It was a perfectly admissible argument that Howard Beale advanced in the days that followed. It was, however, also a very depressing one. Nobody particularly cared to hear his life was utterly valueless.
—Narrator, Network

Goddammit, this is a dark fucking period.
—Dewey Cox, Walk Hard

Things can’t get worse, they got to get better, a wise man once wrote.

He wasn’t writing about the Mets.

Things might get better. They’ll probably get worse first. We are several city blocks from just around the corner to the light of day. We are stumbling around in the dark, groping for the “on” switch. We seem likely to continue doing so for some time.

At this point, even a mad prophet of the airwaves couldn’t tell you much encouraging about the Mets. What they’re communicating by their very conduct accurately tells their story. On a night when they gathered almost as many hits as they had in their previous four contests combined, they allowed all that and a fistful more to the Milwaukee Brewers, who at first didn’t know what do with such a bounty but ultimately did plenty. Our sole pleasant surprise of the past month pitched like the midnight pumpkin he might very well turn into. Fernando Nieve didn’t have it; his catcher, Brian Schneider, did (ringing two-run double to make the game briefly competitive) until he didn’t (running the wrong way between first and second when a bloop fell into right facilitating a 9-4 force; he also grounded into a first-pitch, game-ending double play just when things were developing a hint of intrigue). And of course when something Metlike happened to a Brewer, namely Casey McGehee pulling a Luis Castillo on an even easier pop fly than that which was dropped on June 12, he made up for it minutes later with a death blow grand slam. That’s what you call atoning for your sins. (Luis, however, handles ground balls with renewed focus and aplomb since his game-costing error, so good for him.)

At least the Mets now have a double-digit dinger dude, as Gary Sheffield became the first Met to go deep 10 times in ’09. Sheff’s also the first Met this year to raise his homer total as high as his uniform number. That took only 75 games.

***

Monday night’s game was grim, but it was the Brewers and I saw it on TV, thus it was not particularly painful except as a reminder that we are currently party to a seriously deteriorative baseball narrative. Sunday night’s festival of futility, however…that was grim and that was dismal.

You could call it grismal and you wouldn’t be wrong.

I viewed Sunday night’s loss to the Yankees from inside Citi Field, which was as instructive as it was painful even if it meant limited exposure to Miller, Morgan and Phillips. You probably had to see it for yourself in person to truly understand how hopeless this game was and how hapless these Mets have become. They played nine hollow innings against the Yankees and conveyed very little sense that they had a genuine chance to win despite never trailing by more than three runs. Mind you, this was a game in which the opposition’s starting pitcher, a fellow with an ERA higher than Oliver Perez’s, didn’t out-and-out toy with them as his teammates had Friday and Saturday. CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett had the night off. The Mets continued their paid sabbatical. For 27 innings they were barely present on the same field as the Yankees. They certainly didn’t belong on it.

Over the weekend, Burnett keyed a one-hitter, Alex Rodriguez passed Reggie Jackson on the all-time home run list and Mariano Rivera recorded his 500th save. The Yankees left Citi Field with more souvenirs than most Mets fans can afford from the team store. They did it without all-time Met tormentor Derek Jeter for two nights, though he materialized just long enough to back his Ford Edge over our petunias. Jeter had the flu — and he makes me sick — but he played hard and he won. The Yankees hadn’t won a Subway Series in six years but the whole thing felt familiar and expected. Same as it ever was and all that. But worse.

Will Leitch suggested in New York magazine last week that the Subway Series hasn’t been a colossal deal since 2002 when Shawn Estes wasn’t knocking Roger Clemens on his chemically enhanced ass. An embarrassing episode in retrospect, to be sure, but a footnote in real time to the final score of Mets 8 Yankees 0, a homer by Estes and another by the never-quite-avenged Mike Piazza inflicting better and more practical damage on the Rocket’s rear end. Yet it would have been nice to have left a bruise on the area Clemens presumably reserved for Brian McNamee’s syringe.

We won that game, we lost that battle. Seven years later, when Frankie Rodriguez walked Mariano Rivera — how is that not a typo? — it didn’t matter in terms of the tangible result. Mets were losing 3-2 before, they were losing 4-2 after and they were going to lose regardless. But holy fuck. K-Rod walked Rivera. He walked Rivera after intentionally walking Jeter to load the bases with two out. It’s not enough that our $37 million closer can’t be the Met who finally whittles Captain Cock…y down to size. He can’t throw three fucking strikes to fucking Mariano Rivera (career RBI total prior: 0)? The Subway Series began with Luis Castillo undermining Francisco Rodriguez’s best efforts. It ended with Rodriguez as his own worst enemy. The dropped pop fly and the bases-loaded walk to the other team’s closer made for gruesome bookends this year, just as Estes’ legendary non-HBP of Clemens has found its soulmate in Rodriguez’s BB of Rivera.

***

Dave Mlicki, Matt Franco and our 17-13 overall record between 2004 and 2008 notwithstanding, nothing good comes of the Subway Series. Nothing. I did not care for its arrival at Citi Field, and not just because of the sweep that was laid on us there.

The damn thing felt much bigger at Shea Stadium. The final moments of the final Mets-Yankees game ever played there, one year ago Monday, was hot-wired electricity incarnate. It was lightning in a 20-ounce Pepsi bottle. It almost always was. Every Subway Series game I attended at Shea, exquisite or atrocious, crackled. This one just oozed slowly. But maybe the Subway Series is Norma Desmond in Sunset Blvd.: It’s still big, it’s the ballpark that’s gotten small.

Citi Field does not feel big game ready, which may not matter considering the dim prospects the Mets have for playing big games in the immediate future. For all of Citi’s attractive qualities, it does not strike me as a setting or a stage. It’s a fine place to chill, to chat, to chew — Blue Smoke’s spare ribs have emerged as this nation’s finest natural resource — but on this occasion, for the purposes of raucousness, intimidation and drama, it did not meet the standard set by Shea Stadium. I don’t say that to puff up the memory of a fallen idol either. Citi is lovely, absolutely lovely. But Shea meant business.

