Citi Field in Flushing will be rocking this evening when the New York Mets take the field for the first game of the National League Championship Series (NLCS) against the Chicago Cubs.
Fresh off their nail-biting victory against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series, the Mets will be greeted by a sellout crowd at 8:07 p.m. tonight, with pitcher Matt Harvey squaring off against the Cubs’ Jon Lester. The two teams will play Game 2 at the same time Sunday night.
The Mets and the MTA advise fans lucky enough to have tickets to use public transportation to and from the games. The MTA will provide extra 7 train service — including a “super-shuttle” from Mets-Willets Point stopping at Woodside-61st Street, Queensboro Plaza, Court Square and all four stops in Manhattan — following each game. It will also run a special express “Train of Many Colors,” an 11-car assortment of vintage IRT cars, that will depart 34th Street-Hudson Yards at 6:30 p.m.
Fans can also take the Long Island Rail Road, which operates trains to and from the Mets-Willets Point station every 30 minutes, as well as the Q19, Q48 and Q66 buses, which stop at or a few blocks near Citi Field.
Baseball fans know what’s at stake in this series involving two clubs with histories of futility. The Mets are looking for their first World Series appearance since the Clinton administration, while the Cubs are looking to get to the Fall Classic for the first time since Harry Truman sat in the Oval Office.
Buoyed by a slate of young pitching phenoms including Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Noah Syndergaard, Steven Matz and Jeurys Familia, the Mets won 90 games en route to the National League Eastern Division title, securing their first postseason berth since 2006. In beating the Dodgers in the Division Series, the Mets overcame two of the best starting pitchers in baseball and a controversial slide that left shortstop Ruben Tejada.
The Cubs won this year’s Wild Card Game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, then ousted the St. Louis Cardinals in the Division Series, bolstered by the strength of a young lineup of sluggers including Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber, as well as starting pitchers Jake Arietta and Lester.
With so much at stake, the Queens state Senate delegation, led by state Senator Joseph Addabbo, announced on Friday it is negotiating a friendly wager with its counterparts in the Illinois state Senate. The terms of the bet will reportedly be announced Monday, but Addabbo and his colleagues are confident the Mets will come out on top.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown also got into the act Saturday, wagering with his counterpart in Chicago — Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez — an array of Italian sandwiches from Mama’s of Corona against a shipment of Chicago deep-dish pizza “or whatever Windy City delicacy State’s Attorney Alvarez would like to wager.”
The entire NLCS can be seen on the cable network TBS and heard on WOR-AM radio.
Fans watching the games at Citi Field tonight or tomorrow, or watching them from a Queens bar or restaurant, are invited to tweet their pictures to us, using the hashtag #QNSMets.
