to the ballpark that works” would have been an excellent pitch. “The bathrooms won't flood, we'll have paper towels, we won't stick our hands out for tips, we won't take your bottlecap, we'll ready your pretzels and we won't assault your senses with loud, warped nonsense over the PA.” If that was Citi Field's stated rationale from jump street, I would have jumped in with both feet.

The things I liked about Shea Stadium I loved. And the things I didn't like about Shea Stadium I loved to complain about. They fixed a lot of what was wrong with the Shea experience at Shea inside Citi Field. I'm elated to give up my old complaints. I realized Saturday I could stop hiding spare bottlecaps on my person before heading to the game. They weren't going to take my bottlecap! I didn't have to keep a single between my fingers should an usher and a rag emerge from a shadow to show me a seat that was numbered clearly. I could clap my hands on my own steam, not because “everybody” was instructed to. I'm happy to stop complaining about what I hated from Shea Stadium. I appreciate that somebody somewhere figured out a few simple ways of making going to a game more pleasant and, just as importantly, less unpleasant.

And the food is indeed to die for rather than from. Nobody doesn't love the food. I've never encountered so many answers to “how was the game?” that started with “I had the pulled pork sandwich.” It's a 180 from “Olerud lashed a double, scoring Rickey and Fonzie, we all went crazy and oh, by the way, I didn't get ptomaine poisoning.” Mind you, I wouldn't stand in an interminable line for a kidney unless I absolutely, positively needed one, so I haven't sampled some of the more celebrated menu items where innings go by while your burger is created, but I am enchanted by what I've chewed to date. I particularly like the World's Fare Market because its goods are not just delicious but just a grab away. Stephanie and I split a Mets cupcake from the WFM at the preseason workout, so now when I'm going to Citi Field, she asks, “Can you bring home one of those cupcakes?”

When was the last time anybody asked you to bring back food from a Mets game? Unless it was for a fraternity prank?

Food ain't really why you go to a ballgame, so I wouldn't say I love it as much as I like it. There's lots to like. Because I think you should have freedom of movement in general in this world, I like that last Saturday when I wanted to meet up with some of my favorite fellow bloggers before the game, there was a place to do it, down 42 way, without fear of being moved along. I like the Rotunda just fine, I certainly respect the reasoning behind it even if it feels like we've been assigned social studies homework when all we're trying to do is go to a baseball game. I'm really, really liking that bridge, where I spent several minutes leaning back and chatting with a friend I bumped into prior to heading to my perfectly lovely green seat Saturday. I like the vantage point; I like that it represents a landmark between left and right fields, thus a You Are Here for where you are; I like the view behind me (the old Apple), before me (the field) and above me (the stands, the sun, the planes).

I like that the bridge and its environs inadvertently forced me into an odd situation when my friend and I parted ways. The national anthem had begun. I wanted to get moving, stop by the dividerless men's room — don't like that — and the World's Fare. At Shea, if I had places to go before first pitch and the anthem was underway, it was little more than background noise in the concourse. Out there, at Citi Field, most people stopped whatever they were doing, removed their caps as instructed (I could do without the stage direction) and stood at attention. I found myself walking around and realizing what was going on and stopped myself. Even though I really had to go to the bathroom, even though I wanted to make my purchase, even though I needed to hustle up to the Promenade, it felt right to pause among my fellow Mets fans for the bombs bursting in air, et al.

Lots to like, enough to doubt. I have my doubts that we're going to see enough of the field to fully inform us, whether it's because of obstructions or blind spots (formed by the obstructing nature of certain angles of the building). I doubt we're ever going to be sated by the Mets Quotient of the Mets' home park. This is a separate post (hell, it's ten separate posts, several of which I've already written), but there are so many ways to emphasize the nearly half-century the Mets have already put on the wall, yet the Mets have been bizarrely determined to leave their wall blank for as long as they can. I doubt many Mets fans care as I do, but I doubt we'll ever see any substantial evidence that the Brooklyn Dodgers had company representing New York National League baseball before there were Mets. I saw three older men in NY Giants caps in the Rotunda. I exchanged the briefest of simpatico with one of them. His expression was one of dismay, but I could be projecting my feelings onto his face…though I don't think I was. And whatever happened to the setting highlight to be known as “Coogan's Landing” anyway?

