These two have had an Amazin’ run.
A pair of beer-slinging Citi Field vendors said there’s no secret what’s made them Mets stadium legends with close to a century of service between them – like a Dwight Gooden Uncle Charlie, it’s all in the delivery.
“After 10,000 events, you don’t have to practice,” said Raymond Acceta, who along with his colleague Bobby Lee has been selling suds and food to the Mets faithful since the mid-70s. That’s a good 20 years before current star first basemen Pete Alonso was even born for those keeping track.
“Get your hot dogs here! Coney Island chickens! Ice-cold beer! Who’s hungry?” is Acceta’s go-to pitch.
Instead, Lee relies on the classic: “Hey, cold beer! Get your ice-cold beer!” as he lugs the hefty cooler through the concourse level seats to the right of home plate.
“I’m a graduate of VTI: the Vendor Training Institute,” Lee joked, adding that the success of a concessions salesman really boils down to their voice – and the Flushing native has a New Yorker bellow on his side.
Ya gotta believe in the duo’s credentials: Acceta and Lee are third-generation stadium vendors who each started their craft at age 15, and whose shouts are now as familiar to Mets diehards as the roar of the 7-train and the never-ending “Let’s Go Mets” chant.
The Post spoke with the vendors before a recent game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday, getting an inside peek into their 99 years combined at Citi Field and its predecessor Shea Stadium that have been packed with ups and downs and really downs.
Much like the Amazins themselves, Acceta and his concessions colleagues huddled up for a pre-game pep-talk, where they reviewed how many fans were in the stands that night, where the focus for the selling should be and how they could improve from the previous homestand’s numbers.
Also like the Mets, the vendors, working for food company Aramark, adhere to a strict ranking system where the most senior hocker gets their choice of beer, candy or hot dogs to sell.
With a firm foothold as No. 9, Acceta consistently opts for all three. Every game, he takes his hefty rolling cart to Section 405 on the stadium’s sixth-level pavilion, where the crowds are quieter but always come hungry.
And the Old Mill Basin native – who has been selling beers at baseball games since before he could drink them – has earned the peace of the upper deck. Acceta worked through the ’70s recession, a World Series win, a stadium change, a global pandemic and plenty of rowdy crowds.
“There’s some good stories,” Acceta said – an understatement, to say the least.
“Once at Shea, I was selling beer and I had a beer bucket over the head. Foul ball came and I was actually able to catch the foul ball in the bucket. Few and only times that’s ever happened! I went back down to see, ‘Oh look at that!’ and next thing I know, I saw a fan’s hand grab it and take the ball out.”
It runs in the family
Acceta started his five-decade-long career at just 15 years old – when legendary pitcher Tom Seaver played his penultimate season as a Met before taking a nine-year hiatus from the team – but his intrigue with the sport started at a much younger age.
Working in concessions is something of a family affair for the Accetas: The “family history started in 1921” when his grandfather started working as a groundskeeper at the then-New York Giants homefield of the Polo Grounds, influencing his father to take up a job as a vendor until the Manhattan stadium closed in 1963. His grandfather retired, but his dad moved right to Shea Stadium.
“My father was taking me into the stadiums with him to show me the craft a little bit,” Acceta recalled.
What started as a side gig to pay for his New York University School of Dentistry education turned into something much greater – and even shaped the course of his life to come. When a young Acceta realized the doctor path wasn’t right for him, a fellow vendor helped him realize his true passion as a special needs educator.
He worked 12 months out of the year at the Brooklyn developmental disability school – while still showing up to the dozens of home games to sell his “Coney Island chicken” – which he says is a leftover from the New York Dodgers days when vendors used the strange phrase to draw in curious crowds just to sell them a Nathan’s hot dog.
That connection may be lost on some – and Bobby Lee says he doesn’t understand it, despite also clocking in 50 years as a concessions vendor, most of that time alongside his buddy Acceta.
