“Well, fuck, we have to do this again.”

“Again? Really? Can't we just reflexively rule against the Mets like we used to? It was a lot easier then.”

“I know. It was a great umpiring tradition, one we were proud to uphold. Like wearing a chest protector.”

“Remember when Chris Woodward had a home run called a triple in Wrigley a few years ago? It didn't much matter in the outcome, but the point was the Mets got screwed by bad or lazy umpiring. That was great sport.”

“Those were the days. Me and Angel Hernandez laughed our asses off about it all over again during Spring Training. But now we have to actually be accountable for at least a few of our calls.”

“I dunno, fellas, it's kind of nice to take a breather in the middle of the sixth inning.”

“I know what you mean. Standing out there in the middle of a ballgame. Damn, it can get boring.”

“That's why I try not to watch too closely, especially those fly balls. We're like a thousand feet away. It's just a guess to begin with.”

“And it's not our fault they build ballparks where you can't tell right off.”

“I know! I mean did this used to happen so much?”

“Well, it's not like they just built Fenway yesterday.”

“Yeah, but who told them to suddenly stick seats on top of the fence?”

“Good point…hello, mission control? Yeah, we're ready, fire up the replays.”

“First look…shit, I can't tell. Can you tell?”

“No man, I can't tell.”

“Me neither.”

“Nope, me neither, too.”

“Hello, Manhattan? Give us another angle.”

“That one's worse than the one before. Why don't they use more cameras for this?”

“Boy, it's unclear.”

“I can't figure it out. The ball does a funny thing up there.”

“But that could be the wind.”

“The wind?”

“It does get windy here.”

“Oh come on. It's not the wind.”

“So you think it hit the sign?”

“I don't think anything. I'm just saying it gets windy here.”

“Yeah, what's up with that? It gets windier here than it got at Shea. Why didn't they cut down on the wind as long as they were going to the trouble of building a new ballpark?”

“The wind fucking distracts me. Blows in that barbecue smell during the game. You try the ribs yet?”

“Damn, those are good ribs.”

“I haven't had the ribs yet. They're really that good?”

“You're kidding. You haven't had the ribs?”

“Hey, is that the same as the pulled pork place?”

“Same one. You gotta try the ribs.”

“Can you guys keep it the fuck down? I'm trying to get HQ on the phone…yeah, we're still here. We need another angle.”

“OK, there's the ball, there's Dunn…I can't tell.”

“I can't tell either. But why are they advertising Subway in this ballpark?”

“I know! They've got all that great food in the outfield, who the fuck wants to go to Subway?”

“Is that Subway Subway, like the sandwich shop, or is that like the New York City subway?”

“What are you, retarded?”

“I'm just asking. You don't have to be such a dick about it.”

“C'mon fellas. Focus. It's Subway Subway like they've got everywhere else. And just because they have a sign for it doesn't mean they have a Subway in the ballpark. You think they buy and sell gold coins in the ballpark just because they have a sign for that, too?”

“I think they do.”

“They buy and sell gold coins at Citi Field?”

“No, I mean the sandwiches.”

“Is that like the tackiest scoreboard ad you've ever seen?”

“For Subway?”

“No, moron. The coins.”

“It is, but I mean Subway. I think they sell Subway sandwiches here.”

“They do? Really? What the fuck for?”

“Subway's pretty good. I like the BMT.”

“Yeah, but here? With that rib place and all? That's pretty lame that someone would go to Subway when you can get ribs that smell that good when the wind is blowing in.”

“What's lame is hanging a yellow sign over the field and asking us to track a white ball against it…hi, Manhattan, we need another angle.”

“Can't tell. Can not fucking tell.”

“Me neither. It really is easier watching from home.”

“I agree. Last year I had a layover in the Kansas City airport on a Sunday night. I ran into Angel Hernandez, so we went to the bar and watched that Mets-Yankees game where Carlos Delgado got screwed. That was classic.”

“I'll bet Angel loved that.”

“He did. One of his favorites.”

“Do any of you guys know what the deal is with those stands jutting out into right? Shouldn't that have been a simple fly ball?”

“It's supposed to be like Tiger Stadium was. The owner's son was taken there by his grandparents when he was a kid and it impressed him so much he wanted to build something just like it here.”

“Really? That's so gay!”

“I know. What if they took him to a whorehouse instead? Imagine what would be out in right field.”

“Fucking owners. Ruining baseball.”

“Just like the fucking players.”

“You said it. Thank god for us upholding the integrity of the game…hi, me again. Can you give us another angle?”

“Hey, did you see that? Definitive proof!”

“Where?”

“On the left. The ball just came straight down and…oh wait, that was just some jerkoff dropping his drink.”

“Or throwing it. I can't tell that either.”

“Fans are fucking ruining this game, too.”

“Thank god for us.”

“Thank god.”

“Who tells them to put their shit on the ledge? There's a baseball game going on!”

“And what about the fucktards who catch a home run ball and throw it back?”

“Yeah, I don't get that. They fight over foul balls but when they get a fair one, they think they're being big heroes throwing it back because somebody on the other team hit it. I wanna say, 'Hey, fucktards, we don't take the run off the board just 'cause you throw it back!'”

“Oh, you should say that! I mean you should actually say that!”

“Fuck, I'd say it except I'd get fucking fined. First that stupid QuesTec, now this shit with the replays. I'm not taking any chances.”

