Johan games are different from any other Mets games, very different. For instance, in most Mets games, the other team scores earned runs; in Johan games, the other team earns nothing. In most Mets games the ball is put in play by the offensive team after it is pitched by a Met; in Johan games the offensive team barely puts the ball in play, and only Johan's catcher seems to touch the ball. In fact, in Johan games, if an offensive player hits the ball intentionally, he's out; sometimes unintentionally, he's out.

Also: in Mets games pitched by Pelfrey, Perez, Maine and all other Mets pitchers, the other team scores. In Johan games, the pitcher prevents you from scoring.

In most Mets games, the manager makes trips to the mound, maybe several. In Johan games, the manager plants himself in the dugout and watches Johan.

Now I've mentioned other Mets games. Johan games and other Mets games are the two most popular spectator sports in this city. And as such, it seems they ought to be able to tell us something about ourselves and our values.

I enjoy comparing Johan games and other Mets games:

Other Mets games can be messy and uncertain.

Johan games are things of beauty.

Other Mets games tempt you to wander through a park. The baseball park!

Johan games keep you sitting in your seat or occasionally standing in front of it.

Other Mets games begin 0-0 and can go in any direction from there.

Johan games begin 0-0 and stay very close to that figure for most of the day.

In other Mets games, you wear an expression of doubt.

In Johan games, you wear a smile.

Other Mets games are concerned with down — I hope we don't go down too easily.

Johan games are concerned with up and down — when the other team comes up, they will be going down very quickly.

In other Mets games, you receive agita.

In Johan games, Johan makes it easy on your digestive system.

In other Mets games, specialists come in to attempt to register crucial outs.

In Johan games, Johan stays in and retires everybody.

Other Mets games have strategy, anxiety, worry, angst and a faint hope that maybe things will work out all right.

Johan games have Johan.

Other Mets games are played with opposing batters reaching base and with opposing runners crossing the plate.

In Johan games, nobody on the other team gets to go out and play for very long.

Other Mets games have the seventh-inning stretch.

Johan games have seven strong innings from Johan.

Other Mets games have no time limit: we don't when they're gonna end — might have four hours.

Johan games seem rigidly timed, and they will end in far fewer than three hours.

In other Mets games, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a contemplative feeling; you think about Citi Field, whether you like it, whether you don't like it, but there's always something interesting to think about.

In Johan games, during the game, in the stands, you can be sure that all you want is the Mets to score one run and Putz and Rodriguez to finish another job extremely well done.

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In other Mets games the object is for the Mets, also known as aggravating, to figure out a way to win, to overcome their miscues, to cover up their flaws, to generate multiple tallies, to conduct themselves with more competence than they usually muster, to catch and throw with skill and to outhit their own pitching lest they surrender another early lead and blow another winnable game and fall further behind the surging Marlins.

In Johan games, the object is to go home! And to be victorious! I know we'll be victorious once we go home from watching Johan pitch!

(Thanks George.)

The difference between Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets and other baseball books? Find out when you secure your copy of FAFIF: AIPHOTNYM from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Sorry, Luis Castillo's singles don't look like line drives in the box score. You can pretty much reverse-engineer whatever the number in the H column is back into little slap jobs or worm killers or humpbacked liners. But sometimes they're enough. Sometimes they wind up in the western side of J.J. Hardy's glove, too far for conversion into yet another Met out and yet another Met LOB, and Luis Castillo's rather thoroughly caged fury is anger enough for sweet victory.

I think I will always find it faintly ridiculous that anything the Milwaukee Brewers might do can affect the Mets. For me the Brewers will always be a team from the distant AL that plays somewhere cold and changes their uniform design too often and features guys I know are good but only glimpse once in a while on This Week in Baseball. They're the San Diego Padres at an even greater remove. Yet I find when I push past the feeling that they're in the wrong league that I'm more familiar with them than I thought and can even generalize about them fairly successfully. Like they always have vaguely anonymous but terrifying young hitters, those young hitters tend to field like they went out there with bats in their hands (with the exception of Mike Rivera and whomever Bill Hall was channeling on that nice bunt pickup), and they get a volume discount on hard-throwing red-haired middle relievers who wear plus sizes. Those are your Brewers; they've been a part of our lives for a solid decade and I suppose I ought to just get used to them. I'll keep trying.

What I can get used to, finally, is Baseball 2009 in general and the Mets playing at Citi Field specifically. This was the first night of the year in which baseball didn't seem like a novelty but a normal part of the evening — 6:45, almost time to watch the Mets. In a way that day's nicer than Opening Day, because it's the day you realize baseball's here to stay (relatively) and you can put your feet up and let the narrative of the season unfold as the spring and the summer swell in accompaniment. And this was the day I stopped trying to scout Citi Field on every pitch, staring out at its dimensions and tracking its bounces like I'm the one who has to play them. (Though didja see that ball that carried away from Castillo and had to be corraled by Church? Seems like there's a crosswind that gives balls an additional kick towards the right-field corner, doesn't it?) This was the day I started to just enjoy the game for itself, new park and all.