Put a ton of Yankees on the Disabled List, give us back our stalwarts and pretend for a moment that we did the emphatic sweeping. Would I be telling you what a boiling cauldron of emotion Citi Field was over the weekend? Maybe, but I’ve been to thirteen home games the Mets have won this season and I’ve rarely sensed those kinds of sparks.

I feel other things. I feel good when I’m there and they win; I feel warmed by it. In fact, I was so delighted by how they escaped the Cardinals last Thursday that I found myself growing tactile in a way I hadn’t to date. I took my traditional postgame stroll through Field Level to the first base side staircase in Jackie Robinson’s Rotunda. I tipped my cap to the picture of Mr. Robinson and Mr. Rickey. I tapped my cap on the Mr. Met disc that thanked me for coming. And as I stepped outside, I patted one of the bazillions of bricks that comprise the exterior.

A tip, a tap and a pat…I would have bestowed those at Shea without thinking because when the Mets won there, I generally left giddy. Last Thursday I did it practically by instinct at Citi from the same sensation. I thought I had made it past whatever barriers were keeping me from fully embracing my post-Shea existence, even if I still tend to think the whole thing is a mostly unnecessary cash grab. My well-embedded cynicism had all but melted in the matinee sun and I was feeling a real kinship for the ol’ new ballpark.

Then Sunday happened and I wasn’t terribly impressed by Citi Field, not when it lay flat on the tracks of a third consecutive Subway Series loss. Mets fans were not consistently vociferous and Yankees fans, all told, weren’t that obnoxious. And they’re Yankees fans, y’know? It was a close enough game Sunday, at least on the scoreboard, so that a crowd like that should have gotten fired up. Yet there was little fire. Maybe that’s a symptom of a boutiquey building that works better for noshing and shopping than it does for blood, but there’s a conspicuous lack of blood inside Citi Field. The Mets aren’t bringing it and neither are we collectively.

***

I’d love to lean on the injuries for everything that ails the Mets, but sooner or later, whoever wears the uniform has to represent. Those players may not be as talented as those for whom they’re substituting, but they’ve gotta be full-fledged major leaguers sooner or later. They’ve got to make the plays they’re capable of making. They’ve got to compete every night. They’ve got to do with their heads what they can’t do with their physical assets. I haven’t seen it since Carlos Beltran went down. First they sagged, then they drooped, now they’re barely Slinkys. The general manager finds help nowhere. The manager muses it would be nice to stick around .500 from now until mid-July.

Thanks to this 9-17 month, the Mets are well ahead of Jerry Manuel’s schedule.

The Yankees are off our radar for now* and the rest of the season is underway. Monday night began a stretch of 88 games against the National League, thirteen in fourteen days, twelve of those versus teams with records now better than that sported by the sub-.500 Mets. The firm of Delgado, Reyes & Beltran will not participate in these proceedings. Oliver Perez took one short stride toward returning when he threw three innings without incident in Coney Island on Sunday. John Maine, however, isn’t even ready to take baby steps. There appears to be no significant internal help to be had between now and the All-Star Break.

That means, barring some unforeseen Minayan maneuver, the field will be filled by David Wright and a cloud of dust. On the nights it’s Johan Plus Eight, that’s great. The rest of the time? When you learn you can’t necessarily count on Fernando Nieve, what is there to believe in? Maybe Liván. Maybe Pelf, 6′ 7″ and still experiencing growing pains. We have to assume Frankie’s walk of Rivera was some kind of celestial joke and he’ll go back to being who he was for most of the season’s first three months. If we can’t have that much, this whole season could go up in Blue Smoke before we know it.

It hasn’t yet, of course. Through June 29, we’re 37-38, in third place, three games behind the Phillies with 87 games to go. That’s not so bad, right? I guess not.

But here’s something that gives me chills:

Five years ago, on June 29, the day Stephanie and I moved into our current home, the Mets beat the Reds 7-5. We didn’t have the cable hooked up yet, so I listened to Gary and Howie describe the exploits of Jae Seo (before he became an anachronistic jersey sighting) and Braden Looper (before he became a perennial annoyance) and beamed approvingly. Through June 29, we were 37-38, in third place, three games behind the Phillies with 87 games to go.

Same as it ever was is really going around these days.

*Actually, the other locally based team will temporarily return to my radar tonight as I have been graciously invited to inspect their new facility. Chronic curiosity where baseball stadia are concerned compels me to follow through despite the presence of that stadium’s title occupants. I’ll report back Wednesday unless I turn into a pillar of salt.

Avoid the temptations and settle down with 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.

Truth be told, I never had any use for “Friends.” It just didn't work for me — I found the characters dull or actually irritating, and so never cared what happened to them. But I did think the method for naming the shows — each show is formally known as “The One With…” or “The One Where…” — was clever. That's how we all describe episodes of our favorite shows anyway, so why not keep things simple?

So, what's the Friends-style description of this particular episode of Subway Series, the finale of Season 13? (Remind me not to ask for the Complete Season DVD. Easily the worst one since the 2003 DVD, the one with Jason Phillips and Roger Clemens on the cover. If either one of those DVDs shows up under the Christmas tree I'll know I pissed Santa off something fierce.)

Let's review some candidates.

The night started off as The One Where Taqueria Forgot How to Make Skirt Steak. El Verano Taqueria has become my favorite Citi Field food choice, ranking above even my beloved Shake Shack, and with the added benefit of a line that's usually about five minutes at the worst. Tonight it was more than 20 minutes, which I attributed to lines full of Citi Field newbies and general crowdedness. But when I got to the front of the line, I had to wait at least five minutes for an order of skirt steak. Huh? You have basically three menu choices and orders coming in every 30 seconds and you manage to fumble things that badly? How is that even possible? When I joined Emily, Greg and Jim in the Promenade it was 2-0 Yankees, I'd had to hear that awful news chronicled by the despicable Morgan and Miller and Phillips, and so I was already thoroughly pissed off. Still, this was a problem for one person, not 20,000.

