By STEPHEN McGUIRE

The spirit of the game is something that has long been a part of Queens history and Queens recreation. We know how to play, we play hard, and we keep playing no matter what the odds are or who tells us to stop.

What follows is a look at just a few of the chapters in Queens’ legacy of sports.

Shea Stadium was named for William Shea, the attorney responsible for bringing National League baseball back to New York City.

It cost $28 million to build and took 29 months from its groundbreaking in October 1961 to its dedication on April 17, 1964.

Future star of the game smacks one out of a local ballpark.

The home of the Mets and the football Jets, it was originally going to be called Flushing Meadow Park, but afterwards many in municipal government started a movement to name it for Shea.

Containing 24 ramps and 21 escalators it was the first stadium able to be converted from baseball to football and back by use of motor operated stands that moved on underground tracks.

Legend has it that when city officials scouted the location to build a ballpark, they went in the winter when the LaGuardia Airport flight paths were different.

Planners never anticipated that the sounds of planes passing overhead would make Shea Stadium the noisiest in all of major league baseball.

When the stadium opened in 1964 it was christened with "Dodgers Holy Water" from the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn and water from the Harlem River at the exact location where it passed the Polo Grounds—the former home of the New York Giants.

In 1974 and 1975 the New York Yankees played home games at Shea while a crumbling Yankee Stadium was undergoing repairs.

Over the years, Shea Stadium has been the setting for several historic events including visits by Pope John Paul II, Emperor Hirohito of Japan and President Bill Clinton.

The New York Jets flew to New Jersey in 1984 after almost 20 years at Shea Stadium.

The New York Jets called Shea Stadium home from 1964 to 1983.

Before their victory in Super Bowl III, "Broadway" Joe Namath and the Jets won the AFL Championship game at Shea.

Becoming the first player to run more than 2,000 yards, the Buffalo Bills’ O.J. Simpson made history when he achieved the milestone against the Jets at Shea Stadium in 1973.

In 1984 the Jets packed their bags and moved to Giants Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey.

Between 1914 and 1977 some of the greatest moments in tennis happened in Forest Hills.

Over the years the greats of the game, with names like Jimmy Connors, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert and John McEnroe, showed their prowess on the courts of the West Side Tennis Club.

In 1968, Arthur Ashe, who has a stadium named for him at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, became the first African-American man to win the U.S. Open.

During the 1950’s and 1960’s the stadium was also used as a performance venue with Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan all having entertained there.

The stadium also served as a backdrop for the 1950 Alfred Hitchcock film "Strangers on a Train."

The Forest Hills property was bought in 1913 and the next year the Davis Cup Challenge Round match was held there.

Forest Hills continued to be the host of the top tennis events in the country until 1977 when spectator demand exceeded the capacity of its longtime home.

St. John’s hoopster rises above the competition for a jump shot.

Flushing Meadows-Corona Park became the country’s new home to professional tennis when the U.S. Open tournament moved there in 1978.

Each year in late August, the Open draws more than a half a million fans who come from all over the world to take part in the two week tennis extravaganza.

1997 marked the grand opening of the 22,500 seat Arthur Ashe Stadium.

Last year a rededication ceremony was held at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows for Louis Armstrong Stadium – named for the late jazz great who made Queens his home.

Before being renamed Armstrong Stadium, the arena was known as the Singer Bowl and served as the main venue for several concerts, ceremonies and sporting events at the 1964 World’s Fair.

Operated originally by the Queens County Jockey Club, this thoroughbred racetrack first opened in 1894.

Aqueduct became the site of some of horse-racing’s most memorable moments including the 1944 Carter Handicap which ended in a triple dead heat.

The track was renovated in the late 1950’s and in the 1960’s was the leading betting racetrack in the United States.

Born in Italy, this game of precision and power has established roots at various points throughout the borough.

Bocce player puts sauce in his toss at Corona’s Spaghetti Park. Tribune Photo By Liz Goff

At William E. Moore Park in Corona –known by locals as "Spaghetti Alley"—you can find some of the most serious bocce players in the borough.

In warm weather, the park is often packed with both players and spectators as Italian music plays from a makeshift sound system comprised of a loudspeaker attached to a tree.

Other bocce hotspots include the courts at Juniper Valley – home of the city-wide bocce tournament – and designated playing areas in Cunningham, Kissena and Maurice Parks.

The New York area is considered to be the center of cricket in North America with several games being played right here in Queens.

The cricket season usually begins in April and lasts through October.

Locally, cricket games take place on weekends in Baisley, Kissena, Edgemere and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.

For more information about cricket on the web go to www.cricket.com.

And all of this is not to mention the over 7,000 acres of parkland in Queens where local residents can do everything from play ball to swim, skate to fly a kite alongside the shore in their own fields of dreams and little league arenas.