When we sat down it would start to rain. When we got up it would stop. When we sat down again it would start to rain again.

It was a misty, murky, muddled-up day out at Citi Field — one that started early.

Emily and Joshua and I trooped through the bullpen gate at 11:30 for the Gary Keith and Ron event, which was filled with genial Mets folk buying shirts and raffle tickets for a good cause and lining up to eat hot dogs and nachos and popcorn because why wouldn't you? We met Ron Darling briefly (I admired his genial poise while under siege), said hi to friends, glimpsed Gary Cohen and Howard Johnson and Omir Santos from afar, hooked up with Greg and then made our way through the bowels of Citi Field to stand on the warning track during the national anthem. As was true at Shea, I was amazed by the sheer size of a major-league stadium seen from ground level. On TV it's hard to grasp just how big the field is — up close and personal, you wonder how so few balls can be hits in so vast a space, and appreciate the almost-superhuman skill of even journeyman outfielders and banjo hitters.

From the warning track, the stands are imposingly high, a mountain to be filled with people and with noise. Except, well, there wasn't much of either on this penultimate day of the star-crossed 2009 season — I suspect we GKR minions could have given the rest of the stadium a pretty good fight. The anthem passed and we were herded back to the bullpen entrance, past various itinerant Astro hurlers, to take up residence in left-center near the apple.

Where, very soon, it began to rain.

After a bit of back-and-forth negotiations with the heavens, we wound up in a little knot under the scoreboard, not entirely dry but no longer actively wet. And there we passed the time companionably enough, chatting about the game, saying hi to a welcome number of readers and friends (including a brokered meeting between Joshua and Ross Chapman, who I can attest is impressively polite and grown-up and kind to six-year-olds), and attending to bathroom trips and souvenir outings. Nobody was paying particularly close attention to the game happening out there beyond the tucked-away apple, and nobody was feeling too bad about that.

Or at least nobody was until I started feeling that way.

In 2005, the inaugural year for me and Greg as Faith and Fear in Flushing, the Mets fell short of the postseason but were clearly on the ascent. There was a crackle and spark at Shea until the beginning of September, and an afterglow that lingered even after Willie Randolph's team was turned away. 2006 was magic, a charmed season right up until the final moments, even if they did come 10 days too soon. 2007 and 2008 ended in devastation and disbelief, but their final hours were the stuff of high drama, a tightrope act between joy and agony.

2009, on its next-to-last day, was very different. It was irrelevant. It was the dregs of a season that had been decided in July. It was the motions being gone through. And as such, it was a new experience for me (and I assume for my co-blogger, though I'll let him speak for himself) as a chronicler.

What a terrible thing, I thought to myself. The Mets are down there playing and nobody cares. Not even us.

But then I thought that no, that wasn't quite right. We did care. After all, we were there, flesh and blood amid a sea of phantom attendees. (37,000, ha!) We might have gotten a bit fuzzy on the inning and the score (it did change back and forth due to umpires huddling), but we knew the Mets were winning and we were close to an official game. And we were all having a good time at the ballgame, weren't we? It Didn't Matter, but that wasn't the same as saying it didn't matter.

And so I realized I'd reached the final stage of dealing with the 2009 Mets. It was acceptance. And it felt OK.

And then it began to rain like it meant it, and the players disappeared, and Emily and Joshua and I sought shelter for a time and then decamped for Brooklyn, certain that this one had ended Mets 4, Astros 1 (F-5). When it turned out it hadn't, when I flipped on the TV out of idle curiosity and found Brian Stokes engaged on the mound, I settled in to see how things would turn out. I hadn't been hungering for a regulation-length baseball game, but I knew that in 24 hours the Mets would be gone, so I took what I was being offered. At one point I flipped over to the Royals-Twins game and was startled by the contrast — over there, Zack Greinke was on the mound and Joe Mauer was at the plate and 50,000 Twins fans were cheering and screaming and worrying and praying, while on SNY the clonk-clonk of Cow-Bell Man echoed through a stadium by now absurdly empty. I thought about sticking with the Twins, with finding out how the AL Central would play out, but I decided not to. There would be time for things like that. The Mets — even such unworthy specimens as this year's Mets — deserved my attention during their final hours.