Was it The One Where Daniel Murphy Got Too Cute? Well, yeah, Murphy needs to realize that you treat Derek Jeter like some malign force of nature to be contained or avoided. Don't think about outfoxing him if you're wearing a Met uniform, because it just doesn't work. (Oh, how I wish it were otherwise.) But let's give Murphy a pass — he was being aggressive and he's been a lot better at first than any of us would have guessed.

How about The One With Fernando Martinez Batting Instead of a Pinch-Hitter? That would seem to fit — and underline the point that one double doesn't disprove the amply demonstrated theory that young Mr. Martinez is hopelessly overmatched at a big-league level right now. I think everybody in the ballpark knew Brian Bruney would tempt him into a strikeout, and everybody in the ballpark was right. Still, this one's unfair — Ryan Church was a late scratch, so what option did Jerry have?

We could call it The One Where We Didn't Hit Chen-Mieng Wang. Yeah, except everybody saw that one coming, too. I had Wang penciled in for a seven innings of four-hit, shutout ball. Pessimistic, but not by much.

Besides, all this is overlooking the obvious. There's only one way we're going to remember this game, and we're going to remember it forever.

It's The One Where We Walked in a Run With an American League Closer at the Plate.

Ugh.

***

ADDENDUM: An added head-scratcher at Citi Field tonight was the number of Mets fans wearing inexplicable Met uniforms or t-shirts. McREYNOLDS 22 was old and eccentric, MILLER 25 more so, but neither is obviously crazy if you're a history-minded fan But what to do with the guy woman in the SEO 26 jersey? Or the one heading down the rotunda steps in CEDENO 19? Or the one that took the cake, on the 7 train home: a t-shirt that said BURGOS 40.

BURGOS 40? Really? With all the others, you can at least think of a point in time during which someone might have gotten a little too excited and headed to Modell's. McReynolds was a capable player until he got done eating half of Arkansas, Miller was feisty and gritty if not particularly talented, and Roger Cedeno was decent everywhere except the outfield for a couple of months. Heck, even Jae Seo had a good game or two. But Ambiorix Burgos, owner of one win as a New York Met? Ambiorix Burgos who got hurt and then made news during his rehab from Tommy John surgery first by assaulting his girlfriend and then by being charged with hit-and-run in a case in which two women died? (And who then turned himself in to Dominican Republic officials wearing White Sox gear?) You're a Mets fan, and this is a shirt you a) actually bought; b) kept through all that; and c) decided to wear to show your bona fides against the Yankees?

There's only one explanation for the wearers of SEO and CEDENO and BURGOS shirts: These people are plants, Yankee fans sent to Citi Field in disguise to make us look bad. Which is unsportsmanlike and not terribly necessary: This weekend, the people down there on the field wearing Mets uniforms with their actual names on them had that covered.

ADDENDUM ADDENDUM: The wearer of the BURGOS shirt offers a winning explanation/defense in the comments. I recant my accusation that he's a Yankee plant and tip my cap to him instead. And somehow now even though our lineup is as crappy as it was last night and we're in as much or more trouble standings-wise, I'm more cheerful about things.

Need an antidote to what just happened? I'd suggest a liberal dose 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.

This season is 45% complete and not 1 Met has a home run total as high as his uniform number. It's not like we were counting on Elmer Dessens to lead the way either.

Gary Sheffield wears 10; he has 9.

David Wright wears 5; he has 4.

Luis Castillo wears 1; he has 0.

The Mets wear glum expressions of late; they have reason.

Right now the Mets aren't doing much of anything effectively, starting with staying healthy. But what they're really not doing is hitting home runs. They're not hitting them in their home park and they're not hitting them in a whole lot of other venues.

After 73 games, no Met has reached double-digits in home runs. This seemed distressingly uncommon, so I availed myself of Baseball Reference and Mets By The Numbers and checked a couple of 2009's notably offense-deficient predecessors for guidance.

In 1980, the year the Mets were at their most legendarily powerless — when the Daily News measured them every morning against Roger Maris and both maxed out at 61 — it took 84 team games for Lee Mazzilli to hit 10. He wore 16 and would lead the team with 16. Steve Henderson, whose 1st home run that year came in the Mets' 55th game (and what a game it was), wore 5 and eventually hit 8, making him the only 1980 Met to outhomer his uniform number.

In 1972, when no Met collected as many as 100 hits (in 156 games, due to the strike), it took 102 team games for John Milner to hit 10. Milner wore 28 and would lead the team with 17, but 3 Mets (Rusty Staub, Ed Kranepool and Jim Fregosi) outhomered their single-digit uniform numbers. Jim Beauchamp wore 5 and hit 5 after switching from 24 in deference to Willie Mays.

If Gary Sheffield is healthy enough to make it to Philadelphia, I like his chances of his getting to 10 in Citizens Bank Bandbox. Should Carlos Beltran's bone bruise heal before long, I'd think he'd stand a good shot of doubling his currently frozen total of 8, which would top the 15 on his sorely missing back. David Wright, provided an anvil doesn't fall on his head, is gonna hit at least 2 more home runs between now and October 4…probably more.

Alex Cora wears 3 and has homered 0 times. But he did single Saturday night against A.J. Burnett, 1 of the 9 hits the Mets have collected in their past 3 games, 1 of the 7 singles the Mets have recorded in those very same 26 innings, 1 of 1 hit — singular — the Mets accumulated in losing to the Yankees by a wide margin for the 2nd consecutive night.

Good pitching beats good hitting. What it does to virtually no hitting is almost unspeakable.