“Remember when umpiring was a sacred profession and you could screw the Mets with total impunity? God, as recently as last year Carlos Beltran hit a ball out of Dolphin Stadium that was ruled a double. Nobody changed that. They showed that on MLB Network over the winter. Angel Hernandez and I shared a good laugh when it ran. He texted me: 'LOL Mets!'”

“Angel's a sweetheart.”

“He really is.”

“Listen, fellas, I'm enjoying this break as much as the rest of youse, but I can't tell shit from these replays and HQ doesn't have any more angles. So what do we do?”

“I'm stumped.”

“Me too.”

“Me three.”

“Our default directive is to rule against the Mets in these situations. We've been doing that going back to at least 1988 when Tim Teufel had a clear home run taken away at the Astrodome.”

“Does it go back that far? I thought it started with that time in '95 when Chris Jones hit a fair ball that was called foul. That's another of Angel's favorites. He has a whole reel of them he shows at parties.”

“Regardless, guys, that's an out-of-date directive. We can still use it for bullshit interference calls and the like, and we're still allowed to unconscionably squeeze Johan Santana…”

“Six walks? How ya think superstar likes them apples?”

“…but we're supposed to get these right.”

“We are, aren't we? What did we call on the field again? It's been so long I forget.”

“Um, shit, what was it?”

“We said it was a double. Murphy wound up on third, Sheffield was out at the plate.”

“How could he not be out? He thought it was a homer.”

“Mets baserunners are always doing that, aren't they?”

“Yeah, they suck that way.”

“True. But the Nationals really suck.”

“They do. They really do.”

“So, whaddaya think?”

“Well, the Mets are going to blow things eventually. I mean, c'mon, that's their whole thing.”

“Was last year. Was the year before.”

“Yeah, but the Nationals? Are we really going to waste a favorable call on the Nationals?”

“You're right. What if they win tonight? They'll only be a hundred games out.”

“Ha! That's funny! Boy do they suck.”

“They do. What's the point of giving them a break?”

“Besides, you want these New York assholes giving us shit about it?”

“They are assholes. Do you see how they're always doing the wave here? Even in tight games?”

“I don't want them throwing their shit at me. I'm on vacation next week.”

“Already? It's only May!”

“Screw you. I'm upholding the integrity of the game here.”

“Fellas, focus! Home run?”

“Well, it's not conclusive, but shit yeah, anything to get us out of here alive.”

“Besides, it's kind of cool when we come out and twirl the finger and people cheer us.”

“Isn't it? That was way cool the other night. And you know we'll be on SportsCenter over and over. My kids love that.”

“OK, agreed. Home run. Let's go be heroes.”

“Think the rib place stays open after the game?”

Make the right call 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. Some mostly nice words here from Mostly Mets.

It was one of my wife's more modest goals, but also apparently one of the harder-to-reach ones: See Johan Santana pitch.

Emily and her dad have had a seven- or 15-game plan for a couple of years, and their run of starting-pitcher luck has been spotty to say the least: Last year they got a surfeit of Mike Pelfrey (not so bad in the final reckoning, but not the kind of thing that makes you circle dates on calendars), and so far this year they'd seen a whole lot of Livan Hernandez. So I cringed when I heard how excited she was that Johan was in line for tonight's start. First of all, the weather forecast was iffy with a chance of sucky. Second, I was beginning the day in Denver, with my flight scheduled to arrive at 4:38 pm. At JFK.

Put the two together and you had the makings of a mess, but happily everything turned OK — Emily got there in the top of the first, in cool but clear conditions, and there was Johan on the mound as promised.

But instead of JOHAN — the burn-you-to-cinders-with-his-radiance version we've become blessedly used to — my wife got johan, who surrendered a home run to Adam Dunn that might have caused NORAD to scramble F-16s and walked four guys in one inning. I'll amplify the point for future links and 2012's archive wanderings: Johan Santana walked four in one inning, not one month. And the four guys were Washington Nationals. Startling, I know, but every maestro has his off-night — like Mozart didn't have a few nights in which he futzed around on the clavier, hit a couple of bum notes, said to hell with it and shuffled off to booze it and play cards. The joke is that Johan got a win — ironic payback for all those nights in which he was brilliant and his supporting cast spent the night kicking balls around and striking out.

Of course it helps when you're playing the Nationals. It is not news that the Nationals play horrible baseball (OK, maybe it's news in the Sandwich Islands or something), but what doesn't seem to get discussed enough is that the Nationals play stupid baseball. They don't cover bunts, they can't direct traffic on infield pop-ups, they … let's just be kind and say they have a long way to go. I've seen whole seasons of hapless, agonizingly stupid baseball, so I'm sympathetic — but what I don't understand is how the Cult of Manny Acta remains open for business amid all this mess. The Nats' ownership should be scalded for running the team like they're still the vagabond Expos, and the GM's tenure was an actual, honest-to-goodness scandal, but the field management and coaching look slipshod too. It's hard to win when you've got a roster of guys who are too young paired with guys who are too old (and when your roster is seemingly about one-third first basemen and designated hitters), but it's a hell of a lot harder when you're giving away one or two runs a night on mental errors. The Nationals play like they've either tuned out their manager, aren't receiving sufficient adult supervision, or both, and yet I haven't heard a word of criticism aimed at Acta.

(Speaking of adult supervision, I'm wagering Fernando Martinez will feel the sting of those boos for a long time. That was one time in which the boos from a Met home crowd were completely justified — and I say that in part because I'm sure F-Mart's first safety will be rapturously cheered. All as it should be.)

