Reality can be a plunge into a cold bath, or it can just be reality. Tonight I watched the Mets lose by a pair of grand slams to the Dodgers and didn't even flinch.

What good would flinching have done? I figured the Mets would lose, and just hoped it would be dull and pitiable instead of excruciating and infuriating. They were slow on a couple of ground balls, two different pitchers walked in runs and the offense couldn't muster an extra-base hit. By the ever-sinking standards of the summer of 2009, that's not that bad.

Before the game Omar Minaya came down to talk injuries, and somehow managed to finish his rundown by game time. Carlos Delgado is hitting off a tee, but probably five weeks away. (And that's five weeks away from standing in a batter's box and having the stats count, not five weeks away from somehow being the Carlos Delgado of the second half of 2008.) Carlos Beltran is on the bike and in the pool, which means don't hold your breath. (OK, hold it in the pool. We've got enough problems around here.) Jose Reyes tried to run and needed a cortisone shot, which means you can't even discuss a timetable. John Maine is throwing off flat ground, which in the language of injured pitchers is a tiny step above “arm still attached to body.” J.J. Putz was seen sitting in the dugout. Billy Wagner is pitching to batters in Florida, but that's a giant crapshoot and unfortunately, Billy Wagner is not a cleanup hitter. Oliver Perez starts tomorrow, which … oh wait, it's Oliver Perez.

In other words, everybody important who's hurt or Oliver Perez is still hurt or Oliver Perez. The cavalry, if it comes at all, will trickle in a horse at a time to find the ranch burnt and the settlers dead. And there isn't enough bullion in the bank to hire enough new cavalrymen. I've seen too many disappointing Met prospects over the years to object to the idea of mortgaging the supposed future, but you could spot us the farm systems of the Rangers and Rays and probably still not be able to swing deals to fill all the Mets' holes. Nope, as Westerns go this is the end of “Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid,” and we are not walking away. It's over.

Look, the front office deserves to get excoriated for bad contracts and idolizing crappy veterans and poor roster management and entrusting the health of the players to a staff of Dr. Nick Rivieras, but in the end no single one of those things nor even the combination were what sunk the 2009 Mets. It was a barrage of injuries even a better-constructed plan wouldn't have survived. It may be unjust that that perfect storm will obscure the other mistakes, but the world is rarely just. Let's just move on.

Let the season go, make a PLAYERS FOR SALE sign and start building for 2010 right now. This needn't be a teardown project, or anything that will make the Citi Field bean-counters blanch under their green eyeshades. The Mets should open 2010 with a roster built around David Wright, Jose Reyes, Carlos Beltran, Johan Santana and Frankie Rodriguez, and there's no reason to think that core can't contend with the right complementary pieces and bit players added to it. So start figuring out how to assemble them in July instead of November.

What can we swap? Well, by any modern reckoning, Luis Castillo is a terrible baseball player. But this year he worked hard to turn himself back to what he was in late 2007: merely terrible instead of terrible, fat and hurt. Fortunately, Major League Baseball is full of stupid GMs made greedy by the thought of playoff games. Point out that Luis Castillo never strikes out, is faster than average, has Gold Gloves on his mantle and is (dramatic pause) a veteran. That, plus paying off an admittedly cringeworthy portion of his horrible contract, might be enough to fob him off on someone else and let Orlando Hudson know to expect a call in November.

Ryan Church shows signs of being able to hit and is a superb defensive outfielder. I bet someone would rent him for the rest of '09. Brian Schneider's no great shakes, but crappy catchers automatically get a reputation for being Pitcher Whisperers. Put him on the curb with a FOR SALE CHEAP sign and see if someone bites. Shop around Alex Cora, cruelly exposed in an everyday role but a smart, tough bench player who deserves to be some contender's Lee Mazzilli.

Or do something else. The next crop of Milledges and Humbers for Adam Dunn? I'd make that trade. Or go fleece the Pirates for their prospects — the Pirates are like the slow kid down the block who can be conned into giving up grimy quarters for mirror-bright nickels. (If you don't take advantage of him, the less-scrupulous kid who lives next door will.)

Be brave, Omar. I know bad PR terrifies your bosses, but they have less to worry about than they think. Don't be afraid that the seats will empty and the press will be brutal. The press is already brutal and trust me, we're not showing up at Citi Field because we think Carlos Delgado might show up five weeks early. Yes, New Yorkers are impatient — but we're also realistic. We know this isn't our year, and we're ready to deal with it. The best thing you can do is stop pretending. Show us you're trying to make next year our year.

Remember: July 21 is the first of three AMAZIN' TUESDAYS. And that Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

You might find yourself aggravated this summer, but you won't find yourself alone. Not when there are other Mets fans like you just waiting to keep you company on three very special evenings.

Two weeks from tonight — July 21 at 7:00 PM while the Mets' bats are getting untracked in Washington — comes the first of three AMAZIN' TUESDAYS, happenings that will carry on the spirit of the already legendary METSTOCK festival. If you were a part of that, you'll definitely want to be a part of this. If you missed that, you won't want to miss this.

Two Boots Tavern owner Phil Hartman has invited all Mets fans back to his place on the Lower East Side for a monthly gathering that will feature “literary readings, game watching, consciousness raising, pizza eating, Rheingold drinking, cocktail shaking, Yankee baiting, memorabilia gawking and seven steps support as needed.”

