Has it been 45 years already? With Shea Stadium in its final week of regular season baseball and there being no guarantees of postseason play, we figured now was as good a time as any to say our fond farewells to Shea while also saying hello to CitiField. To help us out, we enlisted several writers to answer a quick questionnaire about their favorite memory of Shea and their hopes for the new stadium. We’ll be running them all week, closing with a staff roundtable. We’ve already presented MetsBlog.com’s Matt Cerrone and author Matt Silverman.

Today, we’re thrilled to question Howard Megdal, who covers baseball for the New York Observer and has also been featured at ESPN.com, as well as other outlets. Regular readers will also recognize Howard as the creative genius behind the haikus included in our daily game recaps. His first book, The Baseball Talmud: Koufax, Greenberg, and the Quest for the Ultimate Jewish All-Star Team, is due out next March.

What are you going to miss most about Shea? What is your favorite Shea memory?

There is the simple charm of coming to Shea Stadium for nearly any game, and at the same place that Cleon Jones caught the last out of the 1969 World Series, where Mookie hit the grounder, where Anthony Young lost so many in a row, buying tickets day of the game and walking in. I suspect that is over forever-even if I can buy day-of-game tickets, I won’t be able to show my kids where Agee hit the ball, where their mother and I saw our first game together. This is mostly because I don’t have kids, but still.

My best Shea memory had to be in college, when I kept re-dialing the phone until I got obstructed view tickets in Loge, two of them, so my father and I could watch Bobby Jones pitch a one-hitter to defeat the Giants in the 2000 NLDS.

What are you looking forward to most about CitiField?

When I go to the bathroom, I suspect there will be paper towels. The food–might it not be cold? I don’t mind if the ices are cold–I’m talking about hot dogs. And if I’m in an Upper Box, my view will be all game, not half game, half red bar.

Would you like to see CitiField be a pitcher’s park like Shea? Do you want them to carry over the apple?

I would be extremely disappointed if Shea were not a pitcher’s park. Did you watch that last series in Philadelphia? Pop flies are home runs. Just ridiculous.

A failure to carry over the apple, a sight that followed so many Dave Kingman home runs, would be as insulting as, well, Dave Kingman.

What do you think, if anything, should be done about the surrounding area (Willets Point) in the wake of the new stadium? Do you think that’s a problem?

Look, I’d like that area to be filled with restaurants so I can take my wife someplace to eat things other than a carburetor. Let’s hope that happens. I think the chances that happens by Opening Day 2009 are very slight, given the utter lack of change in the area.

Are you excited about CitiField, and do you think there is enough differentiation among the new “mock-retro” ballparks (CitiField, Camden Yards, New Yankee, New Busch, etc.) to make them unique? What, if anything, would like to see built for the next wave of ballparks (the two Florida teams, expansion franchises, etc.)?

I am excited at the opportunity to see a new ballpark–and as I never got the chance to see a game at Ebbets Field, I am hoping to approximate the experience. But as far as I’m concerned, if a ballpark has good views all over the ballpark, I have no complaints if it is similar to another park that does this as well. I wish tickets were $1, but that is not to be. I remember going to a Phillies game in Veterans Stadium for free with a ticket that came in a hot dog wrapper. Don’t count on CitiField being accessible in hot dog wrappers.

What, to you, makes a good ballpark?

I grew up going to games at the Vet. I saw games at Olympic Stadium. And my favorite venue for seeing games is Shea Stadium. I watched games at Wahconah Park in Pittsfield that got interrupted by sun delays. So anywhere they play baseball is a great place, in my opinion.