Matthews: Replay reveals another annoying tic at Citi Field

~~####~~####~~Coprographia Alert!~~####~~####~~

You know that at some point, that conversation will take place between Jeff Wilpon, architect of the monstrosity that is the new home of the Mets, and his dad Fred, who apparently doesn’t care about much beyond the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

You just wish someone would have told Kid Wilpon, and Lonn Trost, his counterpart across town, that the ballparks are not supposed to be the stars of the show, the ballplayers are.

Both of them have tried oh-so-hard to force things into their new playpens - in the Bronx, a ridiculous overdose of luxury and in Flushing, a cloying collection of tics that are supposed to be nostalgic, but are in reality just silly and contrived - but all they have added to the mix is distraction and controversy.

...Clearly, on those nights when Papa Wilpon was waxing rhapsodic over Ebbets Field to Little Jeffy, he neglected to mention that its little eccentricities were born of the necessity of having been shoehorned into the heart of a bustling neighborhood, not to satisfy some yuppie’s idea of charm or evoke memories of an old man’s childhood.

The Mets, on the other hand, had plenty of money and plenty of choices, a decade to plan it and $800 million to spend on it.

All that time and all that money. Couldn’t they have simply built a ballpark?