Sounds like a great time. I know I'll be there.

Phil, as AMAZIN' a restaurateur as you will find — the first beer is free in exchange “for any Mets baseball card, even Bobby Pfeil's,” he promises — has asked Jon Springer of Mets By The Numbers and me to organize these AMAZIN' evenings, and we plan to touch all the bases…even third. In addition to hearing from Jon and me, we're putting together a 1986-style lineup of Mets speakers and scholars to share their work, their wisdom and presumably a little of their angst (because it comes with the territory.)

Our guests on the first AMAZIN' TUESDAY will include Paul Lukas, ESPN Uni Watch columnist and Mets fan extraordinaire, and Matt Silverman, leading Mets historian and co-author with Keith Hernandez of the great new book Shea Good-Bye. You'll hear from them, you'll hear from us, we'll hear from you; it will be a night of Mets fan unity and togetherness. Plus Phil will be creating pizzas like the Stork and the Choo-Choo and drinks like the Hammer and Murph's Law.

What else would you expect in an establishment anchored by an immense poster of Hubie Brooks by the bar?

The Mets-Nats game will, of course, be on every one of Two Boots Tavern's Hi-Def screens. All in attendance are pardoned in advance for interrupting the AMAZIN' proceedings with applause (or groans) directed at what's transpiring on SNY. We're Mets fans. Even when the Mets are in Washington, we know what comes first in the hearts of our countrymen.

Each AMAZIN' TUESDAY will take place with the Mets on the road, so consider Two Boots your Citi Field away from Citi Field, but with Mets stuff clearly in evidence. The dates are July 21; August 25 when the Mets go to Miami; and September 15 as the Mets visit Atlanta. Each evening gets underway around first pitch, 7:00 PM. Outstanding speakers and presenters for the second and third AMAZIN' TUESDAYS will be announced in the coming weeks.

(For my fellow Long Islanders, Two Boots is plenty accessible via the F train, which you pick up a block from Penn Station on 34th; e-mail me if you have transportation concerns.)

One Team…Two Boots…Three AMAZIN' TUESDAYS. We can't wait to see you there.

Two Boots Tavern is at 384 Grand St., between Norfolk and Suffolk. You can take the F to Delancey; the J, M or Z to Essex; or the B or D to Grand. Phone: 212/228-8685.

There’re just so many summers, babe. And just so many springs.

Don Henley’s lyrics came to me early in the 1993 season. Too early. 1993 wasn’t, sadly, the last worthless season that we’d have to spend, but damned if it didn’t seem the baseball summer to which we looked forward all winter went kaput before it could begin. The Mets were 12-25 after 37 games, 15 behind the 1st place Phillies, with the Wild Card a year from existence. The season loomed as worthless because the season loomed as over.

The looming was correct. 1993 contained no hint of competitiveness hidden away as a nice surprise for later. When the ’93 Mets limped to the halfway point of their schedule, they were 25-56, 28½ from the top of their division. They would finish 59-103, a dead-on, balls accurate 38 games out. They were an undisputed 7th place club the only year a National League East club could be a 7th place club. The Mets had been a 10th place club when that option was available, a 6th place club when 6th place represented bottom and, once realignment kicked in, they would on accursed occasion find their way to 5th place in a 5-team division.

Years like those, the ones when not even false hope materializes, are the worst. Those are the years when there is nothing except the mere act of baseball in which to invest your faith, no matter how often you are told or tell yourself You Gotta Believe. You can only Believe so much so often, and years like 1993 strain credulity let alone plausibility for even the most faithful among us.

The more relevant and practical question is can you Believe in a team that is positioned where the current Mets are? It’s a multipart question with answers that don’t necessarily jibe with one another.

1) Are the 2009 Mets at the halfway point of their season a plausible contender? Based on the numbers — 39 wins, 42 losses, tied for 3rd place in the N.L. East, 4 games out; tied for 8th place in the Wild Card stakes, 5 games out — their plausibility is solid. If you didn’t know anything else besides those numbers, you couldn’t count them out.

2) Are the Mets a viable contender? Do they have a realistic chance beyond the concept of mathematically alive?

You may derive your own conclusions from having observed the first 81 games of the 2009 season, but precedent would suggest they have only so much contention left in them. While it’s not inconceivable they could put a rush on and make the 2nd half of 2009 a thrilling dash to the wire, it seems more likely that their moment will come and go well short of the 162nd game of their schedule…if it hasn’t come and gone already.

Every edition of the Mets is different (even if it sometimes seems as if we’re perpetually screening Groundhog Day) just as every season, every opponent, every player and every factor is different. There is nothing dependably scientific about looking where the Mets have been through the halfway points of their years prior to 2009 and drawing conclusions regarding what will happen next. Strictly speaking, they represent a few dozen distinct episodes, and any commonalities uncovered could very well be filed under coincidence.

That said, we are at the exact halfway point of the season. For fun or maybe edification, let’s see what we can make of Met precedent by examining what they’ve been up to in the middle of previous seasons, specifically seasons when they arrived at the halfway point in circumstances that suggested they still had, at the very least, a chance in hell of winning something.

In 21 seasons, the Mets have reached the halfway point of their schedule with a winning record. Six times they’ve made the playoffs.

