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48,736 See Bucs Flush Mets at New Shea Stadium

(Originally published by the Daily News on Saturday, April 18, 1964, written by Dick Young)

You take a shabby downtrodden bunch of Mets, and you wrap them in a spanking new ballpark that cost somebody $25 million bucks and what have you got? A shabby, downtrodden bunch of Mets, still losing, this time 4-3 to Pitt, and thereby christening Shea Stadium with tears of defeat.

For a time yesterday, the 48,736 howlers wallowing in the excelsior freshness of the luxurious ballpark, believed their beggars had become princes, but a 3-1 lead was eventually blown, a run at a time, as Willie Stargell, a four-hit man, carried the winning run across in the ninth.