Lee, like Acceta, is a third-generation vendor whose grandfather worked for the Yankees and whose father at the Polo Grounds. He vividly remembers his first day working a Jets football game at Shea Stadium as a 15-year-old in 1974, selling Sun Dew Orange Drink for $0.35.
He stuck with the gig through 50 years, two other careers – first as a mailman and then as a New York City firefighter – and somehow even moving to Kansas City, Missouri, a dedicated journey that puts the most dramatic super-commuters to shame.
“The Mets have basically 12 homesteads a year, ranging between five and 10 games. Each January schedules already out I start looking at the best prices on flights and work my magic. If you look at my phone, I got all my flights set for the year,” Lee said, boasting that he’s only missed one game thanks to a flight delay in his 22 years of making the 2-and-a-half hour commute.
Mets memory makers
The tedious trip is worth it for Lee, who cherishes the “camaraderie” of his fellow vendors and the relationships he’s forged over the decades with patrons.
He recalled one game during his 15-year stint hocking cotton candy when a young lady approached him and asked him for a picture. Although surprised, Lee obliged before asking her what the picture was for.
“Every Sunday my dad would come to the game and buy cotton candy from you,” the young woman told Lee.
“There’s people that we hear from all the time. If you miss a couple of games, people come up and ask, ‘What are you doing? Is something wrong? Is everything OK?’”
Plenty of Lee’s joyous memories have become synonymous with the Mets, and his time working the stands has also served as a reprieve from his time in the FDNY.
The retired firefighter was one of hundreds who rushed to the destruction zone after the Twin Towers came down, an experience he described as “unimaginable” and “pretty brutal.”
Baseball games across the nation were canceled for five days until the Mets reignited the season with an emotional game that saw Marc Anthony sing the National Anthem, Liza Minelli belt “New York, New York” and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani honored with a standing ovation.
“It’s pretty tough,” Lee said. “Every anniversary, the stadium always does something here and it’s always a little tough for me because I’m usually coming from the ceremony in the city.”
The hero retired in 2002 and soon after moved to Missouri, but has continued coming back several times each year, the trips providing a good excuse to also catch up with his FDNY buddies.
When asked about a family memory from his time as a vendor, Lee offered up two: watching the notoriously shaky upper deck at Shea Stadium bounce fervently during a World Series game, and being the first one to respond when a foul ball sailed into the stands and smacked a young boy square in the face.
“The best thing they did for us was putting those nets up. We don’t have to worry about ducking anymore,” Lee said.
Game changers for a changing game
There are few who would be better to tell the story of how New York City baseball evolved over the last five decades than Acceto and Lee.
The duo has watched the roster change dozens of times over, the drinking age change to 21, COVID-19 put an end to the use of cash and, of course, the Mets move into an entirely new stadium in 2009.
The move was bittersweet for the pair, both of whose fathers also hocked beer in the very same stands: “You never like to see your memories leave,” Acceto said aptly.
The massive physical environmental switch also spurred an emotional one, however, that has encouraged a more invigored energy inside Citi Field.
One of the biggest, but most subtle, changes is the type of people who come to watch the Amazins’ play. With more interactive games for fans to play and goodies to munch on, the venue now attracts much more than typical baseball fans.
“It’s not just a ball game anymore. There are so many opportunities to do so many different things in the stadium,” Acceto said. “It’s more than just coming to the game, getting a beer and watching the game.”
With more years put in than most others would dream, Acceto and Lee still have a few more years in them of carrying their hefty beer bins and carts around – but both agree that retirement is on the horizon.
What it will take for the pair — who have each retired from their civil service jobs — to call it quits at Citi Field, however, is a mystery.
“I always said I would stay until they won a World Series. Of course, they did that and I said, ‘Okay, I’ll stay for the Subway Series,’ ‘I’ll stay utill they build the new stadium, ‘I’ll stay for an all-star game,’” Lee said. “I’m still here!”