1969

1st Half: 47-34, 3½ GB, 2nd place

2nd Half: 53-28, 1st by 8 games

1986

1st Half: 56-25, 10½ ahead, 1st place

2nd Half: 52-29, 1st by 21½ games

1988

1st Half: 52-29, 7½ ahead, 1st place

2nd Half: 48-31, 1st by 15 games

1999

1st Half: 45-36, 5 GB, 2nd place; 1½ GB, 2nd for Wild Card

2nd Half: 52-30, 1st for Wild Card by 1 game

2000

1st Half: 46-35, 3 GB, 2nd place; ½ ahead for Wild Card

2nd Half: 48-33, 1st for Wild Card by 8 games

2006

1st Half: 48-33, 11 ahead, 1st place

2nd Half: 49-32, 1st by 12 games

Postseason fortunes aside, the most you can ask for out of a second half is a ticket to more baseball. For 6 of the 21 Mets teams that reached the halfway point of their schedules with a winning record, mission accomplished.

The next most you can ask for is for your team to keep winning and to contend while doing so. Of the 15 times the Mets have reached the halfway point of their schedule with a winning record en route to not making the playoffs, they finished the season with a winning record 13 times. Some winning records yielded a longer, more satisfying run than others.

1970

1st Half: 45-36, ½ ahead, 1st place

2nd Half 38-43, 6 GB, 2nd place

The defending champions were still viable for another miracle after 155 games, 2 out in 2nd in a mushy N.L. East. They had a 3-game series ahead with the first-place Pirates. Avast, matey! as we’d find ourselves hearing continually at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela. The Mets entered spanking new Three Rivers Stadium and got spanked, swept and eliminated in a weekend’s time.

1971

1st Half: 46-35, 5½ GB, 2nd place

2nd Half: 37-44, 14 GB, T-3rd Place

The Mets had begun to stumble after 74 games when they were only 2 out. Their viability and plausibility commenced to crumble after a 1-11 stretch left them 10 behind the surging Pirates after 86 games.

1972

1st Half: 45-33, 3½ GB, 2nd place

2nd Half: 38-40, 13½ GB, 3rd place

Injuries and the resulting offensive ineptitude hamstrung the Mets after a dynamic start, but they hung in as viable in this strike-shortened season clear through to their 90th game (5½ behind 1st place Pittsburgh after the two split a doubleheader); they would be reasonably plausible until their 98th game when they sat 6½ back. From there they lost ground and hope quickly.

1975

1st Half: 43-38, 7 GB, 3rd place

2nd Half: 39-42, 10½ GB, T-3rd Place

It appeared a full-fledged move was being made in the 136th game of the season when the Mets beat those first-place Bucs and pulled within 4 lengths of the top spot. Alas, by their 142nd game, they were 9 games out and essentially finished.

1976

1st Half: 43-38, 12½ GB, 3rd place

2nd Half: 43-38, 15 GB, 3rd place

Decent record, but no chance whatsoever as the Phillies zoomed to 30 games over before the Bicentennial. The Mets weren’t remotely plausible after 48 games.

1984

1st Half: 47-34, ½ ahead, 1st place

2nd Half: 43-38, 6½ GB, 2nd place

The surprising Mets’ viability peaked in their 118th game when they edged within 1½ of the 1st place Cubs. From there, the separation between unforeseen contenders was on, though the dreamers among us thought the spirit of ’69 might inhabit two September series with Chicago. Six back after 143 games, however, was as deja as our vu would get.

1985

1st Half: 46-35, 2½ GB, 2nd place

2nd Half: 52-29, 3 GB, 2nd place

The best Mets team to not make the postseason fell short despite a memorable and spectacular September. The ’85 Mets were at their most viable after 138 games, holding a 1-game lead over St. Louis, having just taken two of three from their bitter rivals. The Mets, however, stumbled for the next two weeks while the Redbirds took wing, but boy were the Mets plausible after winning the first two games of a three-game series in St. Louis that brought them to within 1 of the lead after 158 games. It was a short albeit regrettable roll downhill from there. Still, a duel for the ages.

1987

1st Half: 43-38, 8 GB, 2nd place

2nd Half: 49-32, 3 GB, 2nd place

As might-have-been a year as any the Mets have ever played, their viability crested after 139 games plus 8-2/3 innings. The Mets, however, didn’t die with Terry Pendleton’s infamous home run. They remained stone plausible until Luis Aguayo ended their 159th game. But in retrospect, those last few weeks were slow torture in advance of the doffing of their crown.

1989

1st Half: 42-39, 3½ GB, 4th place

2nd Half: 45-36, 6 GB, 2nd place

The Met surge all anticipated carried them within 2½ of the lead after their 122nd game. The next day brought a mini-Pendleton via the unlikely home run bat of Willie Randolph. General divisional mediocrity would keep the Mets plausible (the very same 2½ out) as late as their 140th game, but their inevitable disintegration took hold from there.

1990

1st Half: 48-33, 2 GB, 2nd place

2nd Half: 43-38, 4 GB, 2nd place

Dubious distinction: the ’90 Mets had the best halfway mark in franchise history to not result in a playoff spot. In 1st after 132 games, clinging to a ½-game deficit as late as their 147th game, the unremarkableness of their September roster (particularly in contrast to the young, vibrant Pirates) finally caught up to the team.

