Closers blow saves.

It's what they do, all of them. (Even you, Lidge — regression to the mean is going to be a bitch.) They have bad games, bad luck, miserable stretches in which they lose their feel for their pitches and get pounded for the equivalent of a start or two, only for the closer “a start or two” means three or four wins gagged up over an agonizing week to 10 days. This information ought to be affixed to the closer's picture on the Diamondvision, like the label on a pack of cigarettes: WARNING THE SURGEON GENERAL HAS DETERMINED THAT WATCHING CLOSERS LEADS TO PERIODIC DISAPPOINTMENT AND DESPAIR AND HAS BEEN SHOWN TO CAUSE SECONDHAND DISAPPOINTMENT AND DESPAIR IN CHILDREN.

Everything came out all right, thank goodness, despite Frankie Rodriguez throwing ball after ball and slipping on the mound and repeatedly going to the curve on 2-0 and doing something to antagonize Bill Welke, who wasn't wrong but was sure awful picky, particularly since Brandon Phillips was doing the kind of assheaded thing that doesn't usually inspire umpires to check for dotted i's and crossed t's in the rulebook. (When baseball is played this stupidly this consistently by a team, you just know you'll find Dusty Baker somewhere on the premises.)

Stupid or not, it was all terrifying, down to Laynce Nix's cloudscraper (add the stray “y” for “yikes”) turning Ryan Church around and sending Carlos Beltran drifting slowly back to and then into the warning track, you weren't sure whether in confidence or dismay. Don't say I didn't warn you when one of those doesn't stay in, and K-Rod is ridden by the ghosts of Billy Wagner and Braden Looper and Armando Benitez and John Franco and everyone else initiated into the Brotherhood of Boo at one point or another, which is to say all of them.

Though perhaps there were other ghosts afoot. Certainly the mound was haunted. Mike Pelfrey was awful, Edinson Volquez wasn't much better, Mike Lincoln and Pedro Feliciano took aim at their own feet in a rather pathetic shootout at the Oy Vey Corral, J.J. Putz got cuffed about a bit, and then it was time for Frankie's drama. (Arthur Rhodes, of course, was serenely untouchable as usual. Please keep him out of the NL East come summertime.)

Yes, once upon a time this looked like a thoroughly encouraging Met performance, Pelfrey aside, what with Red fielders crumpling in the vague vicinity of balls, Luis Castillo and Brian Schneider saving Big Pelf's bacon with an awfully nice play by two generally derided players and Carlos Delgado launching a ball that might actually have landed in Kentucky. But by the time the four-hour mark loomed, this was one to close your eyes and endure, like the banshee shrieks of the Lady Fan from Hell. (Thanks for pointing her out, Keith — once you did that I would tense up every five seconds waiting for her to do it again.) Would it be a wipe-your-brow game that you could excuse as a win with some extra dramatic tension? Would it be a killer loss to cast an early-season pall over 2009? Turned out to be the former, but we all know in a lot of alternate universes it was the latter.

Why is this night different from all other nights? Well, for the first time in a while, I won't pass over mention of five worthy baseball books that have come to my attention while I've been busy reminding you about my own.

Given that Passover begins at sundown, it's imperative to present the perfect complement to your Seder experience in The Baseball Talmud by Howard Megadal. Howard, whose byline you see in the Observer and a lot of places, wrote the book I always thought would be neat to read: all about Jewish ballplayers. And it is neat, so there ya go. A lot of research and a lot of heart (if not a lot of schmaltz) went into this examination of these not quite 160 people chosen for the majors by managers to take the field. For every Hank Greenberg, there are quite a few Greg Goossens, but you could say the same for any baseball people you choose to examine in-depth.

Goossen is one of nine Jewish Mets to date (Ginsberg, Sherry, Shamsky, Maddox, Roberts, Schoeneweis, Newhan and Green are the others), best known as the secular target of one of Casey Stengel's final active barbs, one of my all-time favorite lines about anything anywhere. Though it is as oft-told as the story of Passover itself, I will repeat the essence of it in the spirit of the season in which Moses led his people toward the Promised Land (or in the case of our ballclub, the Mets leading their fans this season to a promised land just east of what was built at the behest of Robert Moses).

Ed Kranepool was twenty years old in 1965, and Casey said in ten years Ed had a chance to be a star. Greg Goossen was (not quite) twenty years old in 1965, and Casey said in ten years Greg had a chance to be (not quite) thirty.