We had to go to dinner and I set TiVo to record the rest, taking some small satisfaction from the fact that it thought it was recording football. (Not yet you're not!) And then, after dinner, I watched the end, with Sean Green antagonizing the couple of hundred remaining fans and Frankie Rodriguez coming in to clean up his mess. And there was a day to go. A day, when we'd once wanted so much more. But also a day when, amid the horrors of late summer, I'd wondered if I'd wind up wanting less.

Nope. One more day, one more game. Seemed about right to me.

Acceptance.

Before the season ends, please take the Faith and Fear readership survey here.

You're not just reading the blog for Mets fans who like to read. You're reading the blog entry of a Mets fan who set a record Friday night — a personal record, but a record just the same. With the Mets' decisive victory over the Astros, I improved my 2009 home season mark to 24-10. Four times previously (including two regular season/postseason combos) I reached 23 wins. That was the heights. Now the heights have gotten higher.

Yes, in this otherwise cursed campaign, somebody's Log is filled with W's.

The Mets are 24-10 for me in 2009 with two games to go. They're 15-30 at home without me; 15-30 is the mark that got Joe Frazier fired in 1977, a year in which Mets didn't hit home runs in bunches, but more on that in a bit.

Even weirder in this otherwise godforsaken hellhole of a season, they've gone 5-0 for me on Friday nights. Friday nights in recent years, particularly late in those years, were the stuff of deathtraps and suicide raps. Not this year. This year of all years was my golden year at least one night a week. Then again, factor out Fridays and I was still a nifty 19-10.

I can't say Citi Field isn't, in its own way, trying to win me over.

Let us not forget John Maine. John Maine has started seven games in the young life of Citi Field. I have witnessed every single John Maine start at Citi Field. We're 6-1 together: an early loss followed by six consecutive wins. That makes him the first Mets pitcher to win six consecutive home starts in nineteen years.

So I saw that history. And I saw the 47th Met triple of the year, lashed by the heretofore presumed dead Nick Evans, tying a team record. Plus, as usually occurs around these Mets, there was the strange saga of Daniel Murphy.

After Jeff Francoeur hit his tenth Met home run in the sixth, I revealed to my friend Rob Emproto (with whom I kept alive a streak of fifteen consecutive seasons with at least one game attended together) that I hoped Murph's home run total would stay on eleven. He could triple all he wanted and score on an error, but I wanted no Met to mash a twelfth home run in '09. The lowest total for the team lead, as mentioned here recently, is twelve homers, accomplished (if you wanna call it that) by Stearns, Henderson and Milner in 1977. If you remember 1977, you remember it being very bad for the Mets, but more for a Seaver shortage than a power shortage (Lenny Randle's July 13 notwithstanding). This season, though? In this park? I thought 2009 deserved the dubious honor of having the fewest home runs hit by a team leader. Lotsa triples, no homers — perfect for a team with a great batting average and never enough scoring.

Murphy comes up as a pinch-hitter in the eighth with two out. Rob starts laughing. He can feel it. “This one's going over the Modell's sign,” he says. This is before Murph sees a pitch. It's just a hunch. Daniel takes ball one, ball two, ball three, yet I agree with Rob's assessment. Daniel Murphy, who was welcome to produce at will for the 150 or so games that I was unaware of this twelve home runs thing, is going to hit one out just because I — for my own admittedly bizarre reason — don't want him to.

Suddenly Daniel is Shawon Dunston from ten years ago, fouling 'em off left and right. The count is three and two for quite a while. Then, Doug Brocail, who I'm pretty sure is old enough to have played with John Milner, serves up a juicy one and…BAM! Waaaay gone to right.

Daniel Murphy is suddenly Adam Dunn. It's home Run No. 12 on the season. Stearns, Henderson and Milner scooch over on the couch. 2009 looks a little less awful than it really is.