1997

1st Half: 45-36, 7½ GB, 4th place; 3 GB, 3rd for Wild Card

2nd Half: 43-38, 13 GB, 2nd place; 4 GB, T-2nd for Wild Card

A brave new world, so to speak, as the Mets legitimately contend for a playoff spot that doesn’t involve 1st place. The Wild Card is only 2 games from their grasp after the Met have played 114 games, but it begins to slip from there. They’re still within dreaming distance after 149 games (5 out midway through a doubleheader, with a 4-game set against WC leader Florida a few days away), but it never meshes any better than that for those gritty, gutty 1997 Mets.

1998

1st Half: 44-37, 10½ GB, 2nd place; 4 GB, 2nd for Wild Card

2nd Half: 44-37, 18 GB, 2nd place, 1½ GB, 3rd for Wild Card

Jesus. Seriously — Jesus H. Christ. The Mets led the Wild Card derby by 1 length after they had played 157 games. After 161 games, they were still alive, trailing by 1; a Mets win, combined with Cub and Giant losses, would have necessitated a round robin play-in for the final National League playoff berth. The Cubs lost. The Giants lost. Guess who else lost. Jesus. Seriously — Jesus H. Christ.

2007

1st Half: 46-35, 4 ahead, 1st place

2nd Half: 42-39, 1 GB, 2nd place; 1½ GB, 3rd for Wild Card

Recent and notorious enough so we need not delve deeply into details, except to say the Mets were viable and plausible through 161 games, but the moment the 162nd game began, they were toast. Not much noted in real time was they somehow shredded their Wild Card safety net on their merry way to Collapse. The 2007 Mets’ legendary 7-game lead on the Phillies, established after 145 games, was seemingly cushioned by a 4½-game lead on the Padres for best 2nd-place record should it come to that. Of course it would never come to that…

The sole exceptions to maintaining a winning record beyond the halfway point were 1991, when a 47-34 start (2nd place, 2½ behind the Pirates) was obliterated by a 30-50 finish, and 2004, when the evanescent promise of 41-40 (2nd place, 3 behind the Phillies) was snowed under by a 30-51 avalanche of awfulness.

• The ’91 team remained plausible (5½ out) until embarking on an 11-game losing streak after their 107th game.

• The ’04 Mets, at 59-62, could dream of making a charge for the Wild Card as late as their 121st game when they sat within 7 games of the consolation prize; the divisional fantasy, however, blew up by their 104th game as an Atlanta sweep left them 9 out and reeling (despite having just reinforced their ranks by trading for Victor Zambrano and Kris Benson).

In 15 seasons, including the one in progress, the Mets have reached the halfway point of their schedule with a losing record that was within a net 6 games of a winning record. Only once among the 14 whose outcome we know for certain did they reach the playoffs.

1973

1st Half: 35-46, 12 GB, 6th place

2nd Half: 47-33, 1st by 1½ games

1973, of course, is the reason we are forced to consider our current “contenders” seriously. The ’73 Mets owned a record four games worse than the ’09 Mets. The ’73 Mets had 5 teams in front of them in their division. The ’73 Mets had to look up a double-digit deficit periscope to see 1st place. The ’73 Mets were bruised and battered, both physically and psychologically.

The ’73 Mets overcame all that. You Gotta Believe, you may have heard. If we could Believe in the ’73 Mets, why shouldn’t we take the same tack right here, right now 36 years later?

We could — and by 1973-instilled reflex, some of us will. But it’s worth exploring, for historical completeness and perspective, how 1973 stands as the exception, not the rule. To do so, let’s take a look at the other 13 seasons in which the Mets, à la 1973, won at least 35 of their first 81 games yet did not Believe their way into the postseason.

1966: 35-46, 16 GB, 9th place

Included here as a statistical courtesy. Not finishing 10th and not losing 100 games was all anyone could have asked for in the franchise’s fifth season. Those requests (66-95, 9th place) were fulfilled. Ah, simpler times.

1968: 38-43, 13½ GB, 9th place

Though the Mets were clearly emerging from their primordial ooze by then, it is staggering to think a pre-1969 team finished its first half with a better record than an eventual pennant winner. Yet it would actually take 129 games for the ’73 team to pass the noncontending ’68 team’s won-lost pace for good. In context, it speaks volumes for how much the 1968 Mets were improved under Gil Hodges, how poorly their successors would be staggering under Yogi Berra a half-decade later and how plain lousy the N.L. East of 1973 performed from bottom to top.

1974: 35-46, 8 GB, 6th place

What a difference a month makes. The dismal ’74 Mets (71-91) picked up where the ’73 Mets (82-79) left off before September 1973 arrived. Their plausible closeness to first place (7 out after 101 games) expired as soon as the Pirates and Cardinals awoke.

1980: 39-42, 6 GB, 4th place

The ’80 club had the same midway mark as the ’09 Mets do. But boy was this fan base elated to be 3 games under .500 with half a season to go. The Magic Is Back squad was never as viable as some of us wished to imagine but they were undeniably plausible (56-57, 7½ GB) after 113 games. From there, they thudded home (11-38), but for those who experienced their first taste of contention since 1975, the Magic lives on.

1982: 38-43, 7½ GB, 5th place

The record will show the ’82 Mets were only 3 out, in 3rd place, after 64 games, but a speedy Nestea plunge was already underway by the halfway mark. They finished 65-97 on the, uh, strength of a 15-game losing streak in August. The Magic was gone.