Ten years later, Goossen fulfilled Stengel's prophecy, reaching the age projected with no sign of baseball stardom. But he did eventually become a stand-in for a star, going to Hollywood and working on a lot of Gene Hackman movies. Howard Megdal, with the wisdom of Solomon, offers up not just Greg's .597 slugging percentage as a Seattle Pilot, but a list of the five best Gene Hackman movies with Greg Goossen and the five best without him. You can decide whether either fork of his career path ranks him as the seventh-best Jewish first baseman ever as Megdal rates him.

This book is statistically fortified, but it never stops being fun. If you're going to offer a reward for finding the afikomen, you could do worse than The Baseball Talmud.

But we're not done covering the bases, of which there are four, counting the plate (on which there need be no charoset tonight at Great American). So let's ask four questions and find four answers.

What about a baseball book for kids?

Not having kids and never having been particularly childlike until I was too old for my own good, I'd still recommend James Preller's Six Innings, a riveting account of a fictional youth league championship game, made ever more tense by the author's blending in details of two very special half-innings from Mets history as part of the climax: the top of the ninth and the bottom of the sixteenth from Game Six of the 1986 NLCS. Kids who read it won't get the reference points, but they will transport some parents back to a great day turned evening. It won't surprise you Preller is a Mets fan.

What about something in verse?

You may not have been looking for the Mets Poet, but when you find him, you're better off for it. I had the pleasure of sharing the Varsity Letters stage last week with Frank Messina, who renders an authentic Mets vibe in a way I've never heard or read. Full Count: The Book of Mets Poetry is a revelation on every page. Regarding 1986: Reagan was president/and Keith Hernandez was God. Jesse Orosco: Autumn joy explodes. His and our own obsession: Where the poet sees beauty, others see shame. Context is everything, and when you read these lines in the context of their poems, they mean even more. I tip my cap to the Mets Poet.

What about something with the big picture?

Long Islanders who go back some with Newsday's sports section will instantly recall the puckishness of Stan Isaacs on games, players and TV (he was Mushnick, Raissman and Best before there were Mushnick, Raissman and Best). He also covered the hell out of some mighty big events from the '50s to the '80s, and ten of them get the Full Isaacs in Ten Moments That Shook the Sports World, a book that came out last year but I'm just getting around to reading and appreciating now. The '69 Mets are in there, as is The Shot Heard 'Round the World (Isaacs grew up a Giants fan, Bobby Thomson be praised). He brings a lot of lost details to light from all fields, leading up to a chilling recollection of Munich 1972. If you're looking for Mets and more, these Ten Moments are for you. (And if you're looking for contemporary Isaacs, he's right here.)

What about something that's Miraculous?

As if parting the Red Sea isn't enough for Passover, you can never go wrong with 1969. The company that published my (and Isaac's) book has, at the same time, reissued an absolute classic, A Magic Summer by Stanley Cohen. Cohen traveled about in the late '80s catching up with the Miracle Mets of two decades earlier and told the story of '69 through the events then and their perspective now (the now of 1988, that is). What's always stayed with me is how he explained the Mets fan, and how the fan stays with the team and in many ways transcends the players who make up the team in a given year, even a great year like that Magic one. The fortieth-anniversary reissue has a new introduction, some great pictures and an improved cover, but its Amazin' insight? Same as it ever was.

These are not times when there's a lot of spare change sitting around for discretionary purchases, so I'll reiterate the sentiment from when I first announced my own book to you. I wouldn't be recommending these titles if they weren't potentially worth your time. I think, once you've purchased and read Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets (and given a few copies as Passover, Easter and other-occasion gifts), those I've mentioned above might be worth an investment of your time and resources.

FAFIF: AIPHOTNYM, I can't help but mention, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook. Also, Mark from Mets Walk-Offs takes me deep — or at least to our new hard-to-reach warning track — here. Finally, thanks to Adam Rubin and the Daily News for giving away five signed copies in a contest that moved so fast yesterday that I never had a chance to let you in on it. Mets fans are quick to answer five questions, let alone four.

Queens and Long Island readers, if so inclined, can pick up the Daily News today for a brief story by Nicholas Hirshon on Faith and Fear in Flushing: An Intense Personal History of the New York Mets, including author comments and photo in the Queens News insert, part of a spread covering the coming of the new ballpark (Stanley Cohen, whose wonderful A Magic Summer has been reissued for the fortieth anniversary of the '69 Mets, is also interviewed). Would love to direct you to a link, but alas it's not online. Link here.

FAFIF: AIPHOTNYM is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble or a bookstore near you. Keep in touch and join the discussion on Facebook.