***

ADDENDUM: We're 0-4 versus this particular opponent on Saturday nights. One loss was a World Series game whose first pitch was dictated by Fox. The other two were parts of day-night makeups, including one in which Roger Clemens committed an act of assault for which he should have served time. This one, however, was scheduled voluntarily by the Mets. One thing may have nothing to do with another, but I'd ask management to never, ever go out of its way again to play the Yankees on a Saturday night. The phrase “just asking for trouble” leaps to mind.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start reading a copy 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.

Try to catch or record SNY's Mets Weekly this week during one of its scheduled reairings: Monday at 1:00 PM; Tuesday at 6:30 PM; Thursday at 6:30 PM. The extraordinary New York baseball historian I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, Peter Laskowich, is featured, giving a mini-tour of Manhattan baseball landmarks, specifically Madison Square Park and Coogan's Bluff. Next week (noon Saturday) the show follows Peter to Brooklyn for more of the heritage that led to the Mets.

(Don't know if he'll stop off at Washington Park, but Jason did recently, which you can read about here.)

Can't recommend Peter's baseball tours enough. Check his site here for more information.

Two weeks ago we could debate and decide which was the greater of two evils: a game disgracefully booted when the pressure was on or a game all but forfeited from the word go. Tonight provided the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of answers.

You got your slipshod defense in my pathetic blowout loss!

You got your pathetic blowout loss in my slipshod defense!

The Mets lost every way they know how to the Yankees in the first Subway Series game ever hosted at Citi Field, which is just the showcase you crave for displaying that kind of versatility. They didn't pitch well, they didn't hit at all and their fielding was in a league of its own, namely the New York-Penn. The game was essentially over in the second when three Mets infielders committed errors. None of them was Luis Castillo, so that's progress for ya. I have special noises that only seem to emanate from my larynx during the Subway Series and those vocal alarms were sounded as Wright threw one away (AAUUGGHH!!), Cora flung another nowhere in particular (EEEEKKKK!!!) and Evans…let's just say if I were in a releasing mood, Nick would get the unhappy ending.

I suppose there's a little solace to be gained in that Pelfrey sort of regained his composure for a while after that. Didn't much matter since CC Sabathia pitched like a tenured professor, making it all academic. Sabathia's sole Shea Stadium seminar, in case you were wondering, was five years ago this month when I sat in Loge and watched him and the Indians roll over the Mets, also by a 9-1 thumping. He was unhittable then, he was unhittable Friday. Or maybe we just never hit him. The Met lineup then included Gerald Williams, Kaz Matsui, Ty Wigginton and Jason Phillips. The Met lineup Friday featured their spiritual descendants.

Thanks to the Phillies' inability to Play Like Champions, the Mets remain a half-game from first. Nights like Friday night, whether against hated intracity rivals or National Leaguers from anywhere, make every alleged contender look more suspect than viable, no matter how close everyone is to everyone else. At the characteristic risk of being a buzzkill — as if there's any buzz palpable after losing 9-1 — I don't see solely 1973 when I see this division mired in mediocrity. I see 1992, too. That season is synonymous with The Worst Team Money Could Buy monkeyshines, but that team was a paper contender into August because the National League East spun its wheels in the mud as one. After the Mets had played 100 games that year, 5½ was the margin that separated the top five teams. “Nobody wants it,” was the common refrain. Turns out Pittsburgh wanted it and took it pretty easily from there. Philadelphia or Florida or Atlanta could conceivably be this year's version of Pittsburgh. So could we…conceivably.

Is 1992 relevant to this season's story? No more so than 1973 when we're talking about a bunched-up division and an injury-riddled Mets team, even if we'd rather lean on the more pleasant parable. You Gotta Believe, but you also have to brace yourself. Mostly you have to do better than the Mets did against Sabathia, Brett Gardner and the rest of the Jeterless Yankees (who seemed about 10% less hateable with Captain Cock…y sidelined, but I was watching at home, so my condolences to anyone who sucked this one up in person). Going out in order for eight of the nine innings, especially when two were pitched by Brett Tomko merits the meting out of at least a little punishment. Dear Jerry: Please make everybody run laps or assist the grounds crew or something that would satisfy my bloodlust for accountability.

Better yet, make the infielders take infield.

Before Manuel gave up on the Mets' one potential rally by using Argenis Reyes as a pinch-hitter (presumably because Liván Hernandez wasn't available), Gary Sheffield took over the team lead in homers with his ninth…which seems awfully low for this late in the season. Sheff solved the Citi Field dimensions that, according to Tristan Cockcroft of ESPN, have helped no one's power production save for Chase Utley's and now maybe Gardner's. Citing the careful measurements taken by Hit Tracker, Cockcroft reports three-dozen balls that would have gone out of Shea — divided pretty evenly between the Mets and their opponents — have stayed within Citi limits. David Wright alone has lost six would-be dingers by moving next door. Thus it's not our collective imagination that the Dead Ball Era has made a high-priced comeback at Citi Field. You build a retro park, you'll get occasional retro side effects.

As Cockcroft points out, teams can find and have found other ways to score runs besides jacking balls over the capitalist equivalent of the Berlin Wall. Friday night, hitting it to Wright, Cora and Evans proved pretty effective in that regard.

Need a distraction from your diversion? Next time your team plays dead for eight of nine innings, use your downtime to read 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.

When you get a ticket plan, the tickets from later in the schedule seem like the stuff of science fiction: Amid the chill of February, who can imagine June 25, 2009? For all we knew back then, we might spend the evening mourning Michael Jackson, waiting for the latest news out of Iran and making merciless fun of the governor of South Carolina.

This was a day game on Emily's plan with her dad — a pair of tickets that threatened to go orphaned. Joshua's out of school and not yet in camp. I have some vacation time unallocated. Really, the answer was obvious: a father-and-son outing to Citi Field, with the added bonus that for today at least, summer actually came to New York City.