1992: 38-43, 6 GB, 5th place

As recently noted, ’92 is the less obvious, less happy precedent for 2009. The division was a muddle and the Mets were injured, yet they were still within two games of .500 and 5½ out of first after 104 games. The division unmuddled before the Mets — finishing 21-37 — felt any better.

1994: 36-45, 15 GB, 3rd place; 13 GB, 8th for Wild Card

This season had a mildly encouraging first half (particularly as measured against the toxic year that preceded it), but its second half was steamrolled by the mother of all baseball strikes, making 1994 the most moot of all examples. It’s a safe guess to venture that the Mets weren’t going anywhere in either the downsized 5-team division or the newfangled 11-team Wild Card race, yet their mini-boost in fortunes (22-15 in their final 37 en route to a truncated 55-58) lifted the spirits of every Mets fan who was paying rapt attention that July and early August…as all 12 of us who were doing so can attest.

1996: 37-44, 14 GB, 4th place; 10 GB, 9th for Wild Card

The Wild Card made its first, fleeting appearance on the Mets fan radar that July when a 17-10 spurt brought the team, at the 94-game mark, to within 4½ of the WC-leading Expos as Montreal came to Shea for a 4-game series that at least one delusional future blogger was certain was the showdown that would turn everything around. The Mets lost 3 of 4 and finished ’96 on a 25-43 wheeze. But oh, those 20 minutes when I worked myself into a frenzy…

2001: 35-46, 11 GB, 4th place; 10 GB, 10th for Wild Card

The 2001 Mets were as bad as the 1973 Mets at the halfway point, which seems appropriate because the “You Gotta Believe” precedent — and perhaps the befuddlement that this team was less than a year removed from the World Series — was all there was to hang one’s Mets hopes on. The ’01 Mets played as sluggishly and stupidly as the ’09 Mets have, if such a depth could be fathomed to have been previously plumbed. Their towel was thrown in by collective agreement long before they sunk to 54-68, 13½ from 1st; they were even further from the Wild Card. Then, maybe because nobody with Piazza, Alfonzo, Leiter, et al could be that bad for that long, a hot streak ensued. The Mets would go 25-6, which, in a tepid division, pushed them into contention. After 153 games, the Mets were improbably plausible: 3 games back with a 3-game series at first-place Atlanta about to unfold. It didn’t work out, which was doubly tough to take amid the unlikely hopes they raised in New York in September 2001, but it did come close to providing secondary evidence that “You Gotta Believe” deserves to be taken seriously — as do, one must underscore, the first 122 games of any season. (The 2001 Mets’ Pythagorean won-lost record, which reflects runs scored vs. runs allowed, indicates they “should” have been a 73-89 club, which validates the conventional wisdom that they were hopeless all along.)

2002: 40-41, 11½ GB, 4th place; 8 GB, 6th for Wild Card

In a decade that has been dense with disappointments, the 2002 Mets may stand as the biggest all-around letdown of these last 10 years. This team was supposedly reloaded for bear in the offseason. They instead revealed themselves as chronically outgunned. As late as the 115th game of the year, however, the Mets managed plausibility: 1 game over .500, 6½ off the Wild Card pace. Then they went out and lost their next 12. Year over, even if the embarrassment would endure for quite a while.

2003: 35-46, 16½ GB, 5th place; 11 GB, 11th for Wild Card

Never a factor in the division, never a factor for the Wild Card. The 2003 Mets (66-95) were what you’d expect to happen when you start 35-46, reminding us yet again how astounding it is that the ’73 Mets used the exact same halfway record as a launching pad to a pennant.

2005: 40-41, 10 GB, 5th place; 4½ GB, 5th for Wild Card

An inconsistent team in a fluid year in a scuffling division. The Washington Nationals, in case you’ve forgotten, held a comfortable 1st place lead at the halfway point. That didn’t last, even if the 2005 Mets’ maddening ways persisted. Early July towel-throwing was in vogue then, too, but so was grabbing the linen (along with the Mets’ chances) back from the abyss when deemed appropriate. In their 131st game, the Mets crept to within 1 game of the Wild Card lead; they seemed poised to tie the WC frontrunners, the Phillies, the next night as they went up 2-0 before the whole thing unraveled in a hurry. The Mets, who were once 68-60, careened in a blink to 71-75 — yet finished 83-79. Not an easy season to get a handle on, definitely an argument for locking the linen closet while the slightest chance to soak up champagne still exists.

2008: 40-41, 3 GB, 3rd place; 6 GB, 5th for Wild Card

Because the 2008 Mets ended their season in as ignominious a fashion as the 2007 Mets had, it’s already difficult to recall that theirs was a sub-.500 outfit (43-44) through 87 games. But it was in the 87th game that the 2008 Mets took flight by beginning a 10-game winning streak. The malaise of the Randolph era was over, the boom times under Jerry Manuel were in full bloom. A threadbare bullpen and a tendency to waste leadoff triples ultimately doomed them, but not until they cleared 161 games tied for the Wild Card.

Some people will never be sated by any season that doesn’t involve a world championship. Some will accept the playoffs as payoff for devoting as much fandom to their team as they do. Others can derive happiness from a race well run. Others just want to believe their Believing wasn’t for naught, that something not worthless was in progress at some point across a 162-game slog. And though it’s difficult to understand in an endeavor measured by wins and losses, some people are just thrilled that the Mets play baseball almost every day from early April to early October.

