Four teams, 175 games, 3,738,546 fans—one stadium. If 1975 wasn’t the most successful year in New York sports—and it wasn’t—then it was certainly one of the oddest. For that one crazy season, all four New York teams—the Mets, Jets, Yankees, and Giants—called Shea Stadium home. When Shea was Home includes interviews with the stadium’s former head groundskeeper, the legendary Pete Flynn, as well as Jerry Koosman, Bud Harrelson and Ed Kranepool of the Mets, Giants owner John Mara, Rich Caster of the Jets, former Super Bowl MVP quarterback Doug Williams, who played that year at Shea for Grambling, and many more! This well-written narrative includes information about the stadium, the teams, the players, how the teams coexisted, and how they didn't. When Shea was Home takes New York sports fans on a unique trip down memory lane, offering context on the national and local history and culture of the time. It is perfect for the avid New York sports aficionado—regardless of team allegiance! Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

Written in a personal, moving, and humorous style, The Last Days of Shea chronicles the New York Mets from October 2006, when the team lost the National League Championship Series, to October 2008, when the team began to dismantle its antiquated, inadequate, and dearly loved Shea Stadium. The book is about following a baseball team with one's heart, mind, and soul. It represents the experience of being in a crowd at a ballpark, following a pennant race, enduring an off season, experiencing streaks, slumps, triumph and heartbreak. All of this is represented against the imminent destruction of a stadium "that is not likely to be represented as well in the perfect and profitable little park that will replace it."

Few remember that Shea Stadium—and indeed the Mets baseball club itself—arose out of a dispute between two oversized egos: New York City official Robert Moses and Brooklyn Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley. While O’Malley wanted complete control over a new stadium and all of its concessions in Brooklyn, Moses insisted that the stadium be built by the city in Queens and leased to the Dodgers. The impasse led to the Dodgers following the Giants out to the West Coast, where The City of Los Angeles granted O’Malley all of the concessions he had sought in New York. With now no National League team in the New York area, the National League office awarded a new franchise to the city in 1960 on conditional that it fund and build a new stadium, which the Mets (and later the AFL Jets) would lease. The stadium was named in honor of William Shea, the person most responsible for returning National League baseball to New York. Over its forty-four year existence Shea Stadium witnessed a colorful cavalcade of sporting and entertainment events, all detailed in this lively, skimable tribute to a memorable New York landmark. It’s all here: the memorable games; the unforgettable characters such as Tom Seaver, Joe “Willie” Namath, and Seinfeld buddy Keith Hernandez; and even the solemn moments such as when Shea was used as a staging area for first responders after 9/11. By the time of its demolition in 2008, the Mets had played more games at Shea than the Dodgers had ever played at Ebbets Field, and the stadium had hosted seven National League Championship Series, four World Series, three Jets playoff games, and the American Football League Championship game in 1968.

Shea Bradshaw wakes up after a party with memory loss, ill and in someone else's bed--and there are two more people in the bed with him. Shea is Navy EOD, on detail in Norfolk after the death of his partner during the defusing of an IED in Afghanistan. Shea's head is not in a good place; he's suicidal. In addition, his telekinetic abilities seem to be reacting badly to his emotional stress. Like his brother Cam, Shea is psi. He keeps it a secret, though it can't stay that way much longer. Every flashback and emotional crisis results in severe TK incidents. Lynn Bayliss is an ex-military interrogator with issues of her own. Skip Monacheke is a State cop. The two of them have a "friends with benefits thing" going on and they like to share occasionally. When they rescue Shea from a drugged drink at that party and then can't get any sort of coherence from him, they take him home; they have no idea what they are about to let themselves in for. There are secrets and psi all around. Shea needs help and Cam, Shea's brother, has Division P as a resource. But someone's gunning for Division P and it all gets tangled together. Can three people find their way to each other in the middle of chaos and crises?