(Courtesy of StadiumPage.com)

Our friends at the StadiumPage.com have new photos of Shea, Citi Field and New Yankee Stadium.

Take a look at Shea, where the top of the stadium is now coming down. Pretty soon there will be nothing left.

Neat stuff!

Posted under Citi Field, Pictures, Shea Stadium

As promised, here are the photos I took for the Citi Field tour today.

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Posted under Citi Field, Pictures

Before I go off for a Citi Field tour, here’s a little recap:

1. Brian Fuentes will meet with the Mets at the Winter Meetings, accoring to a number of sources.
2. The Mets offered arbitration only to Oliver Perez, meaning they will get draft picks if he signs with anyone else.
3. Nick Evans is back from Puerto Rico with a quad strain.

I will have more later after the tour, including pictures of the new Mets digs.

Posted under Citi Field, New York Mets

Stadium Page posted some more great Citi Field pictures today. As you can see the stadium looks almost ready for the season. And it looks, really, really nice.

Click here for the pics.

Posted under Citi Field

Now that it looks like Citi will survive, the angry columns will probably cease, but here are a few final thoughts before I put this to rest [hopefully].

1. The deal was cut two years ago, so if either side wanted to walk away from a $400 million deal, there will be more involved than just a handshake. There are probably poison pills in the contract where it will cost either side millions to cancel the deal. And of course both sides will say everything is normal, because there’s probably a clause in the language not to speak against the other company involved.
2. Although the stadium has not opened, Citi and the Mets have been working together for the past two years with branding throughout Shea Stadium [i.e ATMs, ect...]. So this is an active deal already.
3. Politicians from both sides of the aisle should think before they speak. If they want the Mets to cancel the deal, then every company that took TARP money should have their stadium naming deals canceled. That means JP Morgan [Chase Field], Bank of America, Wells Fargo [Wachovia Center], PNC and Comerica should have their deals recinded, which will cause more legal issues than need be.
4. It’s easy for Newsday to pick on the Mets, but their parent comapny Cablevision, has a naming deal with Washington Mutual at the Garden, so why not speak up there? WaMu won’t survive, since it’s not a shell company with all the good assets going to JP Morgan.

Posted under Citi Field

Stadium Page posted some really cool pictures of Citi Field last week, where you can see the bullpens and there are some good looks of the field.

Click here for more.

Posted under Citi Field

This is the good people from CNBC, who knows a thing or two about finance:

Click here to watch

I don’t know if the government can come in and cancel the deal, but that may be another way the deal goes away. Personally, I don’t think it will happen, lots of banks took TARP money and their deals won’t be canceled.

Also about half of the 52,000 job cuts are coming from asset sales, meaning these people won’t lose their jobs through Citi, rather they are selling these divisions, so those jobs won’t be part or Citi anymore.

Here’s a really good article on this from ABC News.

Posted under Citi Field

After a bailout last night by Uncle Sam, it seems unlikely the Mets new stadium will have a new name come April. But there are things to still consider.

If Citigroup gets bought out – for one reason or another, the new company will assume the $400 million naming obligation. So no problem. A different name will adorn the marquee.

There are two ways for the deal to fall through and again, it’s very unlikely right now.

1) Citigroup goes out of business.

2) The parts of the company gets sold off so there’s nothing but the debt obligations and bad assets lets on Citi’s books, much like what happened with WaMu. The theater at the Garden is still named the WaMu Theatre, but that will change in the future.

Posted under Citi Field

One of my favorite sites, which I added to the side, is the Stadium Page. The owner posted pictures of Citi Field’s construction and Shea’s demolition over the past few years.

So please visit the site and you will have a real nice archive of the changes in Queens.

Posted under Citi Field, Shea Stadium

I actually love these from 88 WCBS-AM. You can see Shea is now a shell of itself, while Citi Field is ready for the field part.

Also some Yankee Stadium pictures thrown in. Click here to see them.

Posted under Citi Field, Shea Stadium