And after another shaky middle there was plenty to enjoy. Like the swing of Carlos Delgado, now thoroughly resurrected and possibly more dangerous than before, what with the left-field line now a target as well. Like Gary Sheffield, whose milestone moment could have been an annoying asterisk, but who won me over with his determination to learn right field as best he can even if it's an assignment he arguably shouldn't have been given. (Points also to Ryan Church, by the way, for tutoring the man trying to take his playing time.) And yes, like Luis Castillo, pudgy and underwhelming though he still is. Not even I am cynical enough to resist a well-told tale of redemption.

Speaking of well-told tales, you won't be able to resist 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.

Not overwhelmed. Not underwhelmed. Just whelmed at the moment. And cold. Very cold.

I have now been to my 33rd Major League ballpark to watch a Major League Baseball game, Citi Field, home of the New York Mets in Flushing, Queens. I cannot offer a definitive judgment of how much I love it or how little I like it because I really don't know yet…”yet” being the key phrase. I may not know for sure for quite a while, and that is a very fair way to take Citi Field: slowly.

We don't have to decide right off the bat whether it's the most beautiful sight our eyes have ever seen (which is what Rudy's father called Notre Dame Stadium in Rudy) or whether it's an overpriced, overwrought pile of bricks (which is what I feared from the moment it was etched into our future plans). It's not the greatest thing ever, it's by no means terrible. It is not going out on a limb to refer to it as not bad. Very nice would also do as a placeholder.

The shock of there being no Shea is dissipating quickly. The LIRR, like the Subway system, has eliminated its Shea Stadium stop, opting instead for Mets/Willets Point. That redesignation felt more appropriate than ever when I got off the train, climbed the steps, turned to pace the boardwalk and saw Citi Field on the right, nothing on the left. I somehow expected there to be two parks where there was only one. Oh yeah, I reminded myself, there's not.

My last living remnant of Shea, so to speak, was a pair of rainchecks from September 12, 2008, a horrible night when I was horribly sick. The fine print said they could be exchanged this season or next, meaning last season or this, even with Shea Stadium a goner and Citi Field allegedly in demand. I took my unused tickets to the advance ticket window (it's along the path to the Left Field Gate, FYI) and expected to be hassled. I wasn't. I put their value toward a game in May. Now I have no more tickets to Shea. Why would I?

Finally, I had to make a phone call. With Alex Anthony's warnings about what I could and couldn't take into the Jackie Robinson Rotunda blasting in my ear, I needed a little quiet, so I made my call from the quietest spot in the Citi Field complex: the Shea Stadium outfield, specifically the part that is gravel en route to it being paved. I figured sooner or later I'd stroll over there, so may as well get it out of the way now. Do you know what it was like standing in what I believe to have been short center field at Shea Stadium?

It was like standing in an unpaved area of the parking lot. When I got done with my call, I turned around and headed for the only ballpark on the premises.

Having used the Right Field Gate for the exhibition and the Rotunda for the workout, I tried Left Field on for size (and am testing the Orosco banner for a meetup on Sunday — Gate Jess-E, if you will). I was waiting to be told by the man in red or green, I forget which, that I was doing something wrong by carrying exactly the kind of stuff I've always carried into Mets games. But no, what I was carrying was fine. I was fine. The man in green or red was fine (though I had the sense he really wanted to be cranky). I was through the Left Field Gate and up an escalator and, once more, though this time for keeps, I was inside Citi Field.

Not as weird as it was for the Red Sox game on April 3. Not weird at all. But crowded. Teeming from the Left Field Gate out to center. I thought an hour before first pitch might win me some latitude toward some of the more popular concessions, but forget it. I wondered for all the celebrated width of concourses why it was so tough to get around. Because people were doing what I was doing: searching for something to buy and in no hurry to decide what they would choose. I wound up back at the World's Fare Market and opted for the Cuban Sandwich and Garlic Fries (with half of the latter falling to the ground in a play at the plate, tagged out by some combination of the cashier, my receipt and me).

The Citi Field Cuban Sandwich, in case you're wondering, is bleeping awesome. If somebody wants to tell me they don't go to baseball games for Cuban Sandwiches, I'll retort that they'll play the game whether you have one or not. I bitched mightily for three dozen seasons that Mets games lacked all but a smidge of Japanese food for edibles. I will appreciate what's good now that it's on tap.