I can't speak definitively to the sense that fans aren't or will never be as raucous as they were at Shea. I've been to two games, one of them terrible, one of them gripping. It's not a decent sample. But I am convinced we have raised a generation of Mets fans that requires an electronic tickle to get a decent LET'S GO METS! chant going (and, by the way, that rather statist LET'S GO METS sign above CitiVision puts me in mind of The Office when generally unsmiling Dwight was placed on the party planning committee and he mirthlessly hung nothing more than a plaintive IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY. sign in the conference room). I feel liberated from a surfeit of dopey audio cues for when to cheer, but the audience for Mets-Brewers on Saturday seemed unmoved to act and react when its team could use a shove. Only when the video board got involved did they roar. The wave, however, started organically; oy.

While the Promenade's Upper Deck/Mezzanine hybrid is aesthetically pleasing, it's not paradise up there, not quite, not yet. I'm not complaining about the revolution in legroom, but I feel a bit disconnected from everybody else. Yes, there are those I'd have paid a premium from whom to be disconnected in the Upper Deck, but there was a “we're all in it together” vibe in the parking lot formerly known as Shea Stadium. I'm not quite feeling it in two dates at the Prom, though it's only two and neither game has been an exhilarating 10-9 slugfest. It is disconcerting how far above and below I am from adjacent rows, though the cupholders are nice. It is more comfortable, though I don't remember feeling exquisitely squeezed at Shea. Ah, let's err on the side of comfort — and structural integrity, too. Still, it is my habit to semi-consciously bop along to “Lazy Mary” and feel the ballpark earth move under my feet. When I did so Saturday, it literally didn't feel right. When you shook your groove thing at Shea, Shea shook with you. It didn't take a ten-run inning to turn Shea into a shake shack. It took simply getting up and stretching. It's probably safer this way, but I kind of missed the specter of instability.

I watched the Saturday game and nothing but the Saturday game, which is to say I did not roam as I did Thursday. I could see Johan just fine. If I had gotten up to check out the mini-food court on Promenade, I wouldn't have seen anything. There are no monitors back there, which seemed strange when I noticed this afterwards. It's also a little offensive that after being told a club existed on every level — Excelsior! Empire! Caesars! Is this a ballpark or Plato's Retreat? — that every level's club requires a special ticket, and I never seem to have one. This is one of those situations where if you didn't situate it so tantalizingly in my midst I wouldn't want in, but you did and I do, if just for a look-see. A little too much exclusivity at the top of the park. A little schleppy getting down the stairs when all was over. And to echo Dana Brand's comprehensive spiritual overview on another matter I noticed but couldn't quite identify why it bothered me, the disembodied clang of Cow-Bell Man was downright spooky. (While the sudden reappearance of “Sweet Caroline,” pretty obviously detested by half the house, is simply mystifying.)

I'll confess to one change of opinion from where I was during the runup to World Class Citi Field, and I point to it, à la Terence Mann in Field of Dreams, as someone who was the East Coast distributor of Shea Stadium attachment. I wanted them to keep Shea alongside Citi. I had this idea that it was too beautiful to lose and marginally functional enough to maintain in some small way. As I sat and stared down toward the mound while Santana and Gallardo exchanged zeroes, I realized, no, that was silly. Romantic but silly. These people here, at Citi Field, they weren't looking back toward Shea. Even I'm doing it less and less. Nevertheless, and perhaps this should be filed under the Mets and their expertly hidden history, I am amazed at how intent the Mets were on making Citi Field the UnShea. Lots of good reasons to do that, as catalogued above, but they really must have hated where they were. Yeah, there's the Apple and the Skyline, but that's found art at this point. Otherwise, I don't think there are five words officially sanctioned at Citi Field that you'd hear as a matter of course at Shea Stadium. Even the rows have numbers instead of letters. If they could sell dogs hot instead of hot dogs, they'd do it.

