An Amazing Day at Citi Field 2025

 An Amazing Day a Mets fan fest was a big success at Citi Field. The Mets Universe with many alumni players from the past as well as current days players were on hand to speak on panel discussions, take photo ops & sign autographs. 

The discussion panels were held in the Piazza Club throughout the day with seating on a first come basis with also plenty of standing room.  The discussion topics included wide range of Mets history.

There was a special panel with the beloved Broadcast team of Gary, Keith & Ron. They shared stories & laughs from their glorious twenty years together in the booth.

Another panel featured some of the elite Mets Retired Number players sharing stories of their careers (Mike Piazza, Keith Hernandez, Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry & David Wright).

The 1999/2000 NL Champion Millennium Mets also had a panel with recollections of those two exciting years in Mets history. (Bobby Valentine, Mike Piazza, John Franco, Robin Ventura, Todd Zeile, Edgardo Alfonso & Benny Agbayani). 

The legendary 1986 World Champion Mets had a panel of six players recalling some of that year's team highlights in the regular & post seasons. (Dwight Gooden, Mookie Wilson, Tim Teufel, Kevin Mitchell, Ray Knight & Roger McDowell) 

The 2015 NL Champions who are celebrating their tenth anniversary this season shared some great highlights & tales from that season. (David Wright, Matt Harvey & Jon Neise).

Some of the 2024 Mets (Carlos Mendoza, Brandon Nimmo, Mark Vientos, Jesse Winker & Francisco Lindor) spoke of the exciting season they had & optimism of the season ahead. Another panel of new players featured the latest pitching additions (AJ Minter, Clay Holmes & Frankie Montas) excited about their time upcoming in New York.

New Road Uniforms: The Mets also unveiled a new all blue script written New York road jersey for the upcoming season. A panel of Francisco Lindor, Starling Marte, Edwin Diaz & David Peterson talking about that & of all things fashion?? Really??

Mets GM David Stearns & owner Steve Cohen joined by manager Carlos Mendoza were also on a panel discussion where the owner was openly honest about the unlikely hood of Pete Alonso returning. Although the news was not something the fans wanted to hear as they kept chanting "sign Pete" throughout the day, Cohen's willingness to be straight forward must certainly be acknowledged.

Among the events with the price of admission, was an autograph session held in different time slots.  Unfortunately, those lines for the autograph sessions were very long & very time consuming. 

The session had a past player & a present player signing autographs but only the poster given out that day. And unfortunately, no photo ops were offered with that player. 

Also, it was a mystery of who you would get assigned too until you got into the tent. I was lucky to meet the legendary Bobby V, Bobby Valentine, along with new Mets pitcher, Dylan Covey.

Jon Neise

Your ticket also included entry to an Alumni Photo / Autograph opportunity. This was a good session, although there was another line it wasn't as long as the other autograph area. 

Here you got to meet two players, get autograph's & have your picture taken with a various Mets player. A 5x3 picture was developed & given to you with a paper frame.

There was a lot of things going on throughout the ballpark, so it was impossible to take in everything.

Other attractions included entrance to the Mets clubhouse & locker room. Accessibility to the bullpen area where you could tour the bull pen & the area behind the right field fence under the large scoreboard. You could even throw pitches & have the speed measured. 

The indoor batting cage area was open for fans to see as well as take swings. I heard from some folks who said that some of the Mets players & alumni came in to throw some pitches to them.

There was another photo-op in the press room, where you could take your photo with cut outs of Juan Soto, David Stearns & Steve Cohen behind the press table. 

Also access to the press conference podium. The press room also featured an OMG photo op completes with an OMG sign & life size photo of Jose Iglesias on the field.

The Mets Museum was also open & there were various interesting pop-up exhibits throughout the event. Including jerseys, memorabilia, game used items & one interesting display of some of the champagne bottles from the 2024 post season celebrations.

Many of the area would have various Mets pop up & greet the fans being very available. I think I saw the most players in the hallways as they were moving around to their various locations. They were all accommodating & very friendly too. It was a day to see the human side of players 

It was a great day for the fans, as every seemed to be enjoying something that was offered. There was a lot of enthusiasm around Citi Field for the upcoming season.

1960s Mets: Two of the oldest Mets alumni to attend were Original 1962 Met Craig Anderson & 1964-1967 Mets pitcher Jack Fisher who started the first game ever played at Shea Stadium. When I yelled out his name, he stopped & waved, happy someone knew him. Unfortunately, I didn't get over to them to take pictures as they were being escorted some place along with their wives.