Karen was reading one of the local Queens newspapers and saw a review of the book seen above. I couldn't resist so I bought the paper version of it on Amazon instead of the Kindle version. 1975 was a unique year in New York baseball history as the Mets, Jets, Yankees and Giants played at Shea Stadium. From 1964-84 the Mets and Jets shared big Shea, but the original Yankee Stadium was being reconstructed at that time compelling the Yankees to play there. The football Giants played most of the 1973 season and all of 1974 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven. They were 1-11 in New Haven and thought that the inconvenience of playing at Shea was less than forcing their fans to drive 75 miles.
The author, Brett Topel, gives a good history of the events leading up to this unique situation and describes in detail many of the events of that year. Bill Virdon was the only Yankee manager never to have won in the Bronx as the two years he managed the Bombers played at Shea. He was replaced late in the season by Billy Martin. Likewise in that years the Mets fired Yogi Berra as manager and hired Roy McMillan as interim manager. I am almost finished reading book.
When I ride the #7 train in the morning I still look at at the parking lot where Shea Stadium stood. "It was a dump, but it was our dump."
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