Anyway, a scuffling Johan, David Wright cooling the ballpark with swings of the bat, and understudies playing the roles of Reyes, Beltran and Delgado. (If anybody has “see umpires review a home run on video” on their bucket list, just head to Citi Field most any night.) Hard to say that was the game Emily wanted, but she did get an entertaining, goofy and just plain weird affair, one that ended with the Mets victorious, and back in first place. Which is pretty much all any Met fan needs.

***

Addendum: While in Denver I got to check out Coors Field, and it was like an alternate-reality Citi Field, with lots of brick and green seats and a glassed-in corner restaurant (in right, not left). The prices were a bit different, though: I paid $40 or so for a legitimate ticket from the Rockies, and wound up 11 rows behind home plate. (A good chunk of the topmost level was not just empty but actually chained off.)

Everything was perfectly nice, but if you think Citi Field is generic, go see Coors Field. The Rockies feel more celebrated on Blake Street than they do inside the park, and aside from center field's Rockpile and the line of purple seats at the mile-high elevation, there's very little that sticks in the memory. (The food was generic, too.) The Coors Field attraction I most wanted to see was that Bambi fantasia of pines and rocks and waterfalls beyond the center-field fence. It's every bit as ridiculous (in a kind of endearing way) live as it is on TV, but what I hadn't expected is that it's an extension of the visitor's bullpen. Shouldn't the right to commune with some simulacrum of nature before toeing the rubber belong to the home team?

Alas, one item in my report doesn't favor the Mets, and it's a big one. I was there early, so I hiked up to some of the cheapest seats in left field, right field and the Rockpile. (Which left me gasping like a 70-year-old chain smoker — when I say Coors Field lacks atmosphere, I mean it literally.) The seats didn't feel like they were farther removed from the field than our own Promenade level, but the only view missing was a sliver of the left- or right-field corner. In Coors Field's cheap seats, the only way you could not see two outfielders at once would be if they snuck into foul territory to perform a normally private act. As SNY viewers found out tonight, in Citi Field, that view's missing from the broadcast booth.

I honestly love Citi Field, but the Mets' adventures in geometry continue to defy explanation.

The darkest corners of Mets fans' personal geometry (and some sunny ones) are explored 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.

First, you gotta start with how it ended, which was with Liván Hernandez, the human petrol pump, dispensing every last pitch the Mets' tank would require. How many? I heard 127. Did it matter? Not really. Honestly, what does Liván Hernandez have to do but pitch? Everybody else's arm is always being saved for a next start. Liván's not about conservation. Liván's about mileage. The sense at Citi Tuesday night was he would come out after seven; he shall be leavin' 'cause that's what Mets starters do after seven. But Liván was stayin'. When he batted for himself in the eighth, it was a surprise but it made perfect sense — and not just because he's got 11 points on Ramon Martinez in the batting average department (though Bring 'Em Home Ramon is suddenly up to four RBI). Hernandez's groundout was the most heartily greeted 6-3 at-bat Flushing has seen in ages.

Liván finished off the Nationals in the ninth. Granted, finishing off the Nationals is the baseball equivalent of a meal made solely of Totino's Pizza Rolls. It shouldn't take you long to clean your plate. But anybody remember all the way back to the first game of this series and how it took four relievers to negotiate nine outs via seventeen National batters? Our big three of Parnell, Putz and Rodriguez were all worse for the wear from Monday night. I was already girding myself for Sean Green Roulette 24 hours in advance when I remembered we'd be getting Liván and Liván gives us innings — lots and lots of juicy innings. You never expect nine, but when the pump is registering one “ding!” after another, you wonder why not.

Now the middle, as in the middle of the Mets order. It's all that separates us at the moment from morphing into Nats North. Our record is a dozen games better than Washington's at the moment, but how can you tell us apart? Not from the Pagans, Santoses, Tatises and Ramon Martinezes (even if they've all been admirable gamers of late), but because we have David Wright and Gary Sheffield and they don't. Wright comes up and it's man against lesser men. Sheffield comes up and that rarest of species, the Citi Field home team home run, soars as much any fly ball can in that canyon. Wright we knew from. Sheffield? Were you expecting this? Remotely? I was mildly enthused to pick him up because it had been rumored we'd be doing so for nearly twenty years. All right, I said, let's see what Gary Sheffield in a Mets uniform actually is. I never dreamed he would be lifesaving, cleanup guy.

Sheff may be the best take-a-flyer acquisition in team history since…Liván Hernandez. Throw in Luis Castillo's as nearly unlikely rebound season and the 1997 World Champion Marlins alumni society is making a case for Reunion of the Year honors.

Gary's at-bat music, however, lurks a bit on the blue side as it seems to involve a lyric about doing something unfortunate to a stepsister (and this from one of our elder statesmen). I will not repeat it in polite company, but it makes repeated commercials for Drag Me to Hell seem gosh darn appropriate for a baseball audience. Maybe my friend Sharon and I were just hearing the lyric incorrectly. The more a Met hits, the better his taste in music gets, you know.

Finally, the beginning…the beginning of Fernando Martinez's big league career. Like the presence of maybe half the roster, it's kind of surprising to find him here in May 2009, though if you're a student of Met phenomology, this is exactly when our outfield prospects seems to bubble up. The Mets have a knack for getting hurt and desperate in May. As previously reported…

• Darryl Strawberry debuted May 6, 1983.

• Preston Wilson debuted May 7, 1998.

• Alex Escobar debuted May 8, 2001.