Last time Joshua and I did this, Willie Harris wound up robbing Carlos Delgado and my son gave me a lesson in innocence and resilience that I vaguely begrudged at the time but soon came to cherish. Unsurprisingly, he's grown considerably as a baseball fan: Nowadays we banter about why batting average is a lousy stat (if Luis Castillo goes 5-for-10 with five bases-empty singles and Omir Santos goes 5-for-10 with five grand slams, who has the higher batting average? Who's been more valuable?), talk over why Ryan Church puts his hands up like he's making a catch even when he knows he's playing the ball on one hop, discuss why the infield-fly rule exists and why a bunted third strike isn't just another foul. He's learned to loathe Derek Jeter (though my blood ran cold the other night when he inquired if we shouldn't drop by His Smugness's Web site, since we hadn't been there lately) and I've got him started on disliking Tony La Russa and Cody Ross. (I don't know why I hate Cody Ross with the intensity of a thousand suns, but I do.) And he's been introduced to the family tics and quirks — he greets each opposing pitcher with “Bring on [Name Here],” yelps “We win!” if the Met starting pitcher's first pitch is a strike, counts down outs to go to a no-hitter by three after each inning, and sighs heavily and groans, “Another night…” when the no-hitter is inevitably lost. And, it goes without saying, he grasps the essential difference between taking three out of four from the Cardinals and being able to mock Tony La Russa for being the fussy, self-satisfied martinet he is and splitting with the Cardinals and being irritated for the next 27 hours.

Everything was perfect as we plopped ourselves in the Promenade high behind home plate, except for one thing: Johan Santana was quite obviously not himself. Sure, there was a pitcher wearing 57 down there, and he was stalking around behind the mound like Santana, but the pitches were doing disturbingly un-Santanan things, like swooping and rising and dipping where they weren't supposed to. 3-0 kept following 2-0 and 1-0, with uh-oh dogging their heels the whole way, as Johan seethed and steamed and tried to force his arm to obey his brain.

Watching a Cooperstown-caliber pitcher at the top of his game is wonderful, of course — who wouldn't want a seat in the studio as Michaelangelo made a chunk of rock immortal? — but sometimes watching a master craftsman struggle is more interesting. Santana looked at video after the first (it either didn't help or more likely these things take a while), gathered himself to get Albert Pujols with the young game in the balance in the second, caught Skip Schumaker looking to end the fourth, and took care of Brendan Ryan personally on a comebacker to finish the sixth. It wasn't a great performance — that one earned run over seven is deceptive — but that's not the point. It was enough to win on a day when a lot of pitchers would have been gone in the fourth with a shrug of the shoulders and a swollen ERA. And that's the difference — OK, really it's a difference — between Santana and a lot of other pitchers.

It was also an object lesson that baseball is fundamentally unfair. Consider Chris Carpenter's fourth: He surrendered Luis Castillo's modest single in the hole, a David Wright double-play ball that Carpenter himself deflected into an infield hit, a Fernando Tatis parachute in front of Ryan Ludwick, and then Nick Evans' two-run double on a cutter that didn't do much. Santana struggled for about an hour; Carpenter pitched badly for three seconds at most. Yet Johan got the W and Carpenter got the L.

And of course there was the tense endgame, with Frankie Rodriguez disposing of Chris Duncan and Schumaker so the main event could ensue: K-Rod vs. El Hombre, insurance canceled for the bout. (Like all of us, I'd started doing worried lineup math late in the seventh.) Frankie sent Pujols to first, but that proved habit-forming: Ludwick followed him and there stood Yadier Fucking Molina, and I looked into the helmet cup of vanilla ice cream that I was viciously stirring, half-expecting to see that the sprinkles had formed themselves into the face of Aaron Heilman.

Happily, all I saw was ice cream — and YFM's line drive soon saw nothing but the confines of Jeremy Reed's mitt. Cora's Irregulars had not just survived but prospered — and can take over first place Friday night, against the Yankees no less. It's an amazing game, baseball. It'll delight you and horrify you and be a loyal companion and a vicious tormentor, and every time you think you know the script you're proved wrong. You can spend your whole life watching and learning baseball, but you will never, ever figure it out. And thank goodness for that.

Need a good companion? Curl up with 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.

And you may find yourself without your star players.

And you may find yourself barely over .500.

And you may find yourself losing far more often than you win this month.

And you may find yourself on the upside of an 11-0 romp that you view from Excelsior level infield seats that you didn't pay for.

And you may ask yourself, well…how did I get here?

Sometimes it's better not to ask yourself too many questions and simply sink into luxury's lap as those obnoxious Caesars Atlantic City ads that air between innings put it. Nothing could be more luxurious than a massive, fun-filled romp over Tony La Russa's Cardinals taken in from a slice of Citi Field that is generally off limits and out of price range.

How did Jason and I get there Wednesday night? Let's just say the Las Entradas Angels of Flushing took care of our accommodations while Jerry Manuel's hellions saw to everything else we could have possibly desired. Never having sat in what is designated Caesars Club Gold (differentiating us from the riffraff in Caesars Club Silver), I had no idea they were so attentive to detail there or how persistent they would be in checking on you to make sure everything's all right.

I thought it only fair to indulge their inquiries.

Was this victory to your satisfaction?

Why, yes, yes it was. All victories are satisfying, but this one was, shall we say, quite fulfilling. Well done!

Were the amenities pleasing?

If by amenities you mean almost every conceivable Citi Field offensive record being set while we sat between home and third, yes, huzzah. We particularly liked the 4-for-4 recorded by Mr. Wright, the three RBI delivered by Mr. Tatis, the three positions manned by Mr. Tatis as well…oh, did I mention the two-run home run by Mr. Evans? That was a lovely surprise! As was Mr. Misch's Met debut. We enjoy those sorts of things no end.

The starting pitching…was there a problem?

Oh dear no! Forgive my rudeness, but in the onslaught of offense and minutiae, I very nearly forgot about Mr. Nieve's six shutout innings. Please give him our regards.

