SHEA STADIUM: Ball park steel here in Rockaway Township

Jeez…I thought they were done dropping loads.

Twisted like a sentence uttered by Casey Stengal, the steel remnants of Shea Stadium rest in a heap in the expansive yard of J.L. Southard Salvage, Inc., in the Marcella section of the township. The cut up girders that shook from the roar of Mets’ fans since 1964 are now piled in a silent heap. The unmistakable Mets blue showing on some of the steel beams set them apart from the portions of steel skeletons that used to be one of parking garages on the Flushing, N.Y. site.

No roar of the crowd this Sunday afternoon in the quiet wooded setting in Marcella. No jets screaming overhead, either ... just the cry of a lone circling hawk.

John L. Southard Jr., 38, owns the salvage company has become the halfway house for this Shea steel as it awaits the day it will be melted down for use elsewhere.

...“Yeah ... people have called after hearing we’re getting pieces of Shea Stadium,” Southard says. “They ask if they can come in and get a piece of steel or something ... but that’s all we have, the steel.

“We try to accommodate them ... after all, I do have three kids to put through college.”