Every Mets fan cheers. One does so a little begrudgingly. But I did cheer. If your biggest problem is a pinch-hit two-run homer from a player who leads the team, then you're probably having a pretty good night.

Also, I had great ribs. Blue Smoke, you lead the league in yum.

• Mets Walkoffs examines the 66 Mets who were no threat to hit twelve home runs. These are the fellows who blasted one out and never blasted again, at least not as Mets. (Please note Mets Walkoffs' URL has shifted to http://metswalkoffs.blogspot.com/ and adjust your bookmarks accordingly — and don't tell me you haven't bookmarked Mets Walkoffs!)

• My thanks to the several individuals who were kind enough to introduce themselves and mention their enjoyment of Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble and a fine bookstore near you. (Rob got quite a kick out of my being spotted.) I'm guessing it makes for great October baseball reading since there won't be, for the third consecutive October, much worthwhile baseball-watching.

• You know about the letter the Mets should've sent. A brief quote of mine regarding the one they actually transmitted appears in the weekend edition of amNew York; scroll down to page 3 of this PDF.

• Don't let this season end without taking the Faith and Fear readership survey, here.

What better way to commemorate the second anniversary of Collapse Day than by folding, crumpling, blowing away and being kicked in the collective groin by the Washington Nationals?

This was the first time we'd played on September 30 since the September 30 that has come to define the fortunes of this franchise to which we are mysteriously and inextricably linked. The September 30, 2007 follies and the actions of the weeks that preceded them was a foreshadowing of what this team would become.

A bunch of chumps with no clue, no pride and no professionalism.

The New York Mets have done almost nothing right in any on-field or off-field sense since blowing that seven-game lead two Septembers ago. Except for a brief spurt of solid play in July and August 2008, they've been a dismal team populated by dismal players led by dismal management. They weren't much healthy when it counted last year or early this year and we've seen how they've disintegrated since getting ill.

No Reyes, no Delgado, no blah-blah-blah? No pride and no professionalism. Chumps! This is not an outfit that gets easily inspired let alone motivated. It's content to be swept by the one team in the National League that used to be indisputably worse than it. How do I know it's content with being beaten about the ears by a ragtag 103-loss unit? Because they let it happen. Because they always let it happen. Because the Nationals had 103 losses when this series began and they have 103 losses now. Because I'm the genius who watches this team enough to know quality when I don't see it.

The Mets are up to 92 losses, incidentally. Only the calendar running out will keep them from topping 95.

Fire Jerry. Fire Omar. Deduct a day's pay from everybody's enormous salary and donate it to a good cause. I'm gonna go stare in the mirror and ask myself, speaking of no clue, why I've made the weekend plans I have. I'll be at Citi Field Friday. I'll be at Citi Field Saturday. I'll be at Citi Field Sunday.

I'll be at peace Monday. Infinitely stupider, but at peace.

Oh, and speaking of even MORE no clue…this. Can't somebody fire a Wilpon or two?

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Maybe I'd just gone numb, but a couple of weeks ago it seemed to me that the Mets at least stopped losing in horrifying ways and began losing in quiet, mundane ways. Not that it ultimately mattered to the bottom line — for we the faithful it was kind of like being a lobster placed in water that was gradually brought to a boil instead of being hurled into something already bubbling and hissing — but it sure felt less traumatic. I'd even come to feel gentler towards this batch of dog-eared, hopeless players. Yeah, they'd been incompetently assembled and stupidly led and made lots of dopey mistakes, but they'd also been hurt and unlucky, and wasn't that a shame.

But then you get games like tonight's, and all you want is for it to hurry up and be Monday already. After games like tonight's, I don't need my final glimpse of green grass on the home field, or a last “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” or baseball that really matters to me. After games like tonight's, I just want the embarrassment and anger to be taken away until I've built up six months of desperately needed emotional callus.

