I'll leave the account of the feeling in the park to my co-blogger (probably making his way into the cheerfully crowded front car of a 7 train as I type) and concentrate (mostly) on the broadcast. Because the second Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling came back into the booth from the celebration on the field, […]

All hail our most-reliable pitcher, the glue of the rotation, the man we turn to in times of need. All hail…John Maine?

Yep, John Maine. Who should stand as just the latest reminder that as a collective fan base, we say a lot but know a little.

Consider the many lives — in 2006 alone — of […]

…baseball is a masterpiece of tension, with the storyline unrevealed until the final seconds. Some nights you spend guessing who'll be the hero. Which batter will end it in extra innings with a blast into the darkness or a clean single up the middle? Which pitcher will coax a final pitch past a final batter? […]

When the Nationals spat the bit in gruesome fashion, Emily and Joshua and I were wandering Coney Island. I had Howie and Tom in one ear, the cacophony of Astro-Land in the other. And while that meant I couldn't see Frank Robinson, I could certainly imagine what he must look like. I assume it was […]

This has been the summer that Joshua has slowly but surely become attuned to the doings of the New York Mets.

It started with the simple things: wanting to see Mr. Met, or watch the apple come up after a home run. (Explaining the apple's absence during a road game was a challenge.) From there we […]

So. Eighth inning. Two on. One out. Aaron Heilman on the hill. Here comes Mike Piazza, 800 feet of home runs hastily appended to his resume, only this time we're not talking about some cosmetic solo shot. He's the go-ahead run. Gary Cohen comments on the strange mix of wild cheers and sudden boos filling […]

One of the things I write for the Online Journal is a daily roundup of the Web's best sportswriting called the Daily Fix. (It's co-written by Carl Bialik, a great writer, Mets fan and my neighbor in Brooklyn.) This week is the Fix's fifth anniversary, and over at wsj.com Carl and I will be marking […]

It's no secret that Shea can be a boorish place, full of drunks who've advanced directly to Seriously Antisocial without ever having landed on Amiable or Funny, dimwits who can't find their seats and aren't interested to hear they're in yours, asleep/feckless ushers, catatonic cashiers and people who apparently forked over $18 to $25 to […]

If you brought a newcomer to last night's game and then today's, he or she got a lesson in how two baseball games with more or less similar scores can be pretty different.

Last night's, despite being won by the bad guys, was a gem: intrigue, drama, history, and a touch of wackiness.

Today's, despite being won […]

I don't know why the 43,000-odd who accompanied Greg and me to Shea tonight were booing Chase Utley like he was A-Rod; I really don't. I have nothing against Chase Utley — hell, I wish he were one of ours. (Granted, approximately since Alfonzo left town I've had a habit of coveting other teams' second […]