The New York Mets are a long-running series that its producers determined needed a major recast. Out went one of its old characters, in came a new one. They gave the old character a memorable farewell story arc. The new character is going to need time to establish itself. Mike Farrell took over for Wayne Rogers, Kirstie Alley replaced Shelley Long and Citi Field is succeeding Shea Stadium. It's a different character and we will discover its character. As pretty as it is, I don't know what it's all about, probably because it's not about anything yet. When Stephanie and I were planning our wedding, we discussed a First Dance song. I played her one she didn't know but that I thought fit the occasion perfectly, “You're A Special Part Of Me” by Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye. Her response was, “That song means nothing to me.” Right now I feel the same way about Citi Field. It's not a special part of me. That's not a knock, it's a fact. I've just been introduced to its melody. The lyrics will come eventually.

Sometimes it'll be great. Sometimes it'll suck. One way or another, it'll be the Mets.

Good reading between homestands can be found between the covers of Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

After we lost that mildly disgusting 2-1 game to the Marlins, a friend offered sympathies. My response: “I don't know if you do this, but for me early April is Baseball Honeymoon — I'm so happy that my nights and days have normal structure again that losses don't particularly rattle me. And then it's April 26th and I'm like, 'Goddamnit, how the hell are we 5-13? This sucks!' But until then, I'm good.”

The 6-6 Mets are mathematically safe from a 5-13 record, and I'm still in my Baseball Honeymoon. But it's the equivalent of the day on your honeymoon during which you catch yourself thinking not about the beach or wedded bliss, but about packing and the long flight and unpacking and the stack of annoying mail and the bills that will need to get paid and going back to work. The real world is about to come crashing through the bubble.

Today's 4-2 loss to the Brewers didn't leave a particularly visible mark: I lucked into superb seats for my Citi Field regular-season debut, basked in sunshine instead of huddling in the expected rain, spent my time in the amiable company of a friend I don't get to see enough of, crammed myself deplorably full of Shackburgers and tacos and beer, and snagged a Super Express 7 for an easy trip home. What's not to like about a day at the ballpark, particularly after the months of slush and football?

Well, that 4-2 score. The Mets wore their classic pinstripes! Great, they lost. Jose Jose Jose Jose treated us to the first of many Citi Field triples! Great, they lost. Nelson Figueroa pitched scrappily and cannily in an emergency start! Great, they lost. (And poor Figgy got DFA'd by way of reward.) A right fielder got mugged by the sun — and it wasn't Gary Sheffield! Great, they lost. Omir Santos looks like a cult hero! Great, they lost. You can make yourself hoarse talking up character-building losses; better to grope for something to say about mundane wins.

(Citi Field Observation of the Day: At his superb blog, Dana Brand has been wrestling with Citi Field and his reactions to it in a series of heartfelt posts that are by turns hopeful and agonized. The one that really struck me was his thoughts on the crowd and the noise, which so far he doesn't find equal to the Shea experience. Part of this, as Dana notes, is undoubtedly because people are spending time exploring the stadium instead of watching the game. But Dana also notes that people don't seem to stand up a lot at Citi Field, and that the parade of passers-by — nicely described as “the constant and familiar racket” — is missing, because now those people circulate behind the seats. Particularly poignant is his description of Cow-Bell Man being heard but not seen except when he'd pop up at the top of a stairwell before working his way back down and up to a new section. Dana's right — so far the fans do get to their feet less, and the constant circling of people and crowd reactions to them is basically gone. I'd noticed the lack without quite grasping what was missing. The question, though, is whether it's truly a lack, or just something to get used to that we might even come to appreciate. Cow-Bell Man and the grass-roots Let's Go Met agitators are now back in the concourse, to less effect, but so are the mooks displaying their Yankee gear, the people on cellphones trying to locate their friends 33 sections away so they can say “Yeah, I see you waving!” and the legions of dimwitted, drunk and potentially homicidal who would emerge from a tunnel and stop in front of you to stare like stunned cattle at the field. When I mentioned the lack of fans getting to their feet to my seatmate, she cocked an eyebrow and said, “Well, now they can see.” I'm not sure what side of this one I come down on — ask me around Independence Day. But it's definitely one to think about as we get used to the new place.)

Anyway, the Mets had good at-bats and hit balls hard though often in evil luck. They're 6-6, and those six losses have seen a total margin of defeat of just eight runs, which is what your average pinstriped middle reliever surrenders during a bathroom break up at Leni Riefenstahl Stadium. A bit of regression to a friendlier mean and the Mets look just fine, particularly since I'll go out on a statistical limb and bet against the Marlins playing .917 ball the rest of the way. But stripped of the novelty of new parks and new seasons, losses like this eat at you. What's acceptable and almost forgivable in April is distressing and dispiriting in June, and calamitous in September.