I don’t know what camp you fall in, just as I don’t know whether the 2009 Mets are any longer viable as contenders. My take, based on no more than my powers of observation well-honed over 81 games, is we are in more for frustration than elation pending an unforeseen upgrade in fundamental baseball skills and the unknown recuperative powers of at least a half-dozen individuals. It would seem delusional to assert the Mets are on the brink of great things. It’s plausible, however, to project the Mets might have a great week while the Phillies and Marlins struggle. That would land them in 1st place by the All-Star Break. It’s also plausible to forecast the Mets having a dreadful week while their competition flourishes, thereby dropping them as many as 10½ games out. With 81 games to go, much is plausible where the New York Mets are concerned. Their viability from here until the last Sunday of the season, however, would seem to be hanging precariously — and I’m not sold on their plausibility lasting indefinitely

But there’re just so many summers, babe. And just so many springs. I can’t imagine not wanting to attempt to enjoy, to the best of my Mets fan abilities, however much of the ride remains, no matter how dark, no matter how bumpy, no matter how un-Believe-able the ride shapes up as from here.

Half a season and an indeterminate amount of hope left. But the mere act of baseball continues. Let’s Go Mets.

Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Let's run down what the New York Mets accomplished today.

1. They didn't commit a shocking mental or physical error.

2. Daniel Murphy gritted his way through one very good at-bat.

3. Johan Santana was terrific in a terrifying hitter's park.

But the first is damning with faint praise, the second was immediately rewarded with a double-play ball from an exhausted, lost David Wright and the third was an utterly wasted effort. It was a day in which the 3-4-5 hitters went 0 for 11 with six Ks and no Met had an extra-base hit — and, incredibly, it was the best showing of a lost weekend of horrifying baseball.

And so we've come to this: See this towel? There it goes. Thrown in. Done.

Oh, I'll be a faithful watcher and chronicler of Met games for the rest of 2009. It's long past too late to stop doing that — if I made it through 2003 and 2004, I can get through the rest of 2009. Hell, on October 6th I know I'll catch myself wishing I could watch David Wright strike out and Fernando Tatis hit into a double play, sick as that sounds. I don't have a choice about these things. I'm a Mets fan; I watch the Mets and celebrate the Mets and fume about the Mets and suffer with the Mets. It's what I do and what I'll continue to do.

But I no longer believe in the Mets. Their 2009 incarnation is done. Giant fork in the back. Over. Eliminated, with the math a technicality.

I know, they're four games back at the halfway point of the season. I know, they're missing blah and blah and blah and blah and blah. I know, the NL East is so pathetically bad that the proper course of action would be to bust the division down to AAA level and take another wild card from the other two divisions. I know all this.

But none of that matters. Ask yourself this: Is there anything about this team that makes you believe in anything except their capability to lose another game in a fashion somewhere between listless and excruciating? The ability to lose in some newly appalling manner is the 2009 Mets' only transcendent quality. In every other way they are drearily consistent: offensively inept, defensively sloppy, fundamentally unsound, mentally ill-prepared, poorly constructed and badly led.

I'm not done watching them. But I am done being deluded by them and disappointed by them. The towel is thrown in. Garbage time has begun.

Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

After a game like Saturday's, in which the Mets fell behind and settled in comfortably from there, it felt fair to wonder if they ever planned to mount a comeback again. Then I remembered it was barely 48 hours ago that they indeed came from five runs behind to eventually win a ballgame. They do apparently maintain a pulse for occasional use no matter how intently they try to hide it.

Was the gut-check win in Pittsburgh really only two days ago? Was it really that recently when we were on a two-game winning streak of one-run victories? Because at this point, a certain numbness has set where the Mets are concerned. They win a couple, they lose a couple, you can't quite get a handle on what they're going to be over the next nine innings. That will happen when your team is 39-41, regardless of how sticky every team in the division outside of Washington seems to be to each other. We're certainly helping the Phillies find unstickiness where their juxtaposition to us is concerned.

On the day our country turned 233, Middle-Aged Man looked as spry as he did when he began his career 23 years ago facing off against Steve Carlton — yes, Jamie Moyer's that ancient. He may have played high school ball with John Dickinson. Moyer entered Saturday's game with an ERA over 6. Suffice to say it has dipped significantly toward 5. Phillies fans say long live Jamie Moyer. Jamie Moyer will live long if he faces this lineup regularly.

The Mets did nothing offensively and less defensively. Paul Bako walked in the sixth after David Wright didn't catch a foul pop. Paul Bako came around to score after Omir Santos didn't catch a foul pop. Two runners moved up because Ryan Church made a lousy throw, Omir Santos didn't cut it down and, just to emphasize what a bush league outfit this is, Pat Misch attempted to back up the play by stopping it with his foot.

It didn't work.

This is what the Mets do in 2009. This part has zero to do with injuries or travel. This is their rampant, unchecked unprofessionalism come home to roost yet again. The Mets are three games out with just over a half-season on tap. Keep telling yourself that as if that and Johan taking the ball Sunday are the balm that will soothe otherwise ineffectual pitching, nonexistent batting and fielding you'd blanch at if it were coming from your kindergartener.

They look tepid when they win. They look dreadful when they lose. They don't compete nearly enough so you can immediately detect a difference. Apparently the Mets take the concept of a holiday weekend seriously as death.

Bad Mets teams somehow seem charming in Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

I was supposed to be home in time for the game.