• Lastings Milledge debuted May 30, 2006.

• Carlos Gomez debuted May 13, 2007.

And now, on May 26, 2009, it is Fernando Martinez's turn to try to spin his prospects into pure gold. Good luck with that. As we see from five of the most glittering examples the Mets' minor league system has had to offer in the past three decades, we don't really build outfielders to last. Straw was Straw, and that was great. The rest of them together were barely a stem in a Mets uniform. Wilson, 34, is one of Gary Carter's Long Island Ducks these days. Milledge was given the Oscar Madison treatment by the Nats earlier this year when he was asked to remove himself from his place of professional residence. Carlos Gomez isn't tearing it up in the Twin Cities at last check. And Alex Escobar…you get the point.

None of this augurs a damn thing for Fernando Martinez, given that he's his own self. Everybody says he's very talented. His birth certificate says Citi Field's vendors can't sell him a beer. In the first hour of the day Fernando Martinez was born, Orel Hershiser was inducing Kevin McReynolds to fly out to John Shelby to seal Game Four of the 1988 NLCS and, by the reckoning of some, the Mets' ill fate for the next decade. No Met has ever been born in 1988 before. Or 1987. Wow he's young.

Is he ready? He'll let us know. F'tinez looked willing and reasonably able from the other side of Promenade, if only somewhat ready. He did sting a grounder effectively enough to gain an RBI on a fielder's choice and he did run like the wind down to first, which is always a welcome sight. He also struck out twice, and a line drive to the gap in right kind of played him, but it wasn't a particularly catchable ball and Met corner outfielders not flashing leather is hardly a novelty this season. It's fun to try out phenoms even if it's no fun when desperation's the reason they're here. But let's see what the kid's got.

And let's not see Mets stay active when they are clearly suited for sedentary purposes only. It's fitting that the Mets would go west and assume the mantle of kings of wishful thinking when it came to roster management. Omar Minaya was playing deep in WTF? territory with his hesitancy to definitively disable Carlos Delgado, Jose Reyes and — oldie but goodie — Ryan Church when it became painfully apparent that none was healthy and none would contribute. Delgado was shown the DL door while the Mets were on the coast and now the other two aching athletes have joined him. Each man, too injured to participate, was apparently too valuable a spirit to put on the shelf for fifteen or more days. I'm not a doctor or a trainer or anything more than an observer from far away. But I figured out guys who are hurt can't help without first healing. Why couldn't Omar? You'd rather have Delgado and Reyes and Church than the raw rookies and cooked journeymen who dot the roster, but you can't always get what you want. For now, it's a crazy quilt of Mets and a lineup that is stitched too loosely to be accurately labeled patchwork.

Some nights, somehow, they're just what the doctor ordered.

***

Two quick Citi Field observations from Tuesday night:

1) I used to have to fight the Shea sausage guy (every Shea sausage guy) for onions without peppers. I'd even accept mostly onions, understanding these garnishes were hopelessly enmeshed on the grill. But time and again I was told the separation I craved could not be achieved let alone attempted. This time, on the occasion of my first Italian sausage in the new ballpark, I asked and not only got no argument, but received one onion after another painstakingly plucked from the mountain of peppers I so detest. I didn't get the man's name, but the fellow working the Premio stand on the first base side of Promenade around 7:00 couldn't have been more conscientious or customer-friendly.

2) As captured by Matt Cerrone, all seven of the Mets' postseason banners are now technically on display. Very technically. Why they've been posted on a wall in the Bullpen Gate area as opposed to within the field of play begs an entire course of analysis that might get at the heart of the Mets' shame spiral. This strikes me as a very passive-aggressive concession to team lore by an organization that can never shake its self-loathing. “You asked for them to be in the ballpark, so here they are — you happy?” Not with this placement I'm not, not really. While there are flags for '69, '73, '86 and '00 on the Pepsi Porch (where four poles have been eliminated), the '88, '99 and '06 banners are essentially hidden from the view of most of the fans. It's a ballpark, yet the Mets act as if their best baseball stuff belongs in some out-of-the-way basement rec room. “Don't bring that junk into my nice living room! You might leave marks where the people in the Caesars Club could see them!”

***

For a deeper look at what was going on while Fernando Martinez was on the brink of being born, 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.

First of all, I'm crazy about the President, Josh. I've been crazy about him for longer than you've known who he was. And I'll keep poking him with a stick. That's how I show my love.

—Amy Gardner on her gadfly tendencies, The West Wing

With no flourishes or ruffles, a personal milestone of sorts was established earlier this month, one that you might say was almost a dozen years in the making.

On the last weekend of August 1997, I attended back-to-back Mets-Orioles games at Camden Yards. Those were my third and fourth games at the Birds' nest, making Camden a solid second on my ballpark list in terms of most games seen (it had been tied with Yankee Stadium and Veterans Stadium with two apiece). Through 2008, I'd notched seven contests from OP@CY in the “Elsewhere” section of my Log, certifying Oriole Park at Camden Yards a solid if perpetually distant No. 2 behind Shea.

On May 10, Citi Field passed Camden Yards for second place when I made it to my eighth Mets game of 2009. Unless I move to Baltimore immediately and become a big-time Orioles fan — or go anywhere else and switch allegiances, I suppose — second place belongs to Citi Field probably forever.

The current standings (games that count only):

1) Shea Stadium — 415

2) Citi Field — 10

3) Oriole Park @ Camden Yards — 7

4) Yankee Stadium II* — 5

5) Wrigley Field — 4

*The “renovated” version that opened in 1976 and closed in 2008.