Was the opposition humiliated sufficiently?

That was an exquisite touch. We would have been happy with a five- or six-run margin, but Tony La Russa losing by eleven and presumably choking on it in the visiting manager's office is what makes luxury so luxurious. My compliments to the Mets.

Is there anything we can do to make your stay more pleasant in the future?

I don't wish to be difficult, but there were Cardinals fans seated directly in front of us. Please remove them from the premises in the future. Also, finding our way to our restricted access section was something of a chore, with one escalator leading us to a dead end and another completely shut off. The least you could have waiting for us at the end of several flights of stairs is a hot towel. Actually, a hot towel would be suitable under any circumstance. What is this: Caesars Club Gold or some ballpark? Oh, and my friend nearly came up with a foul ball. Nearly. Ideally we would each catch several. Talk to the batters on both teams about that. Otherwise, I'll need another decisive victory Thursday afternoon. You will replenish your run supply overnight for Mr. Santana?

I will express your concerns to management.

See that you do.

Luxuriate 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.

A team that had Yadier Molina didn't need Joel Piñeiro. Molina did us in on one swing so infamous a book I know made it the photographic representation of Mets fans' sense of Fear. But it is Piñeiro who has been the most vile of St. Louis villains since then. (FYI, Albert Pujols isn't a villain; he's simply Albert Pujols). Piñeiro's role, like Molina's, was cemented on an autumn night at Shea Stadium, albeit out of the playoff glare and eleven or so months later. On September 27, 2007, collapse already in progress, the Mets had a makeup game against the Cardinals. We'd be throwing Pedro against Piñeiro. Pedro was pretty decent. Piñeiro was practically vintage Pedro. He entered the evening with an ERA of 4.72 and left it at 4.33.

I ask you: Who lowers his ERA by almost four-tenths of a run in the final week of a season?

Joel Piñeiro, that's who. Joel Piñeiro has worked his way into shorthand for oh no to Mets fans in this generation the way Chipper Jones, Pat Burrell and Preston Wilson did in the last generally good go-round, the way Dontrelle Willis did in the transition period between Met contenders, as Hanley Ramirez does regularly nowadays. Except Jones and Ramirez have had really good careers and Burrell, Wilson and Willis weren't at all bad when at their best. Joel Piñeiro, from what I understand, remains Joel Piñeiro except when he's sticking it to the Mets.

I wasn't surprised he'd toss a two-hitter at the Mets Tuesday night. I wasn't surprised the Mets would ground out weakly 22 times and leave Liván Hernandez and Elmer Dessens utterly unsupported. Yet I was kind of surprised Piñeiro has reached mythic status for people who aren't just me and my friend Gene. Two Septembers ago we sat in Loge and watched Piñeiro mow us and most of our playoff hopes down quickly, efficiently and horribly. That 3-0 blanking took 2:20 to play and us by surprise. Gene and I had only two words for each other that night:

Joel Piñeiro?

Last night, while Piñeiro was using all of 2:13 in non-rain time to dispose of us, SNY showed highlights from Joel's previous Metsterpiece. Out after out was being made at Shea Stadium: Reyes, Delgado, Beltran…it didn't matter that we had the “A” team available then. Piñeiro's legend was now a matter of public record. He toyed with us then. He toyed with us in April, come to think of it. He has now toyed with us yet again — collected as many hits as he allowed for evil measure.

Joel Piñeiro pitched. Yadier Molina caught. Don McLean, I assume, saw Satan laughing with delight.

***

Now about this new, improved outlook on life not having Carlos Beltran around is supposed to give us.

I am moved to remember something Debbie Reynolds said as the title character in Albert Brooks' characteristically brilliant Mother when Brooks worked up a theory that she hated him, her son, because he represented a part of her that never worked out. All right, Debbie Reynolds said reluctantly, if that's what you need.

So to my co-blogger who has found some kind of salvation in being without Beltran on top of being without Reyes, Delgado, Maine, Putz, Perez even…all right, if that's what you need. But with all the love and respect I can muster to you and others who have expressed similar sentiments, I think you're all — and I beg you to consider the source of this evaluation — a little nuts.

This Met underdog myth is dangerous to bandy about as a rationale for whatever ails us at any potentially dim moment. Yes, we were created in a fog of futility. Yes, by the time we played our first 9 games we were already 9½ games out of first place. Yes, we looked right past the 120 losses the first year and wrapped our arms tight around this franchise as no sane fan base ever would have. Yes, our first championship remains unmatched in the annals of human — not just sports — history as the shiningest example of spiritual uplift because it was conjured from so far below. Yes, last place on August 30, in the World Series on October 13. Yes, two down with two out and none on in the bottom of the tenth. I'll even throw in two games out of a playoff spot with three games left to play, barely removed from a death-soliciting seven-game losing streak, and emerging with three straight victories, then a fourth in a tie-breaker.

Yes, we are at our best when overlapping with our worst. It's what has made us who we are or at least who we like to believe we are. It has made us Mets fans clear down to our marrow. But you can't rig the system to feel it. And you can't want to be in the position to test it. As frustrating as so much has been since Molina swung for the fences and Beltran didn't swing at all, the answer isn't screw it, let's hope an expansion team-caliber lineup takes the field not in the name of rebuilding but so we can like them on the off chance they'll overachieve.

We don't have a choice at the moment. We wouldn't choose, given the option to use whoever we have under contract, to start the 2009 version of Fernando Tatis in left or at first or anywhere if we could help it…and I like Tatis. We wouldn't choose, if we had Carlos Delgado available, Daniel Murphy to start at first…and I like Murphy. We wouldn't choose to send Alex Cora to short if Jose Reyes had two perfectly fit legs…and I've come to like Cora, too. It's nothing against the guys who are attempting to fill the widening void to say I'd rather not have them out there every day where they will now become regulars. I don't want to see what Fernando Martinez can do in center because I don't want to be without Carlos Beltran for an extended period.