It will repair your losses and be a blessing to you. No, not The Collected Works of Whitman or a DVD of Bull Durham with deleted scenes. (Don't bother looking, it doesn't exist.) I'm talking about Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets. Get yours from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Johan games are different from any other Mets games, very different. For instance, in most Mets games, the other team scores earned runs; in Johan games, the other team earns nothing. In most Mets games the ball is put in play by the offensive team after it is pitched by a Met; in Johan games the offensive team barely puts the ball in play, and only Johan's catcher seems to touch the ball. In fact, in Johan games, if an offensive player hits the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: in Mets games pitched by Pelfrey, Perez, Maine and all other Mets pitchers, the other team scores. In Johan games, the pitcher prevents you from scoring.

In most Mets games, the manager makes trips to the mound, maybe several. In Johan games, the manager plants himself in the dugout and watches Johan.

Now I've mentioned other Mets games. Johan games and other Mets games are the two most popular spectator sports in this city. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing Johan games and other Mets games:

Other Mets games can be messy and uncertain.

Johan games are things of beauty.

Other Mets games tempt you to wander through a park. The baseball park!

Johan games keep you sitting in your seat or occasionally standing in front of it.

Other Mets games begin 0-0 and can go in any direction from there.

Johan games begin 0-0 and stay very close to that figure for most of the day.

In other Mets games, you wear an expression of doubt.

In Johan games, you wear a smile.

Other Mets games are concerned with down — I hope we don't go down too easily.

Johan games are concerned with up and down — when the other team comes up, they will be going down very quickly.

In other Mets games, you receive agita.

In Johan games, Johan makes it easy on your digestive system.

In other Mets games, specialists come in to attempt to register crucial outs.

In Johan games, Johan stays in and retires everybody.

Other Mets games have strategy, anxiety, worry, angst and a faint hope that maybe things will work out all right.

Johan games have Johan.

Other Mets games are played with opposing batters reaching base and with opposing runners crossing the plate.

In Johan games, nobody on the other team gets to go out and play for very long.

Other Mets games have the seventh-inning stretch.

Johan games have seven strong innings from Johan.

Other Mets games have no time limit: we don't when they're gonna end — might have four hours.

Johan games seem rigidly timed, and they will end in far fewer than three hours.

In other Mets games, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a contemplative feeling; you think about Citi Field, whether you like it, whether you don't like it, but there's always something interesting to think about.

In Johan games, during the game, in the stands, you can be sure that all you want is the Mets to score one run and Putz and Rodriguez to finish another job extremely well done.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In other Mets games the object is for the Mets, also known as aggravating, to figure out a way to win, to overcome their miscues, to cover up their flaws, to generate multiple tallies, to conduct themselves with more competence than they usually muster, to catch and throw with skill and to outhit their own pitching lest they surrender another early lead and blow another winnable game and fall further behind the surging Marlins.

In Johan games, the object is to go home! And to be victorious! I know we'll be victorious once we go home from watching Johan pitch!

(Thanks George.)

The difference between Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets and other baseball books? Find out when you secure your copy of FAFIF: AIPHOTNYM from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Sorry, Luis Castillo's singles don't look like line drives in the box score. You can pretty much reverse-engineer whatever the number in the H column is back into little slap jobs or worm killers or humpbacked liners. But sometimes they're enough. Sometimes they wind up in the western side of J.J. Hardy's glove, too far for conversion into yet another Met out and yet another Met LOB, and Luis Castillo's rather thoroughly caged fury is anger enough for sweet victory.

I think I will always find it faintly ridiculous that anything the Milwaukee Brewers might do can affect the Mets. For me the Brewers will always be a team from the distant AL that plays somewhere cold and changes their uniform design too often and features guys I know are good but only glimpse once in a while on This Week in Baseball. They're the San Diego Padres at an even greater remove. Yet I find when I push past the feeling that they're in the wrong league that I'm more familiar with them than I thought and can even generalize about them fairly successfully. Like they always have vaguely anonymous but terrifying young hitters, those young hitters tend to field like they went out there with bats in their hands (with the exception of Mike Rivera and whomever Bill Hall was channeling on that nice bunt pickup), and they get a volume discount on hard-throwing red-haired middle relievers who wear plus sizes. Those are your Brewers; they've been a part of our lives for a solid decade and I suppose I ought to just get used to them. I'll keep trying.