We turned the game on late, vaguely shamefaced about such a basic final-week lapse, and saw to our shock that the Mets had a 1-0 lead, the bases loaded and nobody out. Of course they converted none of those runners, causing to me to emit my first burst of language that's not supposed to be uttered in front of six-year-olds. Of course Mike Pelfrey looked great, surrendered a first hit to the goddamn pitcher on a broken-bat floater, then proceeded to give up the lead on a flurry of genuine hits.

And of course the Mets spat the bit in spectacular fashion. Bases loaded for Brian Schneider, who at least had lined to right for the final out of the first. This time he pops meekly to Ryan Zimmerman in foul territory. Up comes Jeremy Reed, one of the least useful Mets in a season that's seen stiff competition for the title. Reed saws his bat in two on a soft little liner that plops right into the second baseman's glove, giving him just time enough to double off Jeff Francoeur at first. Fantastic. Bottom of the inning, Anderson Hernandez throws away a double-play ball. Luis Castillo is so impressed with this that he tries to turn an impossible double play and throws the ball into the dugout. The Nats lead. The incredible thing, watching the Mets continue to impersonate major-leaguers, is that they ever could have trailed.

Understanding this, the real surprise of the 9th inning is why I wind up surprised. Cory Sullivan strikes out fishing against Mike MacDougal, who's one of those guys whose stuff makes you wonder why he's bad. Angel Pagan singles. Luis Castillo gets called out on a questionable third strike, but — to quote my favorite aphorism not yet shared with Joshua — when you're going horseshit they fuck you. Then it's David Wright, who strikes out haplessly, leaving us to once again worry about what his future holds.

Wait a moment, something's not right there. I think I programmed that last bit as a key combination sometime this summer. Sorry about that! Let me try again!

David Wright rockets a drive up the gap, clearly ticketed for somewhere beyond Elijah Dukes' reach. Dukes races for the fence, flings his glove out desperately, crashes into the edge of the scoreboard, flops on the ground — and lifts up the ball nestled gently in his mitt.

Emily, face down in bed beside me, offers a little sub-covers mutter of woe and pity and bitter amusement. I neither move nor make a sound. Dukes and his teammates frolic in the outfield like puppies. I stare at the TV. The replay shows Wright rounding first, eyes fixed on right-center. He slows to a halt, without expression. In the background of the shot, a National clambering over the dugout rail is overcome by glee and tumbles butt-first to the turf. I shut off the TV and wait to be told this year is finally over and I can go.

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Those who aren't baseball fans…I don't get them. They can be polite about how it's just not their thing or they can be virulent to the point of obnoxious over “it's so boring” and “who cares about millionaires trying to hit a ball with a stick?” I generally pity them more than disdain them, for they don't know what they're missing.

Monday night they knew. And they weren't missing anything.

We who pride ourselves on our love of the game would, if given the choice, sign on the dotted line for a 2-1 game over almost any other kind of baseball. A 2-1 score implies tautness, tension and professionalism. Think of the great 2-1 games in Mets history:

• Jerry Koosman flirts with a no-hitter en route to evening the 1969 World Series at a game apiece. Mets win 2-1.

• Tom Seaver overwhelms the Big Red Machine all by himself (13 K, 1 RBI) until Pete Rose in the eighth and Johnny Bench in the ninth reach him for a solo homer apiece to take the first game of the 1973 NLCS. Mets lose 2-1.

• Nolan Ryan duels Doc Gooden. Darryl Strawberry outguns Nolan Ryan. Gary Carter avenges Charlie Kerfeld. Fifth game of the '86 NLCS goes to the Mets, 2-1.

• Melvin Mora and friends win the epic of must-win epics, October 3, 1999, 2-1.

Then there are 2-1 games between a crappy team and a crummy team, such as that played Monday night in Washington. The crappy team beat the crummy team 2-1. Each side lived up to its billing. It wasn't taut. It wasn't tense. It was barely professional. It was not a recruiting film for luring the uninitiated into our obsession. It was poor defense, anemic hitting, nonexistent fundamentals, idiotic strategy (YOU'RE BOTH A THOUSAND GAMES OUT OF FIRST, IT'S THE LAST WEEK OF THE SEASON AND YOU'RE BUNTING?) and pitching that was just decent enough not to get in the way of the ineptitude in its midst.

