In 1975, Shea Stadium was the place to play for the Mets, the Yankees, the Jets and the Giants

Fifty years ago, Shea Stadium was the only place to be.

That’s not an ad campaign. That's a fact.

In 1975, the circular ballpark in Flushing and famously in the flight path of jet planes landing at nearby LaGuardia Airport, was the home field for all of New York’s professional outdoor sports teams. The Yankees and Giants joined the  then-permanent resident Mets and Jets in playing their home games at Shea.

Never before has that happened in professional sports history. It was one time too many for Shea head groundskeeper Pete Flynn, who held the position from 1974-2001. “It was a nightmare,” Flynn said in a 2008 interview.

“It was really tough. Very seldom was there a day off to do anything with the field,” said Flynn, who died in 2017. “Maybe sometimes on a Monday both [baseball] teams would be off, but it was nearly impossible to keep it looking good. We used regular topsoil in those days, not like the sand they use today. The drainage was bad. It was a mess.”

It also was a necessity. The Yankees played at Shea during the 1974 and ‘75 seasons while their stadium in the Bronx was being renovated. The Giants had played at New Haven’s Yale Bowl in 1973 and '74 while Giants Stadium was under construction in the Meadowlands. They were unsatisfied with the conditions at the Yale Bowl and wanted to get back to the New York City area, so they struck a deal to play at Shea for one season.

The field wasn’t the only thing that suffered in 1975. The baseball teams underperformed, both finishing third in their divisions, though they managed winning seasons. The Yankees were 83-77. The Mets wound up 82-80. Both football fields would’ve been thrilled with .500 seasons. The Jets were 3-11; the Giants were 5-9. Each finished fourth in its division.

The big winners? The grounds crews. Their union worked out a deal in which the Yankees’ crew, under Jimmy Esposito, was guaranteed 40 hours a week, even if the Yankees were away. But Flynn’s gang did even better. “We were guaranteed more overtime because it was the Mets’ field,” he said.

It looked more like a battlefield on June 10, 1975, when the Yankees invited  Gen. William Westmoreland and others to celebrate the United States Army’s 200th birthday. As Yankees director of media relations Marty Appel recalled, “There was a 21-gun salute with cannons firing in the outfield. They weren't firing weaponry, but the reverberations from the cannons knocked the fence down and started a fire, to the embarrassment and consternation of all. But a temporary fence was erected in time for the ballgame.”

Little fence-mending was needed otherwise. ”The front-office people got along well and the Mets were great in accommodating us and our needs,” Appel said. “The Yankees used the Jets’ clubhouse, so at least we had a clubhouse to ourselves. We didn't have to share it with the Mets and put everything away when our homestand was over.”

There was no room at Shea, however, for the Yankees’ front office and public relations department, which took office space across Roosevelt Avenue at the old 1964 World’s Fair site. That was only a minor inconvenience until the night of Aug. 1, when the Yankees fired manager Bill Virdon and announced Billy Martin as the replacement.

“After the game, Virdon had to leave Shea and traipse back to [president] Gabe Paul’s office to be told the news,” Appel said. “We were scrambling to type press releases with the news and get ready for the Billy announcement the next day, which was also  Old-Timer's Day.”

It turned out to be a tough year on the field and for the field in 1975. “The turf was really a wreck by the end of the season,” Appel remembered. Both baseball teams concluded their regular season on Sept. 28. The NFL adjusted its schedule to have the Giants play their first three games on the road and not return to Shea until Oct. 12. The Jets opened with two road games, a home game on Oct. 5, and a road game on Oct. 12.

Shea wound up hosting all four teams on consecutive Sundays: Mets (Sept. 21), Yankees (Sept. 28), Jets (Oct. 5) and Giants (Oct.12).

What if the Yanks and/or the Mets had made deep-October postseason runs? How would Flynn and his crew have dealt with keeping Shea fit for baseball and football at the same time?

Said Flynn, “That would have been terrible.”