What I can get used to, finally, is Baseball 2009 in general and the Mets playing at Citi Field specifically. This was the first night of the year in which baseball didn't seem like a novelty but a normal part of the evening — 6:45, almost time to watch the Mets. In a way that day's nicer than Opening Day, because it's the day you realize baseball's here to stay (relatively) and you can put your feet up and let the narrative of the season unfold as the spring and the summer swell in accompaniment. And this was the day I stopped trying to scout Citi Field on every pitch, staring out at its dimensions and tracking its bounces like I'm the one who has to play them. (Though didja see that ball that carried away from Castillo and had to be corraled by Church? Seems like there's a crosswind that gives balls an additional kick towards the right-field corner, doesn't it?) This was the day I started to just enjoy the game for itself, new park and all.

And after another shaky middle there was plenty to enjoy. Like the swing of Carlos Delgado, now thoroughly resurrected and possibly more dangerous than before, what with the left-field line now a target as well. Like Gary Sheffield, whose milestone moment could have been an annoying asterisk, but who won me over with his determination to learn right field as best he can even if it's an assignment he arguably shouldn't have been given. (Points also to Ryan Church, by the way, for tutoring the man trying to take his playing time.) And yes, like Luis Castillo, pudgy and underwhelming though he still is. Not even I am cynical enough to resist a well-told tale of redemption.

Speaking of well-told tales, you won't be able to resist Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Not overwhelmed. Not underwhelmed. Just whelmed at the moment. And cold. Very cold.

I have now been to my 33rd Major League ballpark to watch a Major League Baseball game, Citi Field, home of the New York Mets in Flushing, Queens. I cannot offer a definitive judgment of how much I love it or how little I like it because I really don't know yet…”yet” being the key phrase. I may not know for sure for quite a while, and that is a very fair way to take Citi Field: slowly.

We don't have to decide right off the bat whether it's the most beautiful sight our eyes have ever seen (which is what Rudy's father called Notre Dame Stadium in Rudy) or whether it's an overpriced, overwrought pile of bricks (which is what I feared from the moment it was etched into our future plans). It's not the greatest thing ever, it's by no means terrible. It is not going out on a limb to refer to it as not bad. Very nice would also do as a placeholder.

The shock of there being no Shea is dissipating quickly. The LIRR, like the Subway system, has eliminated its Shea Stadium stop, opting instead for Mets/Willets Point. That redesignation felt more appropriate than ever when I got off the train, climbed the steps, turned to pace the boardwalk and saw Citi Field on the right, nothing on the left. I somehow expected there to be two parks where there was only one. Oh yeah, I reminded myself, there's not.

My last living remnant of Shea, so to speak, was a pair of rainchecks from September 12, 2008, a horrible night when I was horribly sick. The fine print said they could be exchanged this season or next, meaning last season or this, even with Shea Stadium a goner and Citi Field allegedly in demand. I took my unused tickets to the advance ticket window (it's along the path to the Left Field Gate, FYI) and expected to be hassled. I wasn't. I put their value toward a game in May. Now I have no more tickets to Shea. Why would I?

Finally, I had to make a phone call. With Alex Anthony's warnings about what I could and couldn't take into the Jackie Robinson Rotunda blasting in my ear, I needed a little quiet, so I made my call from the quietest spot in the Citi Field complex: the Shea Stadium outfield, specifically the part that is gravel en route to it being paved. I figured sooner or later I'd stroll over there, so may as well get it out of the way now. Do you know what it was like standing in what I believe to have been short center field at Shea Stadium?

It was like standing in an unpaved area of the parking lot. When I got done with my call, I turned around and headed for the only ballpark on the premises.

Having used the Right Field Gate for the exhibition and the Rotunda for the workout, I tried Left Field on for size (and am testing the Orosco banner for a meetup on Sunday — Gate Jess-E, if you will). I was waiting to be told by the man in red or green, I forget which, that I was doing something wrong by carrying exactly the kind of stuff I've always carried into Mets games. But no, what I was carrying was fine. I was fine. The man in green or red was fine (though I had the sense he really wanted to be cranky). I was through the Left Field Gate and up an escalator and, once more, though this time for keeps, I was inside Citi Field.