Friday night was about taking the first steps from a state of shock to a sense of tentative acceptance. Sunday (the workout opened to planholders; Stephanie and I went courtesy of a very thoughtful planholder) was for the journey from bottom to top, front to back, side to side, ins and outs. Maybe.

I say maybe because no matter how much we looked around in blessedly brilliant sunshine, it's going to require a long journey for Citi Field to go from house to home. House is a structure, home is a feeling. One of the most unsettling moments of the long Mets fan winter that is scheduled (weather permitting) to end Monday afternoon at 1:10 was a press conference I caught on the MLB Network announcing the Red Sox' re-signing of Kevin Youkilis. Youkilis said something about how this was home. He meant the Red Sox, but the event was taking place inside of Fenway Park. You know Fenway Park is home of the Red Sox. It's the same home of the Red Sox that's been for almost one hundred seasons. When John Updike passed away during the offseason, we all thought about “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” highlighted by the timeless description of the lyric little bandbox. Fenway was as recognizable in the mind's eye and on Yawkey Way in 2009 as it was in 1960 as it was, presumably, in 1912. It may lack those all-important amenities we hear so much about, but you know what Fenway Park is. Red Sox don't have to think about whether or not they're home.

Shea Stadium was that to me and to us. Shea Stadium was the home of the Mets. It's torn down, but that feeling doesn't demolish easily. At one point on our extended tour this afternoon, we wandered into Caesars Club (nice of him to have us) and out those arch windows was the pile of rubble, a little less high than Friday night, I swear. Shea Stadium is, as promised, transforming into $18 parking spots. Last year I sat in Shea Stadium and watched where I was today take shape. Today I sat in a plush chair in a commodious lounge and watched where I was all my yesterdays. That asphalt was center field, wasn't it? Wasn't Carlos Beltran just taking a home run away from Ryan Ludwick down there? Isn't that where I saw every centerfielder from Agee to Cameron before him ply his craft? Center field at Shea Stadium could be an adventure. Adventureland was now pavement.

I stopped looking at the past. I tried to look ahead. But baseball isn't just one long scouting report, one massive volume of Baseball Prospectus. I care deeply about how the Mets will do before every game and every year but I realize I care less and less about season previews and projected records and all that crystal ball gazing as each April arrives. What'll happen happens. I've guessed right sometimes. I've guessed wrong plenty. I guess I'll find out for sure about the 2009 Mets starting very soon, and Citi Field soon after that.

I'll stand by my delight from Friday about the concourses and the culinary options (Shea specialized in discomfort food, literally and figuratively) and all those upgrades that were injected into the new park. I miss the soul of Shea Stadium, but its infrastructure you can keep. Yet that soul…that'll take a while to rebuild over here. As Stephanie and I compared notes on how this felt like Busch, like the Jake, like Great American, like Miller Park — “And the nicest part of all, Val…I look just like you,” as it was put in that Twilight Zone in which everybody was subject to mandatory plastic surgery — I realized what I really wanted was the Citi Field modernity as I walked around and then I wanted Shea Stadium to open up before me as I sat down. Can't have both, apparently.

A friend once told me a story of a coat he wore for many winters. It was red, white and blue, so his buddies called it his Captain America jacket. He grew less and less amused over time and, come one Christmas, he asked his folks for a new winter coat. Whaddaya need that for? his practical dad demanded. The one you have still fits.

“I'm tired of the Captain America jacket,” my friend insisted. And for Christmas, he got something less comical to wear for warmth.

I can understand the impulse for a new coat — but I've been cloaked in the same forest green parka for a decade because it still fits. Shea Stadium still fit me no matter that others swore we'd outgrown it. I wish it were still here every bit as much as I hope its successor wears well. I see no point in indulging my instinct for Sheadenfreude. I can't root for this new place to not work. It's not going to do me or us any good. And whatever flaws emerge in these coming months aren't going to bring Shea Stadium back from lot to life.

Every time SNY has had a spare hour, it's replayed the Shea Goodbye ceremony from September 28. When it's on, I stop and watch. It occurred to me a few weeks ago that this is akin to viewing a funeral over and over and over again (luckily, they don't show the fatal car wreck of a game that preceded it). I can't help but look. It's the last time Shea Stadium stands. After Seaver and Piazza close the gates and Aaron Copland celebrates the common man, there's no more Shea. I like having the last of it in living color, but I hope they stop showing it. I don't want to be drawn into a funeral procession any longer. I can miss it without mourning it.