The Mets who made 2007 infamous and 2008 unfulfilling and 2009 something of a mess before the injuries redefined everything were not necessarily a bowl of cherries. They were playing for high stakes and coming up a buck short at the worst possible opportunities. I sometimes wished they — select individuals or the unit as a whole — would just go away. But I liked playing for high stakes as long as they were a realistically graspable prize.

Though it's tough to tell sometimes from what goes on between the white lines, the Mets have been legitimate strivers since 2005. It beats the snot out of the alternative. Remember the alternative? Remember the Mets taking a pass on competing? On not bothering to attempt to contend on an annual basis? Remember our recurring episodes of hopelessness? Not hopelessness as in “we're going to blow it at the end” but hopeless as in there's no chance there will be anything to blow?

In a couple of interviews I've given to promote my book, it's been assumed by some pretty savvy questioners that because I wrote with a kind of fondness for being a Mets fan through bad Mets years that I was really fond of those bad Mets teams. I was too polite to respond “the hell I was,” but the hell I was. I rooted for them because they were the Mets. That's what I do. I'm a Mets fan. But I wasn't fond of their intermittent, sometimes entrenched lousiness. I kept rooting because I knew that the day my team stopped being bad and started being good would forever stand among the best days of my life.

It did and it does. It's a sensation that may have been helped along by admirable loyalty or worrisome habit, but the bottom line was always about the payoff: I will root for my team forever in the hope that some day they will reward me; it will mean something because I was always there. That's why I want to live to see a third Mets world championship.

I talked a while ago about those Mets varsity jackets you see, the ones with the 1969 and 1986 World Series logos on the back, how I believed somebody would be sanctioned to market new ones following 2006, how seeing the unrevised editions of those jackets bums me out now because I keep looking for the third logo that still isn't there. If I just wanted a garment with a championship patch, mlb.com would have sold me one from the Cardinals, Red Sox or Phillies shops in the falls of 2006, 2007 or 2008, no questions asked. I want one that says Mets. I love the Mets because I love the Mets, I like to say, but because I love the Mets, I burn for that logo signifying that next thus far unattainable championship.

That's how it has been since the beginning, no matter the underdog myth. I just completed reading what may be the best book ever written about our franchise, Once Upon the Polo Grounds by Leonard Shecter. Sadly, it is out of print but it is amazingly not even close to out of date. Shecter — a longtime Post sportswriter and Jim Bouton's collaborator on Ball Four — covered the Mets in their infancy and was moved to look back on them in the wake of 1969's unforeseen maturing. He tells story after story that will make you simultaneously laugh and cringe regarding the 1962 and 1963 Mets. Of course he talks about the Mets fans, one of whom summed our breed perfectly, I thought.

It was a cold and miserable day at the Polo Grounds and the Mets were down 15-5 with two out in the ninth. A fan stood in the aisle in right field, his shoulders hunched against the cold, his hands deep in his coat pockets. He jiggled up and down for warmth and all the time he was rooting. “C'mon,” he said, almost to himself. “C'mon, one more run, just one more run.”

“Why one more run?” he was asked.

“That would make it six,” he said. “Then you could say if they got any pitching they woulda won.”

The fan turned back toward Don Zimmer, who was at the plate. “C'mon,” he said. “Just one more.”

Zimmer popped up to the catcher.

The fan shrugged his shoulders. “Ah well,” he said. “I'll be back tomorrow. No use giving up now.”

No, no use giving up now. No use giving up when it's seven ham 'n' eggers and David Wright. No use giving up when it's Hernandez, Redding and Nieve behind Johan Santana. No use giving up when it's Dessens and Misch to the rescue. No use giving up mostly because it's 2½ back and June 24. We never give up as long as the math holds. But we don't never give up out of some vague desire to like lesser players than those more accomplished regulars who sometimes rub us the wrong way. We don't never give up because expectations are getting to us. We should want expectations. We should invite expectations. Jason said we can't deal with hegemony. I'd say we haven't had much practice, but I'd sure like to give it another try (and then, to Jason's other point, leave the Yankees to the craven and the tourists). Just because 2007 and 2008 left me with what one insightful analyst deems Post-Traumatic Mets Disorder doesn't mean I wasn't willing to suspend disbelief that 2009 would somehow meet this era's enhanced, perhaps overblown expectations.

I want the “B” team to come through. I was never happier this season than the night Omir Santos snuck one over the Green Monster and Ramon Martinez guarded the Fenway infield the way M. Donald Grant once guarded against progress. I don't have to have fancy name players but I do have to have hope, and hope is a kissing cousin of expectations. Where there's no hope there's no fun. Don't kid yourself, Leonard Shecter would have told you. Mets fans may have manufactured themselves some good times at the Polo Grounds while the Mets were going through their first of many bad stretches, but they had an eye on better times the whole time:

While Met fans loved the Mets when they lost, it was a love like that a mother bestows on a son has just missed a scholarship. Better things had been expected.

The fans cheered the Mets on to win, not lose.

I know nobody here is rooting for the Mets to lose, but it strikes me as too cute to think there is something Metly to be gained by going without better players, that we perceive our juices won't be properly stimulated unless stirred by latter-day Hot Rod Kanehls as opposed to the guys who, for all their imperfections and occasional attitudinal dropoffs, burdened us with expectations, hope and for a brief, tantalizing instant, the specter of hegemony (since faded). I liked expecting. I liked hoping. I'd be thrilled to get some hegemony up in here. Those seasons I fondly or otherwise absorbed between 1977 and 1983 forever tempered my notions about deriving romance from undermanned rosters. When good things happen unexpectedly, of course they're fantastic. They're also highly unlikely. That's why we don't expect them.