Not as weird as it was for the Red Sox game on April 3. Not weird at all. But crowded. Teeming from the Left Field Gate out to center. I thought an hour before first pitch might win me some latitude toward some of the more popular concessions, but forget it. I wondered for all the celebrated width of concourses why it was so tough to get around. Because people were doing what I was doing: searching for something to buy and in no hurry to decide what they would choose. I wound up back at the World's Fare Market and opted for the Cuban Sandwich and Garlic Fries (with half of the latter falling to the ground in a play at the plate, tagged out by some combination of the cashier, my receipt and me).

The Citi Field Cuban Sandwich, in case you're wondering, is bleeping awesome. If somebody wants to tell me they don't go to baseball games for Cuban Sandwiches, I'll retort that they'll play the game whether you have one or not. I bitched mightily for three dozen seasons that Mets games lacked all but a smidge of Japanese food for edibles. I will appreciate what's good now that it's on tap.

That was just the preamble, or pre-ramble. There was still a matter of swinging through the Field Level to get back to the escalator en route to the Promenade on that side of the Citi. Yes, I could have gone upstairs in right field, but I'm still in that fascination stage with the Field Level, which is actually pretty unfascinating to walk through between the bases as there's no view of the field and, you may have heard, no sign of the home team's history to dwell upon. To be fair, I wasn't thinking “where's the Mets museum?” at that point. I was thinking “more people?”

The real purpose of Citi Field is not the dinner menu or how construction necessitated a whole new parking lot but watching the Mets. Section 527, Row 7 would be the key to whether my first official impression was a dream date or a dud. It wasn't a dud, but everything you've been hearing about obstructed views is true enough. From seven rows up, the left field line is a rumor. Not a little, but a lot. There's still a whole infield and a lot of outfield to garner your attention, but there's enough fair territory blocked by concrete to make you wonder how three years of planning and building missed or, more likely, dismissed this little detail.

Before the game got underway and I settled in, my overriding thought was how small this place is. Never mind intimate. It's small. It's smaller than Citizens Bank. It's smaller than new Busch. It's bigger than Wiffle Park at Chapman Yards, but that's only got eight seats and its one club (the back porch) requires no special ticket. It's not a criticism to identify Citi Field as relatively minute. It's an observation. After a lifetime of large, this felt tiny. I spent a while looking for the rest of the stadium. It wasn't there. This is all we get.

The good news is pitch by pitch, minute by minute, it all felt a little less strange. I adapted to Citi Field in person better than I've been adapting to it on television. You look toward the pitcher and the batter and it's a Met versus an opponent. That's not strange. You've got Mets fans sitting around you. That's not strange. The scoreboards and such…a little strange because they are so different from their predecessors, but by the eighth as opposed to the second, they were the scoreboards where the Mets played. And by the eighth, I was as cold as I'd ever been at a baseball game in Flushing.

That's why Row 7 of Section 527 couldn't hold my host Sharon (by providing admission to my official debut at Citi Field, she became Camp Avnet for this millennium) and me. First we were gonna get a hot beverage and come back. Then the line was long and it was growing colder. Colder and windier. I'm almost certain this space in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is more frigid than our previous space in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. I'm bringing a thermometer next time to check for evidence. Anyway, once Sharon got coffee and I got pudding (Kozy Shack survived the move), we decided to try our luck in those generally unattended seats that are scattered about, presumably intended for the differently abled. Well, there was nothing marking them as forbidden and nobody had claimed them and, most importantly, nobody was stopping us, so we sat down in two of them for an inning. And an inning became three innings or so. It was there we watched Ramon Castro validate his presence on the roster. It was there we felt a legitimate “Let's Go Mets!” rise from this shoebox of a ballpark. It was there I grew used to watching the Mets come back on the Padres at Citi Field or at least try their half-assiest.