That was just the preamble, or pre-ramble. There was still a matter of swinging through the Field Level to get back to the escalator en route to the Promenade on that side of the Citi. Yes, I could have gone upstairs in right field, but I'm still in that fascination stage with the Field Level, which is actually pretty unfascinating to walk through between the bases as there's no view of the field and, you may have heard, no sign of the home team's history to dwell upon. To be fair, I wasn't thinking “where's the Mets museum?” at that point. I was thinking “more people?”

The real purpose of Citi Field is not the dinner menu or how construction necessitated a whole new parking lot but watching the Mets. Section 527, Row 7 would be the key to whether my first official impression was a dream date or a dud. It wasn't a dud, but everything you've been hearing about obstructed views is true enough. From seven rows up, the left field line is a rumor. Not a little, but a lot. There's still a whole infield and a lot of outfield to garner your attention, but there's enough fair territory blocked by concrete to make you wonder how three years of planning and building missed or, more likely, dismissed this little detail.

Before the game got underway and I settled in, my overriding thought was how small this place is. Never mind intimate. It's small. It's smaller than Citizens Bank. It's smaller than new Busch. It's bigger than Wiffle Park at Chapman Yards, but that's only got eight seats and its one club (the back porch) requires no special ticket. It's not a criticism to identify Citi Field as relatively minute. It's an observation. After a lifetime of large, this felt tiny. I spent a while looking for the rest of the stadium. It wasn't there. This is all we get.

The good news is pitch by pitch, minute by minute, it all felt a little less strange. I adapted to Citi Field in person better than I've been adapting to it on television. You look toward the pitcher and the batter and it's a Met versus an opponent. That's not strange. You've got Mets fans sitting around you. That's not strange. The scoreboards and such…a little strange because they are so different from their predecessors, but by the eighth as opposed to the second, they were the scoreboards where the Mets played. And by the eighth, I was as cold as I'd ever been at a baseball game in Flushing.

That's why Row 7 of Section 527 couldn't hold my host Sharon (by providing admission to my official debut at Citi Field, she became Camp Avnet for this millennium) and me. First we were gonna get a hot beverage and come back. Then the line was long and it was growing colder. Colder and windier. I'm almost certain this space in Flushing Meadows Corona Park is more frigid than our previous space in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. I'm bringing a thermometer next time to check for evidence. Anyway, once Sharon got coffee and I got pudding (Kozy Shack survived the move), we decided to try our luck in those generally unattended seats that are scattered about, presumably intended for the differently abled. Well, there was nothing marking them as forbidden and nobody had claimed them and, most importantly, nobody was stopping us, so we sat down in two of them for an inning. And an inning became three innings or so. It was there we watched Ramon Castro validate his presence on the roster. It was there we felt a legitimate “Let's Go Mets!” rise from this shoebox of a ballpark. It was there I grew used to watching the Mets come back on the Padres at Citi Field or at least try their half-assiest.

We shifted our act to the right field Field Level corner for the ninth, partly to get a jump on the exit after we managed a rousing come-from-behind walkoff victory and partly because of the shock that you can do that at Citi Field. In a way this was self-defeating because I wanted to experience the game as a regular game, watching it mostly from my assigned seat. But this is Citi Field, where you're allowed to roam, so it's hard to resist the temptation. It's April; it's cold; we roamed where we wanted, standing still long enough to watch Carlos Delgado — he who bombed Jake Peavy in the first — stand still and take a pitch that was too close to argue to close out the night.

Except for two homers, the game totally, totally sucked. We lost to Chase Headley & Co., which was hard to ignore, even on this personally historic occasion. But I gained a little more feel for the ballpark that will be mine even as the feeling in my legs began to grow icy by the sixth. I'd like to try Citi Field when it's more familiar and less frigid. I'd like to see the line score next to Mets overshadow whatever's above it, too. Until then, everything's pretty good, not bad, generally incomplete. That'll be filled in eventually. For now, I can fill in this:

It's just the first line in The Second Log, the first night of the rest of my Metgoing life. More whelm presumably to come.

How did we get to Citi Field? Retrace our steps through Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

I've felt the strangest sensation this week that I'm watching neutral-site games. It feels like those March mornings when I struggled to stay awake as the Mets and Cubs visited Tokyo to open the 2000 season. Even a little like the time Dallas Green led his ragtag troops to Monterrey as guests of the Padres in '96 (though nobody from San Diego has copped to nausea or Snickers bars this time around). Everybody in 42 was weird enough last night, but at least that gave me instinctive flashbacks to Butch Huskey hitting and Ron Taylor pitching — no kidding, I actually thought both at stray, inattentive moments. But the place where the Taylors and Huskeys were suddenly activated, on TV…where the hell was that?

My two preseason trips inside Citi Field blessed me with a touch of working knowledge about what's where when actually there, which will come in very handy tonight for my regular-season debut (FYI, a new Log has been secured for the occasion). I'm glad I got my walkarounds in two weekends ago because I don't want navigation to be shrouded in mystery tonight. I want to watch the game. I think I know how to do that.