Jerry Koosman and Dave McNally engaged in a pitchers' duel. Tom Seaver and Jack Billingham engaged in a pitchers' duel. Nelson Figueroa and Ross Detwiler were simply fortunate enough to be facing each other's teammates.

Signature moment of this 2-1 exercise in playing out the string? Justin Maxwell singles to lead off the eighth. Ian Desmond bunts him to second (STOP IT! JUST STOP WITH THE BUNTING!). Ryan Zimmerman grounds routinely to short.

And Maxwell takes off for third.

The play is right in front of him, and he takes off for third anyway. Not only that, he waits to make sure the ball was hit in front of him so he could be certain that if he runs to third he'll be out by a mile. Well, he was playing against the Mets, so he was only out by a few meters, but it was perfect for this game. Nobody there could play it and there was no evidence anybody there was even familiar with it. Two teams richly deserving of their position in the standings (the Mets are in a hundred and twenty-seventh place; the Nationals are far behind them) displayed exactly the ability that got them where they are. From the look and sound of things, they attracted about 20 people to their dismal affair. I assume half of them were waiting for a bus.

For those who still keep track of such things, the Mets lost their 90th game of 2009 Monday night. With five games remaining, here's the history that's at stake.

• If they go 0-5, they will finish the season 67-95, which they've done once, in 1980. 1980 began and ended badly yet was way fun in the middle with the whole Magic Is Back theme coming to life via a surprising 47-39 stretch. 2009 has been no fun whatsoever and its only surprise is that these Mets have generated as many as 67 wins.

• If they go 1-4, they will finish the season 68-94, which they've done once, in 1983. 1983 had a very awful first two-thirds, but an incredibly respectable final third. For two months, the 1983 Mets played with joy and verve and poetry, even if it added up to a prosaic 31-29 finish. Would you accuse these Mets of producing joy? Verve? Poetry beyond the dirtiest of limericks? (“Luis Castillo once went to Nantucket…”) Would Annie Savoy want anything to do with any 2009 Met?

• If they go 4-1, they will finish the season 71-91, same as they did in 1974, 1996 and 2004. Those were all lame-ass seasons with almost nothing to recommend them (though the '04 Mets were mysteriously a game out of first in early July before Art Howe reminded them who was managing them). These Mets are lame-ass and have almost nothing — perhaps less — to recommend them, but who wants to have the same record you've had three times before, unless it's of the 108-54 variety?

• If they go 5-0…they're not gonna go 5-0. But for spits and giggles, let's say they do. They'll have matched the 1992 Mets as the only 72-90 club in Mets history. The 1992 Mets were loathsome. The 2009 Mets are just lame-ass. It figures a five-game winning streak would carry with it some kind guilt by statistical association.

Rah-rah, win all five and so on, but what we want is 3-2. Three wins puts us at 70-92. We've never been 70-92. Seventy wins is so much better than 69. We've never been 69-93 either, but gads that's an ugly ledger. And who wants to mark the fortieth anniversary of '69 by winning 69 games? How many lazy pile-on fuckers would run with that Hacky Hackerson angle? “Not only did they lose a zillion dollars to Bernie Madoff, but get THIS…”

No, don't go 2-3 to finish 69-93. Finish 70-92. Be original. Get a C instead of a D. They should probably get an F, but we want the 2009 Mets to pass their baseball finals and be advanced to the next grade. We don't want them left back for another year.

Social promotion is the way to go here, trust me.

As unrecommended as Mets baseball comes right now, watch tonight, and pay close attention, because at some point, Gary Cohen is destined to work a reference to the great state of Oklahoma into the conversation. How do I know? On Sunday, Gary mentioned the Marlins' total attendance for 2009 was larger than the population of Wyoming. Last night, he pointed out the Mets' 1986 World Series nemesis Bruce Hurst hailed from St. George, Utah. It thus follows — based on the Best evidence available — that we'll hear something about the humble beginnings of Bob Murphy, the hometown of Butch Huskey, the coaching acumen of Bud Wilkinson or maybe just a weather report that includes wind sweeping down the plains.