Delgado, Reyes, Perez, sometimes Maine, on infrequent occasion Beltran and more recently Putz have all driven me crazy since 2007 crumbled. But their bunch — aided greatly by Wright, Santana and this year Rodriguez — has never completely extracted hope from our equation. They were never the marquee flops of 2002 or 1992, to name two. God knows they weren't the wretched refuse of 1977. The Mets, whatever their respective Q ratings and salaries, have played some stupid, slipshod, stultifying baseball in 2009 for which I'm certain we'll pay in the end, but they've kept us in this thing. I hate to think where we'll be without the guys we are now without, yet I'll believe in the guys who are elevated in their stead, because they are Mets and I am a Mets fan. I'm not, however, going to pretend this arrangement looms as better or purer than the one we were planning to have.

Part and parcel of the underdog ethos is we, Mets fans, suffer. I don't like the phrase “long-suffering Mets fan,” because that has never sounded accurate to my ear or my four decades of experience. I don't suffer as a Mets fan. I endure. I think we all do. We endure whatever gets in our way until we can, at last, rejoice without qualification, without having to recall a season that was great except for the disappointment inherent in not winning it all. That's what I did in the seasons after '69 and before '86. That's what I've been doing ever since. The goal of rejoicing isn't always top of mind; I don't wake up every day thinking “when's that jacket with the three logos coming out?” Yet somewhere, maybe deep down, maybe near the surface, that desire is there. If that's not part of the Mets fan myth, it's because it's the day-in, day-out reality of being a fan — Mets fan or any fan. Rationalizing that something besides an ingrained desire to see your team win drives you to the ballgame every night?

With all the love and respect I can muster, I can't possibly believe that that's what any of us needs.

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.

It's long been my contention (though not my co-blogger's) that Mets fans have never been comfortable with hegemony. Our history is one of miracles and belief; our flirtations with dynasty have generally ended with the amassed firepower aimed at our own feet. Even the '86 team needed a miracle a whole lot bigger than 1969's to become the bad guys who won. And this, I maintain (again, amid Greg's dissent) is why we don't entirely mind sharing our city with that baseball colossus up in the Bronx, the one that soaks up sportswriter attention and back pages and free-agent dollars and the loyalties of the soulless and the misguided. Compared with the Yankees, we look like what we truly were in the days of our founding myths and haven't been for some time: underdogs. St. Anthony's team. The little guys who'd win a World Series once men walked on the moon, whose names Frank Robinson couldn't bother to remember, who'd rise up from the cellar behind a goofy reliever and take a punch from Pete Rose and fight off final strike after final strike until finding salvation in a little roller … trickling …

Tonight franchise myth finally became rude reality. Carlos Beltran is off to the DL with a “bone bruise,” which my copy of Rosetta Stone for Met Front-Office Spin translates as “compound fracture with sepsis, possible gangrene.” He joins Jose Reyes (hamstring tendon), Carlos Delgado (hip surgery), J.J. Putz (bum elbow), John Maine (bad shoulder) and Oliver Perez (absence of cerebellum) on an awfully expensive shelf. Left behind are David Wright, who can look like Hank Aaron or Tommie Aaron depending what kind of streak he's on; Johan Santana, who only materializes in the world of mortals every fifth day; and Frankie Rodriguez, whose presence must be prefaced by having a lead in the ninth inning. Surrounding them are Cora's Irregulars — raw rookies and possibly overcooked veterans, fourth outfielders and apprentice first basemen, fifth starters and spaghetti-thrown-at-the-wall middle relievers. Underdogs, in other words. (And underdogs just 1.5 out of first place, thanks to our membership in the Axis of Feeble, a.k.a. the National League East.)

And that's just fine.

We've waited forever for the Mets to somehow recover from the hangover of Yadier Molina's blast off Aaron Heilman. Tonight it felt like they had, even if it was only by excising important player after important player from the active roster, with Beltran's removal somehow feeling like the death knell for our latest wanna-be dynasty. Not exactly the hangover cure any of would have chosen, but damn if tonight didn't feel free and easy and downright fun. What chance did we have against El Hombre and Tony La Russa's relentless button-pushing, after all? You really thought we could beat the Cardinals with Fernando Tatis as our cleanup hitter and Jeremy Reed in center and Tim Redding — he of the lumberjack beard and the zero wins — on the hill?

Well, who says we can't?

Sure, this one had the look of recent Met exercises in futility: surprisingly competent early pitching, a lead in the early innings, then the teeth-gnashing spectacle of the Mets getting sleepy as the other team crept back into it and waited to pounce. Except this time the Mets kept scoring, with Cora lashing line drives and corralling balls like a stuntman and Omir Santos continuing to spit in the eye of statistical expectations and Daniel Murphy looking relaxed at the plate and first base. When Brian Stokes leapt to snag Albert Pujols's bouncer up the middle and convert it into a double play, the Mets fairly streaked off the field with joy and relief. Whether we were out at Citi Field (merely misty for once) or snug on our couches, we all did the same.

I'm not saying losing Jose and the Carloses and our setup guy and the third and fourth starters is addition by subtraction or anything ridiculous like that — should the wounded troop back into the clubhouse tomorrow night magically cured and accompanied for lagniappe by a repaired Billy Wagner, I will whoop like a fool and high-five everyone in sight. But I am saying that ever since Carlos Beltran trudged away from home plate in disbelief, there's been something slightly sour about the Mets, a sense of curdled expectations that's frequently made contemplating them frustrating and rooting for them aggravating. And somehow it feels like that's lifted. Watching the Jon Switzers and Omir Santoses of the world out there for the foreseeable future means not rationally expecting anything at all. And maybe that will work where higher expectations have not.

***

None of this will matter a century from now — but some things still will. Here's a Brooklyn tale that's taken 310 years to tell, and that includes everything from the American Revolution to Casey Stengel and the 78th Precinct Little League.

Don't wait a century to have Mets history beamed into your brain in its wired-up vat jar — it's much more comfortable to read 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.