By week's end, Citi Field's total is slated to rise. It will, like the Mets' Mojo of a decade ago, keep on risin'. Citi Field is here to stay in my life. Yours too, of course, but you probably arrived at that conclusion sooner than I did

Citi Field's probation period is over. I've been to ten games, not counting an exhibition and various walk-throughs. My approach to it as a stranger in a strange land has been altered. It's still a little unfamiliar, I'm still not wholly used to it, I still have my issues with aspects of it and I'm still hyperconscious of my surroundings, but it's no longer some new ballpark whose mysteries consume me. It's where I go to ballgames. It's where I go to Mets games. I find it hard to spit out that it's my home park, seeing as how that phrase will always be reserved for what no longer stands next door to it, but in all practicality it is.

It's either Citi Field or nothing at this point. I'm not prepared to go to nothing.

Maybe it was reaching double-digits sooner than I ever expected. I'd had it as a long-term — like September — goal to beat Camden's total in 2009. I can't believe how quickly Oriole Park fell. Maybe it was the glance to the left where there had been a moderately comforting pile of rubble all season but where now there is just asphalt that is part of more asphalt. Deep down, as long as there was a little something left of Shea, I clung subconsciously to the notion that it was somehow not completely gone, even if a pile of rubble was nothing more than a pile of rubble. But there is, at last, nothing left of Shea and it is completely gone. Its commemorative base markers are down and the rubble's been cleared. There is, at long last, no physical evidence that until very recently there used to be a ballpark right there. There's only the ballpark that is there now, and that's the one I went to for the tenth time Monday night.

The Mets came home. After San Francisco, after Los Angeles, after Boston, the Mets came home. Citi Field was not a strange land Monday night. Citi Field was where they needed to be and, by association, where I needed to be. I needed to see the Mets in home uniforms, even if they wore what appeared to be Nationals caps (it took me about four innings to get straight that I didn't necessarily want the guys in the red hats striking out). I needed them to come off the road, away from the traps and the turmoil that came close to swallowing their season alive but didn't. The Mets needed home cooking. The hot plate's plugged in a little to the east of where it used to be, but that's just a matter of wiring. The Mets came home. It was good to have them back where they belong.

Where I belong, too, I guess.

The tenth game of the rest of my life yielded a positive result through torpid means. When the Foxwoods Resort or whoever sponsors it now turning point of the game requires an off-camera conference of six or more minutes, you know you're getting a later train than you'd like. But if you're going home with three Gary Sheffield RBI and a win in your pocket, you don't mind. You'll wait six minutes for the umpire's finger to twirl definitively in your direction.

I waited in style and comfort befitting a traveler whose flight to Charlotte had been delayed due to mechanical trouble. Monday night was my second trip to the Logezzanine, what the Mets refer to as the Excelsior level. Because I came home in late April half-raving about and half-cursing at the existence of this hidden in plain sight Loge-Mezzanine hybrid — raving because it was nicer than where I'd sat previously, cursing because except for a few Value dates it was prohibitively expensive — Stephanie requested a looksee when the prices would be relatively accommodating. Monday night with the Nationals equaled just such a paradigm, so I grabbed a couple of “reasonable” $45 tickets and gained us admission to the rarefied air of Not Promenade.

It's still nice. It's still not worth putting on a pedestal beyond what good ol' Mezz used to be. It still includes access to that airport lounge they call Caesars Club. I'd happily wait for my flight to be called there. I happily waited for the flight of Gary Sheffield's game-changing home run to be called correctly there. I felt kind of silly, otherwise, munching away in a room at a ballpark while a ballgame was going on out of view. So did Stephanie, though she revealed she's never much cared for eating at her seat (the activities one takes for granted when one grows up partaking in them) which is how we wound up in there for the bottom of the sixth. Citi Field doesn't need a lounge filled with high-def screens showing nothing but an in-progress Mets game. Everywhere else in the world needs that lounge. Imagine how much you'd enjoy everywhere else in the world if that service were in fact available.

Our right field, last row Logezzanine experience, pretentiously isolated from the heart of Citi civilization as we were, put us in mind of the Third Ring of the New York City Ballet…except maybe for the way the ushers at Lincoln Center don't pace behind you cursing out misstepping dancers the way our green-jacketed guy dismissed Parnell and Putz every time they threw ball one. When I find myself enthusiastically spending a stray Sunday at the ballet, do you know what I wish for? A Caesars Club-type refuge: dozens of TVs beaming the Mets game, and maybe a few snacks. There is not a setting in the Western world that wouldn't benefit from the addition of a vaguely Mets-oriented faux sports bar…except for a ballpark where you've got the ballgame itself to entertain you.

Otherwise, the “club” feels like a high school cafeteria that nobody who really knows the school spends their lunch period in, not with everything else that's available on or near campus. I don't really get the exclusivity angle that permits only people who have tickets on that level to come in and pony up for a roast beef sandwich — they didn't restrict access to the TGI Friday's when I went to what was then called Bank One Ballpark, and this isn't even as special as what they had at the BOB. In Phoenix you could see the field from your table; from Caesars you can see the William A. Shea memorial parking lot.