Oklahoma tonight, New Mexico tomorrow. Bank on it.

The Mets used to hit home runs. Mets Walkoffs offers proof that they've hit at least sixty by continuing its series on the Sixty Greatest Homers in Mets History here.

And if you haven't yet, please take our readership survey here. Thank you.

Exactly one year after we left it for the last time, I think I miss the enormity of the place most of all. It was big. I don't think I realized how big until I noticed how relatively small the new place is. You wouldn't think a humongous stadium would be something you'd miss in an era when intimacy is supposed to be prized. But I knew that when I was there I was somewhere.

I miss the grandeur, which I consider a different quality than sheer bigness. I miss the sense that I'm sitting before a grand stage, about to be party to something magnificent. Even though I understand what felt magnificent going in often wound up mundane coming out, I loved the anticipation. And I miss that.

I miss, in a way, not knowing where I was staring when I stared into the crowd. These days I can identify everything and everybody at a glance. There's no mystery to it. The transparency is nice, I suppose, but it's another reminder of how small everything feels. I didn't know, without counting off blocks of seats, which section was which. It was a little game I'd play with myself. “I was in Section 36 when Matt Franco singled off Mariano Rivera — if Section 48 is the last one, let me work my way back from there and see if I can find where I was sitting.” Silly, I know, but I did it now and then.

I miss linking the spots I found to the great games I saw. Of course I haven't seen any great games in the new place. None have been played.

I miss the symmetry. Symmetry went out of style the same time as bigness, but it just made so much more sense. If a ball was heading out, it was heading out; no guessing games regarding fence height and effect on play. If it was in the gap, the gap was ascertainable. I miss the honesty of the symmetry. 410 to center, 338 down the lines, 371 in the gaps…it was true every time.

I miss watching the game. There weren't distractions everywhere, though I admit I could decide not to be distracted if I really didn't want to be. I miss there being little temptation to get up and wander around, though I could decide not to get up and wander around if I really didn't want to. I miss the focus a symmetrical, few-frills facility filled with memories could give you, even on a lousy night.

I miss the sightlines. I don't think we ever appreciated the sightlines. Even before the new place, there was always this “it wasn't built exclusively for any one sport, therefore it isn't ideal for any” meme we all accepted as gospel. I realize now that was nonsense. If not ideal, it was suitable for following a ball and a fielder and a runner. The new place is not. I've sampled all kinds of seats in the place — titled seats, no less — and unless you hit the jackpot, it absolutely sucks for watching a baseball game. I miss taking for granted that I could watch the game pretty easily. From the back of Loge and Mezzanine you would lose sight of a fly ball. From the corners of the Upper Deck, you were watching ants at play. From down the lines on Field Level you could find yourself at a bit of a neck-craning loss. But ultimately you were, if not “on top of the action,” on top of the game. I'm surprised how much I don't see in the new place. I'm surprised how much I saw in the old place.

I miss the crowd as it was. I hate to admit it since quite often I couldn't stand the booing and the drunkenness and the forays into fighting, but without the booing and the drunkenness and the forays into fighting, it's missing something. Is it possible the 13,000 missing seats all belonged to the people you wouldn't want sitting near you yet were part of the tapestry of what made a ballgame a ballgame? Let's be clear: There are still idiots. It would be hard to gather the most modest sea of humanity and not have idiocy break out in some pocket, but the current lagoon doesn't have the flair it once did. I don't really miss the people who booed, drank and fought, but I miss, on some intangible level, their presence.

I miss there being a game and nothing else. I miss that except for the beer, bathroom and chow lines, there was nowhere else for people to be. I miss the game being the magnet that attracted people.

I miss the backdrop that was perfect scenery before it began to be obstructed by the new place. I miss that sense of place, that sense that we didn't have to be shielded from the outside world. We see some stuff now, but those feel like incidental, accidental sightings. I miss the integration of the foreground and the background.

