If you’re interested in a fantastic read, for Page 2 on ESPN.com, Pulitzer Prize winning reporter J.R. Moehringer writes a goodbye of sorts to Shea Stadium. 

Moehringer, a correspondent for the LA Times, grew up in Manhasset, New York, which is very near Shea Stadium.  In the article, Moehringer describes his Shea Stadium story with his cousin McGraw, who as Moehringer notes has Vin Scully calling the Bill Buckner play as his ring tone. 

In one particular passage, Moehringer writes quite beautifully about Shea and articulates something that many Mets fans would certainly agree with:

Shea is often compared to a concrete doughnut, a giant toilet, but seldom to a house of worship. Shea is routinely dismissed as a sin against aesthetics, and telling people you love it is like saying you love a nuclear reactor. Or a landfill. Built during a benighted period in American architecture, named after a lawyer, set virtually alongside the taxiways at LaGuardia, Shea has long been criticized, but recently it has become a laughingstock. Personally, I always found Shea beautiful, in its homely way, but I no longer admit this in public. I can’t bear people cocking one eyebrow and saying, “Shea? Really?”

All love is indefensible, especially stadium love, which has nothing to do with aesthetics. The first stadium you see is the one you love, end of story. Maybe not see, but enter, since every baseball stadium is a complex delivery mechanism for that first view of its inner pastoral utopia.

Firstly, Moehringer is a great writer and this piece is nothing short of phenomenal. 

Second of all, what a great idea McGraw had- having the Bill Buckner call as his ring tone.