Logezzanine would be an unqualifiedly fine place to watch a ballgame, but the Mets took what should be a simple, swell middle tier of seating, cloaked it in “amenities” and priced it out of reasonable most nights. I assume they have a business model that works for them, but if they lowered the tag on Excelsior seats a bit and opened up the club to anybody and everybody who wandered by and was willing to indulge their curiosity, the environment would probably feel less balletic on that level — and they'd make more money overall moving roast beef sandwiches on novelty alone. Get people walking through there, they'll find something to spend on. It's a sensation endemic to Citi Field.

I grant you this is not a real problem, just a ballpark problem, and not as pressing a matter as the slices of outfield you can't see or the evidence of Mets history that remains camouflaged. I'd like everything to work better, though, not because I don't like Citi Field, but because I do. I'm rooting for Citi Field to work as well as it possibly can. It is my home park, which means I feel a vested interest in its potential, my tone and tendency to list grievances notwithstanding. If it's going to be my home park, I want it to be the best home park it can be. As much as I adored Shea Stadium, I never stopped detecting its drawbacks or informally advising its keepers on how they might improve it. Their ultimate answer was tear it down and replace it. I don't think that's an option with Citi Field for a few decades, so ideally its paying customers and those who operate it should join forces toward an ever brighter tomorrow. As one of our esteemed blolleagues recently reminded me, we're supposed to have a voice in this. It's our place. I just want as much of it as possible to feel that way, and not merely by default because it's Citi Field or nothing.

Looking for something to do while umpires confer on whether a fly ball has cleared the fence or not? Try 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.

About a month ago (or so it seems), the Mets headed off for the West Coast, not knowing that what lay ahead was the baseball equivalent of the Donner Pass. Delgado. Reyes. Putz. K-Rod. Cora. Sheffield. Church. Beltran. All either went on the DL, missed games or had their contributions hindered by injuries. (And now Ramon Martinez — Plan C when it comes to finding someone to play shortstop — is hurt, too.)

Given all that, returning to Citi Field 5-5 isn't a bad accomplishment. But what a way to go 5-5! The Mets started off by taking three in a row from the Giants with apparent ease, leaving us all slavering with comparisons to the epic 9-1 road trip that served as formal notice that the 2006 squad was going to win the division in a walk. They then got edged in the San Francisco finale and got swept in L.A., including a slapstick affair that has to rank as one of the most appalling, humiliating losses in franchise history. So then, of course, they came in and took the first two from the mighty Red Sox, with Johan Santana willing them to win the first game and Omar Santos playing hero for the kind of once-in-a-blue-moon win that ensures you'll watch blowouts to the bitter end for the next two years — because, in the word of Joaquin Andujar, youneverknow.

A three-game sweep in Boston, with the lyric little bandbox hosting a substantial and vocal minority of Mets fans, was a lot to ask, and even with the Mets ahead in the middle innings, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop: Tim Redding kept falling behind hitters and giving up loud fly balls, and you figured that the middle of the Red Sox order would see its luck even out before Redding could escape. The Bosox may have their problems, but that lineup is deadly, from the more-Eckstein-than-Eckstein Dustin Pedroia to the overcaffeinated Kevin Youkilis to the bland but deadly Jason Bay and J.D. Drew to the sad-eyed, wise Mike Lowell. All except David Ortiz — I felt for Big Papi, who looked absolutely helpless all series and was verbally scorched by fans who not so long ago would have sworn he had a lifetime pass for his past heroics. Ortiz hit exactly one ball hard, and it rocketed straight into Daniel Murphy's glove, leaving Papi to yowl and then offer a death's head grin at just how unfair the game can be.

(If you'll allow me a parental interlude, can I address whatever person at WPIX let an afternoon game be sponsored by “Drag Me to Hell?” I have nothing against horror movies and am a Sam Raimi fan, but that ad is way too intense for young kids, and anyone with a modicum of decency or common sense would understand that parents shouldn't be put in the position of shooing their children away from a baseball game every 40 minutes on a Sunday afternoon.)

The rest was enjoying the observations and memories and questions that any baseball game will yield if carefully attended to. Like wondering at how smooth Gary Sheffield looked in left field, and remembering how utterly discombobulated Lastings Milledge had been three years before. Or watching Murphy at first, still not entirely sure of himself but handling even the hard plays with a calm he's never exhibited in left on easy chances. Or (from the sublime to the ridiculous) wondering, in a particularly idle moment, where Murphy got his sunglasses. Ramon Castro was wearing the modern baseball standard Intergalactic Warrior iridescent shades, as was Sheffield, with Castillo opting for the classic flip-down glasses. But Murphy's sunglasses looked like he'd fetched them from a Dollar Store in Woburn. These are the things you wonder about when the game's out of hand and the only reason you keep watching is … well, because it's baseball, and how could you even ask that question?

We lost, and it seems like everybody's hurt, and who knows what that will mean. But we're right here in it, and tomorrow we start again. That's the whole point, ain't it?

The Mets will have to play the next two without me — I'm headed for Denver. (And yes, going to Coors Field. Like you had to ask.) Greg will keep you faithful or fearful, as the case may be. Speaking of which, 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.

Bob Murphy lives. His most enduring lesson certainly does. Baseball, the original Murph told us countless times, is a game of redeeming features. Saturday night proved him indubitably and eternally correct.

Met upon Met redeemed himself at Fenway Park. They lined up like we incessant diet cola drinkers who live in a carbonated beverage container deposit state tend to do. They brought their psychological bottles and cans, all digned and dusty, to the reverse vending machine outside the proverbial Pathmark and they inserted one empty after another. Insert enough, you don't just redeem your deposits. You gain redemption.