I miss the ramps. Those were grand, communal exits. I miss how the ramps wound and the game that just concluded continued as long as you were winding your way down and around them. You were still talking and chanting and living the game. It stayed with you. It doesn't as much anymore.

I miss the letter-perfect scoreboard, no matter how imperfect its letters and lightbulbs made it sometimes. Everything you needed to know was always there. It's something that was set up beautifully at the beginning and it was something that worked wonderfully right to the end, save perhaps for some final scores.

I miss the color scheme. It was unapologetically tacky. It was us.

I miss the pathways in the middle of the levels. I miss reading the t-shirts and the uniform tops. I miss the signs and the banners carried forth. I miss being able to spot the vendors and calculating how long it would take their journey to reach my row. I miss that you could be getting up and leaving and still be watching the game.

I miss the network of runways, section after section, that revealed to you, as you walked through one, the shocking green grass below and the utter grandeur of the stage that awaited you. One minute you were on the cusp of a ballgame. Next minute, you were immersed in it. It wasn't dainty. It hit you right away.

I miss knowing I can, on a whim, show up at almost any time to a box office window, hand over a relatively small amount of money and get a perfectly representative ticket for three hours of enjoyment. I understand I can do something similar on a computer, with a credit card, with a touch more advance planning, but it's not the same.

I miss the name. I miss that it was quick and easy, one syllable that said it all. I miss that even without knowing what it stood for, it stood for us, for our team, for our experience. Once you found out the name belonged to somebody who moved mountains to make sure you had a team and a stadium to call your own, you felt even better about it. I miss the name and not having to think about it. I miss the name from when it wasn't a contrarian statement, from when it was just the name.

I miss its being. I regret that no matter how much of it I remember, my memories of it will inevitably get fuzzier. Its existence grows ever more remote from the present. I miss it existing in the present, being the place I go to.

Exactly one year after we left it for the last time, there's plenty I don't miss. I don't miss the distance from the subway to its nearest available entrance. I don't miss the escalators that broke down once per homestand. I don't miss the epic floods in and around the men's rooms. I don't miss the food that wasn't up to third grade cafeteria snuff. I don't miss the iron bars in the box seats. I don't miss the lack of lateral movement in those same sections. I don't miss the furtive cigarettes sneaked among the seated patrons long after that sort of thing was prohibited. I don't miss the vertigo in certain spots. I don't miss the lunatic policies that kept you with a ticket from anywhere else away from the Field Level. I don't miss the sense we were being left behind while everybody else's fans were moving ahead.

Then we moved ahead, and in many ways it was fine, even improved, but in many ways, the concept proved overrated. Progress wasn't what it was made out to be. I couldn't be convinced progress was producing for me a better experience than I received in the past. I felt pulled into a future I didn't ask for.

There was a moment this season when I couldn't have been more disconsolate about what the future had become. I sought solace in a DVD recording of the final game ever played in the old place. Before I was overwhelmed by the result of the game itself, I took in the bigness and the grandeur and the life that was in the old place. Upon that viewing, I made my mind up. If I could do it, I'd make the trade in a literal heartbeat. I'd trade the new place for the old place. No questions asked — just bring me back what I had, shortcomings and all. I had resisted this reaction for months, wanting to be fair and open to change and progress-oriented. But I was done with that.

I wanted the new place out of my life. I wanted the old place returned to me.

That was while I watched the DVD and sulked. The next night, upon my next visit to the new place (which, for something I didn't like, I sure found my way to a lot), I expected my remorse to envelop me. Yet it didn't. It felt OK that where I was now was where I was now. It's what was here and would be here going forward. The old place wasn't here. It was gone and remains so. I like to remember and explore the past, but living in it has never appealed to me. The old place was the past. I couldn't move back in. It sunk in that the new place, whatever flaws I found or perceived in it, was here to stay. I already knew that on every logical plane, but spiritually it took a while to click. I could let go of the old place at last.

Which doesn't mean I don't miss it.

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