Instead, the flight back from Boston was delayed by the Northeast's apparently daily rain showers. The plane didn't take off until 6:30 or so, and it was after 7:30 when I was able to get MLB At Bat up and running. I navigated my way to the audio with my fingers over the screen, not wanting to see the score. Heard unfamiliar voices — ack, I'd hit the feed for the Phillies broadcast. Tried again, and there was an unhappy-sounding Wayne Hagin doing his usual roundabout version of play-by-play. (Wayne. Tell. Me. What. Happened.) He didn't sound like a man who was conveying good news, and he wasn't.

Phillies 4, Mets 0.

By the time I got out of the taxi it was Phillies 7, Mets 0. When I turned the damn thing off the Phillies had the bases loaded and no one out and Livan was finally done serving up BP. (The Mets somehow got out of that one without further damage. But while the battle might have been won, the war was on its way to being lost.)

I went for a walk, got something to eat, sat on the Promenade and watched the sunset. Pretty nice night; not one that I was going to let get ruined by the inevitable. Tonight, I make no apologies for my desertion. I know fans are supposed to go down with the ship, but by then the Good Ship Mets was on the bottom of the North Atlantic, prowled by treasure hunters in submersibles. There's only so much a fan can take.

I've talked to a fair number of folks in recent weeks about the curious case of the 2009 Mets. They know everybody's hurt and the team hasn't played particularly well, to say the least. But, they point out, the Mets are right in the hunt. Had they won tonight, they would have been tied for first with the Phillies and the Marlins. Their question is generally some variant of “How can you give up on a team in that situation?”

Strictly speaking, I haven't. But I gotta believe? There's plenty of evidence that I shouldn't and not a heck of a lot of data points that are helpful for making the counterargument.

I didn't lose faith because the Mets have been reduced to Cora's Irregulars by injuries. If anything it made me cheer more enthusiastically — at first. You can't expect a ragtag team of Coras and Evanses and assorted Fernandos to replace Reyes and Delgado and Beltran, and I haven't.

But you can expect them to play sound fundamental baseball, being major-leaguers and all. Tonight they repeatedly let Phillies take extra bases because guys weren't covering bases or pursuing balls that got past them. And it's not the first time shoddy and/or dopey defense has been on display. And you can expect them to have good at-bats and do something against 33-year-old sacrificial-lamb emergency starters. But nope, they made Rodrigo Lopez look like Bob Feller.

I know, I know, the Mets have played three games against three teams in three cities in three days. They've gone from a haunted hotel to one full of Furries to a park filled with furies. I'm sure they're tired. But everybody's tired now — you think flying home after getting swept by the Braves didn't leave the Phillies a little peckish? But few other teams look as tired as the Mets, who already have a staggering number of losses that can be pinned on gag-job collapses, clinics in how not to play baseball, and nights where the whole team seems to be collectively sleepwalking. I gotta believe? Well, I'll try, but it seems increasingly clear that this season is one long bad dream, and the insanely low number in the GB column just a mean-spirited twist in the nightmare.

Happier daydreams awake in the pages of Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Wednesday they rode the bus. Thursday they broke the Bucs. This weekend?

First place or bust!

Let's get a little giddy for the giddy-up the Mets showed after falling behind 5-0, shedding Tim Redding, shredding almost their entire roster and blowing a ninth-inning lead that seemed fated to be converted into the regulation loss to end all regulation losses. It was a Wes Westrum kind of day developing in Pittsburgh, one from which you're left muttering into the mirror, “Ohmigod, wasn't that awful?”

But it didn't develop as such. It was a cliffdweller, all right, but this time the Mets merely teetered on the edge instead of plummeting deep into the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela. Somehow they formed the mighty Ohio of comebacks — twice.

Next stop: Philadelphia, where our temporarily unreeling N.L. East contender challenges the sputtering defending champion, with two other mediocre teams futzing around in there somewhere with us. The Mets, the Phils, the Fish, the Braves…four clubs separated by two games, they'll all meet again on their long journey to the middle. Until then, we've won two one-run demi-thrillers in a row after feeling the cold hand Tuesday night and wondering if we'd ever see the sun.

It rained in Pittsburgh. It rained Pittsburgh baserunners, some of whom, as is Pirate custom, you'd never heard of before. Who's Garrett Jones? He's who Nyjer Morgan was last month. He's who Steven Pearce was last year. He's Humberto Cota and Tike Redman and everybody else who's taken a black and gold bite out of our blue and orange ass these last few seasons. The Buccos haven't had a winning record since 1992 because they're constantly bringing up Garrett Jones and Steven Pearce and Nyjer Morgan and Humberto Cota and Tike Redman. Why won't someone tell our parade of Tim Reddings that this is not what they mean by Lumber and Lightning?

Well, Redding lasted not long and my attention was diverted by the things that keep day games going on in no more than one ear. But then I heard weird sounds like Murphy driving in two and Evans driving in two more and Tatis doing that thing that isn't grounding into a double play. And Church…he was all over the place. Timmy! was gone and the Misches and the Dessenses and the Stokeses had morphed from mopping up to setting up and all it was going to take was the one credibly great pitcher called on all day to end it.

And he very nearly did, damn it.

