Obstructed Views? WHAT???

In the New York Times today, Ken Belson has some startling revlations about the New Yankee Stadium and Citi Field... THEY MIGHT HAVE OBSTRUCTED VIEWS!!1!!1!1:

The Mets and the Yankees together have spent more than $2 billion on new stadiums partly to bring fans much closer to the action. But that access comes at a cost. For the best views, fans will have to pay eye-popping prices to sit on the field level and in the decks behind home plate in seats angled toward the infield.

Fans on tighter budgets, though, will have to settle for seats in far-off sections, some of which have obstructed views of the field.

Old news, Ken, old news. New Stadium Insider has been all over this. Even we wrote a post about it.

Here is the part that kills me though (emphasis mine):

Mets fans learned this the hard way on Sunday, when St. John’s and Georgetown played the first game at Citi Field. Steven Gottesman, who has a 15-game ticket plan, went to see his four seats in Section 533, Row 15, near the top of the upper deck down the left-field line. To his “shock and horror,” he could not see the warning track or about 20 feet of the outfield from the left-field line to center field.

Dude, Steven. You bought tickets in Section 533, "near the top of the upper deck". What the fuck did you expect? Have you even been to a ballpark before? A lot of the seats in the upper deck in every park have slightly obstructed views. "Shock and horror" is what you feel when you find a dead body checking into your hotel room, not when the seats for your 15 game package IN SECTION 533 don't have a view of 20 feet of the fucking outfield.

“In other words, I will only know if a home run is hit if I am listening to a radio at the game or I wait to see the sign from the umpire,” Gottesman, 45, said in an e-mail message.

Wow, this guy really has never been to a baseball game before. Steve, if you are unsure if a home run was just hit, ask yourself a few simple questions:

1. How is the crowd reacting?
2. A roaring cheer?
3. A collective sigh?
4. Okay, what team is batting?
5. Is the batter rounding the bases?
6. Did the outfielder throw the ball back into the infield?
7. Are fans of either team high-fiving each other nearby?
8. Does the pitcher look like he just got punched in the stomach?
9. How have I not figured this out by now?
10. Will I ever get this eight precious seconds of my life back?

Gottesman added: “If Endy Chávez made his catch in this new stadium and I had been there, I would not have seen it.”

No, you might not have theoretically seen it (leaving aside the fact that this is a different park), but you would have experienced the rest of Shea Stadium going absolutley out of their minds. You know where you could have viewed it perfectly? At home on your HDTV.

You don't go to a game to see every single thing that happens, Steve. You go to take in the atmopshere, and to say that you were there when it occurred. I was at a game in 2005 where Bernie Williams hit a walk off 2 run HR in the bottom 11th inning into the short porch in right. I was in the right field upper deck and couldnt see it acutally leave the park, but I knew about two thirds of a second after it happened. If you were at Game 7 of the 2006 NLCS and had your view obscured, do you really think you'd be bitching about the fact that you couldn't see that one play?

Steve, if you are reading (doubtful), stop being a douche and sell your tickets to someone who might actually appreciate being at the game. I'm not even a Mets fan and I'd buy a few.