To quote a great philosopher, “bottles and cans and just clap your hands — just clap your hands.” Coming from behind in the ninth to beat the Red Sox 3-2 is definitely worth a hearty round of applause. It's where it's at.

The Mets seem redeemed. The 0-4 Mets from Sunday to Wednesday are 2-0. The dropping-toward-.500 Mets of 2009 are suddenly stepping beyond it. The road-weary Mets have crossed the country and their winning ways have been refreshed in one of the sport's most inhospitable climes. The starter who couldn't stand up for falling down last weekend rose from the dead. The lineup and its at least five nine-hole hitters strung together enough live wood to bring home all the runs the unit as a whole would need. The defense that previously couldn't catch a break let alone a grounder caught everything in its path and some items that seemed destined to zoom on by. The closer who's ticked that he rarely gets to close got to close matters shut.

The system installed to see to it that bad umpiring could be overruled by modern technology had a redemptive flavor to it as well. When Omir Santos unleashed that lethal short swing on Jonathan Papelbon in the ninth, I thought it was too much to ask for it to go out. Then I thought it was too much to ask for it to be ruled to have gone out even though it did. “We always get screwed on these calls,” I informed Stephanie who is quite aware of our track record in call-screwage. Ah, but home run replay. That's a relatively new twist on a formerly rancid cocktail of arbiter incompetence. Even Joe West can watch TV. Even Joe West and his merry men — including Paul Nauert, ball cop — could see Santos' shot landed above the magic barrier that separates homers from doubles before bouncing back to earth. It took a while, but fingers were twirled and runs were assigned.

Omir Santos: short stroke, long trot.

The bottom of the ninth never felt it would be easily resolved. First off, where in the world was Francisco Rodriguez? When we last saw him, after a simple ninth Friday, he was high-fiving the heavens and rubbing his tummy as if quite full from all the saves he's been ingesting. Did he have a bellyache or something? No, we'd learn and cringe: back spasms. Say, that doesn't sound like something you want your otherwise almost infallible closer to come down with, especially when you're missing (deep breath) Delgado, Cora, Reyes and Church. Good thing we keep a spare Putz around for moments like these, but let's be clear: J.J. Putz, whatever he was doing in Seattle all these years, is no Frankie Rodriguez. Frankie Rodriguez has been, for a quarter of a season, everything we could have fantasized about, assuming your fantasies involve uneventfully blissful ninths. Why do you think he almost never comes up in the greater Metropolitan conversation except as an OK afterthought? Because Frankie Rodriguez has done nothing wrong, and we only talk at length about those whose imperfections overwhelm us (Johan Santana not included, as Johan Santana overwhelms life its own self).

Anyway, no K-Rod, just J.J., just a little old-time Braden Looperism to start the ninth, walking fucking Youkilis (so named since annoying Johan — anybody who annoys Johan is automatically cursed) and giving up that hot shot to Bay to put runners at second and third…WHAT'S THIS? Correction: Wright comes up with Bay's liner, thankfully keeping the ball in the infield, meaning the Red Sox have only runners on first and second with nobody…WHAT'S THIS? Wright throws to second? When it squirts into right field and puts runners on second and third…WHAT'S THIS? Luis Castillo retrieves Wright's off-balance fling and plants a foot on the bag and fucking Youkilis is OUT!

OUT! HE'S OUT!

That last bit of exultation was a little unwelcome on the couch because somewhere among the throw, the nab, the foot and my unbridled reaction to all of it, Avery the Cat let his nerves get the best of him. When he does — it happens either from my sneezing or my rooting — he will do a nasty leap across Stephanie's lap, which overrides my wife's approval for a nice play because it usually means she's getting scratched. But Avery's claws did no damage, thanks to a suitably rugged pair of sweatpants. Thus, the sweetest 5-4 putout you're ever going to see remained a joyous affair.

OUT! HE'S OUT!

But there was only one out. Then, after Drew lined hard but at Pagan, there were two out. Then Lowell found a hole, and I thought here we go again, first and second at least and why is Putz putting us through this — but the steady veteran hand of Ramon Martinez plugged the hole and wisely, calmly threw to first for the ballgame while callow youths Jose Coronado, Ruben Tejada and Jonathan Malo each gained valuable experience on the farm; all that folderol is there to drive Jason crazy, but it was a very nice play at the end of a very nice game in which there was lots of fine defense by the other team, too, and loads of good pitching by both pitchers, including — surprise, surprise — Mike Pelfrey. After he struggled through 34 pitches in the first inning, our starter somehow gave up only two runs then (thanks again, Luis) and nothing for six more. Big Pelf got some big professional help from some big mind in sports psychology and stopped making with the balks already yet. Didn't think I'd be saying — one start removed from his balking thrice — nice move, Mike. But calling the doctor really was.

It was all very nice Saturday night at Fenway, save maybe for Frankie's back and the late word that he was hospital-bound from the back pain. May he find the kind of redemption the rest of us got to cash in from this game. Cloaking oneself in doom only to emerge triumphant…I'll redeem that deposit any day.

(And if unspeakably cretinous amalgamations of evil have to have a good day, it's all right, I suppose, that it comes at the expense of other unspeakably cretinous amalgamations of evil.)

No deposits, no returns, just plenty 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.

Seeing how that worked out, before tomorrow's game I will pen an anguished attack on the rest of the starting nine.

I'm not the least bit ashamed to say my two-day vacation from the Mets was necessary and thoroughly pleasant.