Yet watching on television is far more bizarre than I would have imagined. And that's where I'll be taking in most of the Citi Field action for the rest of my life. I won't have to worry about a Mets museum being constructed in some far-off nebulous future when I'm looking in from home since I live in something of a Mets museum (albeit amid a mostly uncatalogued collection), but getting a feel that I'm watching the Mets where they play is going to take some doing.

I had Extra Innings on my digital cable for five years partly for the thrill of watching clubs in their new surroundings. I loved the peeks at the parks that opened between 2003 and 2007. It was fascinating to ascertain “wow, Kentucky sure is close to where the Reds play” or “too bad the Philadelphia skyline isn't closer to Citizens Bank” or “who knew there was a city in San Diego?” I've watched the Mets play twice at home on SNY and all I can think — after incidental exposure to the black fence, the brick backstop, the powerful lights and everything else on the camera picks up — is “where the hell is this being televised from?”

Time will take care of that, as I imagine it will all of our concerns that can be achieved via addition as opposed to renovation. During my dry runs at Citi, I saw how one couldn't see all from certain angles. That'll be a tough fix. It is, however, the nature of the Mets fan to adapt. We adapt to surroundings, we adapt to disappointment, we adapt to devastation. Then we queue up and ask for more.

When Stephanie and I attended the open workout, with thousands of other Mets fans happy to be in our new venue on the eve of our new season, all of us wearing our old colors (blue and orange, in case anyone's forgotten), I was thinking we're either the most loyal people in the world or the biggest chumps in captivity. The Mets, as has been well documented, pulled one of the most Amazin' choke job in baseball history the September before last. They replicated the feat to a certain degree a year later. Both times made us miserable and angry and swearing that we couldn't take it anymore. April 2009 has arrived, and we're gonna take it; yes, we're gonna take it…as long as we can find it and afford it.

Paid attendance last night was 35,581. Pretty good by traditional standards for the second chilly date of the season. Lowest home gate since May 2, 2007. That's not a function of Mets fans not coming. That's a function of building it small and thereby assuring not as many will come. But that's just another quirk to grow accustomed to. It's a brave new Met world on TV, a brave new Met world in person. Still, I feel that old sensation of leaning forward toward 7:10 tonight. Some things never change.

Oh, we Mets fans…read all about us 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.

We're all of us — players, announcers, staff and fans — trying to figure out how Citi Field plays. But this much is for sure: It plays weird.

Two days after the inaugural saw a lead-off home run, a normally reliable outfielder drop a fairly routine fly ball, a speedster overslide second, a fine spot of middle relief spoiled by a two-out balk, and a cat on the field, there was poor Edward Mujica playing Human Turnstile at home plate on one of the nuttier plays I've seen, a 10-second tragicomedy starring one perplexed reliever, two small Dominican middle infielders and baseballs going here, there and everywhere.

Ball gets by Hundley! Here comes Castillo to the plate! Hundley throws it past Mujica! Mujica and Castillo are tangled up! Reyes coming around third! Throw by Gonzalez gets by Mujica! Reyes scores!

If you're scoring at home that's … oh, just draw a big hairball or a cross-eyed clown face or something. Mujica looked tired and dispirited when it was over, and who could blame him? David Wright looked vaguely confused, and who could blame him? If you'd told him 10 seconds before, when there were runners on first and third, that he would not hit the ball, that no throw would be made anywhere but to home plate, and that when the next pitch was thrown those runners would be gone … he might have concluded the Rapture was nigh because, really, how much less likely was that than what actually happened? (And, of course, everybody was wearing 42 and Oliver Perez was good. Because things weren't confusing enough.)

That cheerful bit of tomfoolery aside, we got to see balls find various other parts of the yard, from Adrian Gonzalez' Modell's special to Carlos Delgado's second-deck blast off poor Luis Perdomo, facing his first batter in the big leagues. (Sorry, kid.) Daniel Murphy had a rough night in left, letting a runner tag up from first and doing whatever that was involving Reyes and Wright and a runner who should have been out at home, while Gary Sheffield (the man on the other flank of a presumably jittery Carlos Beltran) was blissfully unexposed. I think I speak for all Met fans when I say I felt a lot happier once Ryan Church and Jeremy Reed were on patrol.

Anyway, Mets win. Rachel Robinson looks better at 86 than I did at 26, no cats were frightened in the course of events, and no fans in the front row wound up in a Padre catcher's headlock. (Though if Nick Hundley had throttled that douchebag who spent three entire innings waving on his cellphone, I would have sent him a case of beer.)

All in all, not a bad night's work. Though after these first two games, can Thursday possibly be any stranger?