Frankie Rodriguez finally had his Bradmando Fragner moment. He legitimately blew one in Baltimore, but that seemed inevitable enough so as to be excused as, if you'll pardon the expression, popping his Met closer cherry. This one was rotten tomatoes and they just kept coming. Freddy Sanchez dives into first, the stupidest play in baseball, and he's safe. Adam LaRoche, who told Carlos Beltran to stuff it a month ago, turned his indignation on Rodriguez. OK, score tied, joke's over. Get them out now, Francisco. But K-Rod couldn't stop with the funny business. He gets two outs, but then he allows two hits. Winning run is on third, Brandon Moss lines a rising bullet toward right…but it's not a hit! Luis Castillo not only catches it but does a little “look what I found” with the ball (cocky bastard, ain't he?).

Next chapter, the Pirates are the Pirates: their closer du jour hits Tatis. Tatis is in such pain he steals second. Church singles and Tatis is showing signs of dead duckery, but McCutchen doesn't so much airmail the throw home as send it on the space shuttle. Mets strangely lead 9-8. Even stranger, Frankie comes out for the tenth after throwing what must have been a hundred pitches in the ninth. The choice facing Jerry Manuel was Rodriguez's right arm falling off or Bobby Parnell's right arm being used. These days you'll take your chances with the former.

And it worked. The Mets won a game they didn't deserve to lose nearly as much as the Pirates did. They're all big juicy W's in the standings, however, so what a game! Back on the bus and off to Philadelphia for a most improbable roll to maybe the top of the division.

On a steel horse we ride…

The Mets experience two definitively happy endings and lots of semi-enjoyable middles in Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Jerry Manuel somehow fails to consult with me, but I could have told him taking the bus to Miller Park was an excellent idea. Stephanie and I did exactly that less than two years ago. We were staying downtown, so it was simple. The express rolled right by our Wisconsin Avenue hotel and we just hopped on — a quick ride and a boon to team spirit. Despite some later logistical missteps, I'd highly recommend the bus as transportation if you're staying in Milwaukee (provided you can live without tailgating).

Yovani Gallardo pitched for the Brewers that hot August night in 2007. Pitched well, too: seven innings, five hits, seven strikeouts, hit a homer and recorded the win. He was dynamite this fine Wednesday afternoon as well: seven innings, five hits, twelve strikeouts. But he didn't take Mike Pelfrey deep, which was an oversight on Gallardo's part, because if he wasn't going to help his own cause, none of his teammates were. The Mets, on the other hand…the team that rides the bus together encounters no fuss together.

Or something like that.

Our bending, breaking but by no means clinically dead Mets outlasted an extremely effective Gallardo for the second time this season. In April, they did it behind Johan Santana when all Johan had to do was flash his red blinkers, and traffic halted in his midst. Man, those were the days. While Johan was still sitting and wondering whether anybody here, including himself suddenly, can play this came, Big Pelf stood tall, metaphorically as well as vertically. There was a walk here, a balk there and the general sense that things were going to go to hell per usual, but Pelf stiffened and the Brewers were stymied. Yovani Gallardo has struck out 19 Mets across 13 innings in 2009 and has only a no-decision and a loss, both by 1-0 scores, to take on his bus home. Forty years ago, Steve Carlton struck out 19 Mets in 9 innings and no doubt wanted to throw Ron Swoboda under a big yellow conveyance. But let's not get ahead of our route to glory just yet.

At least once a year when I was in elementary school they showed us a safety film admonishing us to commit “no horseplay” while riding the bus. That phrase always cracked me up, but after Tuesday night, I wasn't laughing. The Mets distracted the driver with their incredibly juvenile antics and all but drove off a cliff with their latest 1962 homage in the fourth inning. It's little wonder Jerry Manuel was moved to hold a closed-door meeting afterwards — though the Mets being the Mets of late, I wouldn't assume the closed-door part was intentional. Prior to the team's very first home game ever, according to Leonard Shecter in Once Upon the Polo Grounds, “Casey Stengel slammed the door of his newly built office, and when he tried to get back into it there was no key that fitted the lock.”

Today, Pelfrey was the key. Tomorrow? One ride at a time. I could see the Mets accidentally locking themselves in visitors clubhouses around the National League before I could see the Mets riding the victory bus repeatedly based on their recent horsespit play, but with the Phillies losing Wednesday night, they're all of two games from first place, with the current first-place team the next stop on our timetable after Thursday's detour to Pittsburgh. We all have ironclad reasons not to take the Mets' chances seriously (the five-game losing streak; the 9-18 June; the prevalence of the lame and the halting; our collective experience), but y'know what? Screw it. The Mets won a 1-0 game. They're 1-0 in their last one. It's summer and, for the moment, not raining. Per Leo McGarry to Jed Bartlet when Bartlet doubted his chances of being elected president on The West Wing, “Act as if ye have faith and faith shall be given to you. Put it another way, fake it 'til you make it.”

Or, for our purposes, keep on busin'.

***

With Thursday's game an early afternoon affair, that leaves you plenty of time afterwards to hop the F train to JLA Studios in Brooklyn (highly convenient to Manhattanites) for an all-baseball edition of Varsity Letters, starting at 7:30. Learn more about it here. Jason and I have both read at VL and can attest to the quality of these events. Consider it highly recommended from your friends at FAFIF.

To be enjoyed via any mode of transportation unless you're steering it (in which case, pull over first): Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook. Check out the latest review, from 1969: The Year Everything Changed author Rob Kirkpatrick, here.