We shifted our act to the right field Field Level corner for the ninth, partly to get a jump on the exit after we managed a rousing come-from-behind walkoff victory and partly because of the shock that you can do that at Citi Field. In a way this was self-defeating because I wanted to experience the game as a regular game, watching it mostly from my assigned seat. But this is Citi Field, where you're allowed to roam, so it's hard to resist the temptation. It's April; it's cold; we roamed where we wanted, standing still long enough to watch Carlos Delgado — he who bombed Jake Peavy in the first — stand still and take a pitch that was too close to argue to close out the night.

Except for two homers, the game totally, totally sucked. We lost to Chase Headley & Co., which was hard to ignore, even on this personally historic occasion. But I gained a little more feel for the ballpark that will be mine even as the feeling in my legs began to grow icy by the sixth. I'd like to try Citi Field when it's more familiar and less frigid. I'd like to see the line score next to Mets overshadow whatever's above it, too. Until then, everything's pretty good, not bad, generally incomplete. That'll be filled in eventually. For now, I can fill in this:

4/16/09 Th San Diego 0-1 Maine 1 0-1 L 6-5

It's just the first line in The Second Log, the first night of the rest of my Metgoing life. More whelm presumably to come.

How did we get to Citi Field? Retrace our steps through Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

I've felt the strangest sensation this week that I'm watching neutral-site games. It feels like those March mornings when I struggled to stay awake as the Mets and Cubs visited Tokyo to open the 2000 season. Even a little like the time Dallas Green led his ragtag troops to Monterrey as guests of the Padres in '96 (though nobody from San Diego has copped to nausea or Snickers bars this time around). Everybody in 42 was weird enough last night, but at least that gave me instinctive flashbacks to Butch Huskey hitting and Ron Taylor pitching — no kidding, I actually thought both at stray, inattentive moments. But the place where the Taylors and Huskeys were suddenly activated, on TV…where the hell was that?

My two preseason trips inside Citi Field blessed me with a touch of working knowledge about what's where when actually there, which will come in very handy tonight for my regular-season debut (FYI, a new Log has been secured for the occasion). I'm glad I got my walkarounds in two weekends ago because I don't want navigation to be shrouded in mystery tonight. I want to watch the game. I think I know how to do that.

Yet watching on television is far more bizarre than I would have imagined. And that's where I'll be taking in most of the Citi Field action for the rest of my life. I won't have to worry about a Mets museum being constructed in some far-off nebulous future when I'm looking in from home since I live in something of a Mets museum (albeit amid a mostly uncatalogued collection), but getting a feel that I'm watching the Mets where they play is going to take some doing.

I had Extra Innings on my digital cable for five years partly for the thrill of watching clubs in their new surroundings. I loved the peeks at the parks that opened between 2003 and 2007. It was fascinating to ascertain “wow, Kentucky sure is close to where the Reds play” or “too bad the Philadelphia skyline isn't closer to Citizens Bank” or “who knew there was a city in San Diego?” I've watched the Mets play twice at home on SNY and all I can think — after incidental exposure to the black fence, the brick backstop, the powerful lights and everything else on the camera picks up — is “where the hell is this being televised from?”

Time will take care of that, as I imagine it will all of our concerns that can be achieved via addition as opposed to renovation. During my dry runs at Citi, I saw how one couldn't see all from certain angles. That'll be a tough fix. It is, however, the nature of the Mets fan to adapt. We adapt to surroundings, we adapt to disappointment, we adapt to devastation. Then we queue up and ask for more.

When Stephanie and I attended the open workout, with thousands of other Mets fans happy to be in our new venue on the eve of our new season, all of us wearing our old colors (blue and orange, in case anyone's forgotten), I was thinking we're either the most loyal people in the world or the biggest chumps in captivity. The Mets, as has been well documented, pulled one of the most Amazin' choke job in baseball history the September before last. They replicated the feat to a certain degree a year later. Both times made us miserable and angry and swearing that we couldn't take it anymore. April 2009 has arrived, and we're gonna take it; yes, we're gonna take it…as long as we can find it and afford it.

Paid attendance last night was 35,581. Pretty good by traditional standards for the second chilly date of the season. Lowest home gate since May 2, 2007. That's not a function of Mets fans not coming. That's a function of building it small and thereby assuring not as many will come. But that's just another quirk to grow accustomed to. It's a brave new Met world on TV, a brave new Met world in person. Still, I feel that old sensation of leaning forward toward 7:10 tonight. Some things never change.

Oh, we Mets fans…read all about us in Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.