Idiot Problems at New Shea

The Brewers' series at the Mets' new CitiField have brought up two major design flaws.

The first is that the visitor's bullpen has little-to-no view of the playing field. According to reliever Todd Coffey, they can see a bit of outfield and second base, but that's about it. And Coffey's not shy about his opinion on the bullpen:

"It's horrible. It's awful. It's the worst bullpen I've ever been in...It's a bad design."

There is a small monitor in the bullpen, but it's actually the Mets TV broadcast feed, so it's on a 5 second delay.

According to Bullpen Catcher Marcus Hanel, the monitor is actually mounted behind the bench, so the guys literally can't sit on the bench and see any version of the game, live or broadcast - they have to turn and watch over their shoulder.

I had heard on the radio yesterday that Coffey joked on Friday that they were closer to one of the field's fancy new restaurants than the field and he was considering going to get food, since there were better views from there.

On the radio today, Uecker had an inning-long rant about the design of the visitor's radio booth - or rather, the seating around them. According to Uecker, there are about six or seven seats in front of them. Whenever one of those people is standing, the radio booth loses all visibility of the batter, catcher and home plate.

Later, watching the game on TV, those announcers also complained about the booth, but didn't elaborate as to why.

Uecker couldn't believe that no one had thought to make sure the booths had clear sight lines and even said that were those six seats about 2 feet further back, they wouldn't cause problems.