Tuesday night's debacle also marked the end of a long run of late nights spent working at the computer; on Wednesday morning I dragged myself out of bed and swore that five minutes after Joshua was in bed that night, I would be asleep myself. The overtired have been making such empty vows for years, but I knew this promise would be kept, and at 8:20 p.m. I was out cold. I woke up 11 hours later, padded groggily to the computer, saw the Mets had lost, wasn't particularly surprised, and got on with the day, pleased that there was 0% chance the Mets could lose Thursday's game, what with it not existing and all.

Mets-Red Sox didn't seem like a particularly promising way to return from baseball exile, but we did have Johan Santana. And I had a chance to watch a ballgame with my old pal Chris, a.k.a. the Human Fight from our comments section. (And an absurdly passionate Sox fan.)

And what happened while Chris and I inhaled approximately 83 tons of Jake's BBQ? Well, the Mets made three errors, with David Wright and Ramon Martinez each managing to boot double-play balls behind Johan, the defense's usual victim. (To reiterate the stat everybody will reiterate, the Mets have made 35 errors this year, 12 of them in Santana's nine starts. How is that even possible?) A byproduct of this horrendous self-sabotage has been the increasingly common sight of Johan stalking around the infield and staring at his infielders like a junior-high cafeteria aide trying to figure out who threw that pudding. Fortunately for the Mets, Kevin Youkilis (so high-strung that I wouldn't be surprised to discover he spends his time in the dugout eating glass) made the mistake of barking at Johan for daring to hit him in the elbow with a pitch that was actually over the plate, which gave Johan someone to be enraged at who wasn't wearing the same uniform. (The Human Fight's observation: “Youkilis is a little bitch.”) The other fortunate thing was Julio Lugo demonstrating he's about as qualified to play shortstop as Ramon Martinez — his lazy, flat-footed non-pivot let Jeremy Reed stay out of a double play, after which the Mets tacked on the two runs they'd need.

So, Mets win. But forgive my utter lack of optimism, for reasons too numerous to be enumerated even on this wordy blog. Here are just a few:

1. Johan doesn't pitch tomorrow. Or on Sunday. Or Monday. Or Tuesday.

2. Gary Sheffield has been an admirable addition to the team so far, but sticking him in front of the Green Monster is cruel.

3. Jose Reyes remains in the limbo the Mets insist on using instead of the disabled list, perhaps because they think 22 or 23 players is better feng sui than 25.

4. Ryan Church, who even Jerry Manuel would admit is a very good outfielder, is now hurt.

5. Luis Castillo still has no range.

6. We all love David Wright, but when he fields a routine grounder and looks to first you can see him break into a sweat.

7. I don't know who the hell's going to play first, but I do know it's going to be a left fielder.

And then there's Ramon Martinez.

Early in the game, Gary Cohen said (with that slight tension in his voice that lets you know perfectly well what he thinks) that he'd talked to a Mets' assistant GM about what alternatives to Martinez the Mets had as Shortstop Plan C. Gary discussed the Tejadas and Coronados and Malos before explaining that the Mets settled on Martinez as the best man for the job. Left unspoken was the reason a baseball team would consider Ramon Martinez the best man for any conceivable assignment, but from hard experience with this front office I know the reason: It's that he's old.

Oh, sorry — I wasn't speaking Metese. It's that he's a veteran.

The older more veteran I get, the more it irritates me to see baseball teams — by which I mean my baseball team — throw away precious roster spots on players whose fitness for duty should be established by holding a mirror to their nostrils. Wilson Delgado. Marlon Anderson II. Miguel Cairo. Abraham Nunez. Ricky Ledee. Brian Daubach. Gerald Williams. Michael Tucker. Jose Offerman. Ricky Gutierrez. Jeff Conine. God spare us from this sad parade of tomato cans, has-beens and never-was's whose “experience” somehow outweighs their embalmed uselessness as ballplayers. (And don't tell me unearthing the occasional Fernando Tatis justifies the accumulated roster time given to those stiffs.) To this dreary list we now add the return of Ramon Martinez, a player who had a brief flurry of hits last year when we were all mad at Luis Castillo and therefore willing to overlook the fact that a couple of weeks earlier Ramon had failed to go first-to-third in a game the Mets lost to the Nats, 1-0.

Look, I don't know much about Ruben Tejada or Jose Coronado or Jonathan Malo, and I confess to reflexively overvaluing young players. But I will bet those three kids at least have the potential to do something more than hitting .240 and playing average defense. That's Ramon Martinez's ceiling, with a distinct possibility that we see even more of his by-now-familiar floor. I know, he had an RBI single tonight. Great! Sell high!

Emily and I have a ritual in our house of saying “hit it to anybody” when there are two outs, a ritual sometimes amended for nervous/comedic effect when some Met is being conspicuously stone-gloved. Tonight I found myself saying, “hit to anybody — except Wright, or Martinez, or Castillo, or Murphy, or Sheffield, or Pagan.” Which left, I realized, Reed and Omir Santos and whoever was pitching. I kept looking for defense replacements and realizing they weren't coming — that if the all-aces Bobby Parnell or Frankie Rodriguez let the MPH dip below 95, some Red Sock might subject us to a ball that would have to be gloved by Ramon Martinez and then again by Daniel Murphy. That's a terrifying prospect, one we'll have to endure as long as the Met front office insists on playing with guys who should be on the DL on the bench and guys who should be on the golf course at shortstop. In which case we'll all need another vacation soon.

Vacation or not, you should spend time 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.