When I lost the first pet that ever died on me, as an adult, I was beside myself with grief. I asked a friend who'd had a cat learning curve similar to mine — not converting to felinism until his thirties — how he coped when he lost the kitty he loved.

“You mourn, but then one day you just stop,” he said. “It's a cat.”

I got it. And eventually I stopped mourning. Never stopped missing, but I moved on. Today I began to move on from mourning Shea. I miss it, but I'll keep moving forward. I have to.

Mourning has broken.

In a recent episode of The Simpsons, Lisa frets over what kind of candy to buy to impress a new classmate. “How about Charleston Chew?” Bart asks.

“What is this,” Lisa huffs. “Brooklyn in the Fifties?”

No matter the cynical conception that METS stands for nothing more than My Ebbets Team Substitute to a certain majority owner, Citi Field feels nothing like I imagine the joint on McKeever Place did. You can have your archways and your Rotunda (I can't look at that 42 sculpture and not think “Ron Hodges”), but that's where it ends. I don't mean that to let Citi Field off the hook for its overly nostalgic tics. I mean this ain't some lyric little bandbox. You wouldn't build Ebbets Field in this day and age any more than you'd build Shea Stadium. It can pay all the homages it wants and it's not going to be from 1913 or serve as a chummy little neighborhood asylum. It's too now, it's too affluent (or would be in better times). That's OK. There's a reason a team once left Ebbets Field that has nothing to do with Robert Moses. It was no longer considered an optimal business model.

This is not Brooklyn in the Fifties. Does it carry on the intangibles of Ebbets, though? Is it “intimate” as billed? Well, it's smaller than Shea, as you well know. There are spots from which you're sitting far from the field and you don't feel on top of the action as promised. There are spots (probably ones I won't be sitting in again when it's not an open house) where you feel cut off from baseball civilization. And then there are spots that give you the impression they weren't kidding about intimacy.

The Pepsi Porch feels that way; we were in right, but I was tempted to shake hands with whoever was sitting on a line with us in left. Midway up the Promenade on the third base side feels that way, too. It's a new, improved Upper Deck over there, at least until you climb to the top (when it's just a very high and windy perch). The tilted seats make their most impact up there, I thought. I am so used to staring at the left fielder from that vantage point that it will actually take practice to not turn my head toward Daniel Murphy and just stare straight at the batter…but what's attending a glorified batting practice for anyway?

It was at those two random sit-downs when I felt like I might enjoy watching a Mets game at Citi Field, that it won't feel foreign. The Prom was ballpark seating like I was used to, but properly aligned. The Porch doesn't feel as far away as other outfield seats I've tried in other places. That could be fun. Even though a revisit to the Field Box level (as opposed to Field Level boxes of yore) was pleasant, that's the part where I felt we were in Anypark, U.S.A. And a brief sampling of the Caesars level was too exclusive for my tastes. A great, great vista, with a guest appearance by Flushing Bay in the distance, but isolated in its splendiferousness. If I want privacy, I can sit here at my computer. Ballparks are public spaces. The Mets' public (even if I've had my run-ins with disreputable representatives thereof) needs to be bonded together.

I gotta hand it to the Mets for having this housewarming, as my friend Sharon called it. Sure it was an excuse to sell stuff (nobody forced me into that team store or toward the Catch of the Day counter, so I'll forego restating my astonishment at the price tags) and a fourth chance to flick the switches on and off so they operate properly a week from Monday, but it was simply lovely to be among Mets fans again. I don't think it's fair to identify any subset as “the real fans,” but the partial people strike me as particularly committed. They'd have 81 tickets every year if time and money weren't issues. They have made an annual habit of every Saturday or every Sunday at a Mets game (though I understand that the Mets rejiggered weekends to include spare Wednesday nights this year). These people wandering and noshing and taking in a slice of BP weren't from some elite superstrata of the population. They were Mets fans who would have gladly gone to watch batting practice at the old ballpark and seemed just as pleased to have it presented to them at the new venue. Maybe some of them were the people I saw lingering atop the Upper Deck ramp the last Sunday of last September, not wanting to give up what was so familiar and reassuring. I hope those ramp people, wherever they were today, are happy in the new digs. I hope they find it to be home.

I hope I do, too. I had a great big head start this morning and afternoon being there with Stephanie. Finally finding, after ten minutes of searching, the brick that commemorates our first date reminded me how happy I was to begin to share my passion with my then newly beloved. Our visit later to the Caesars seats brought me back to that August day in 1993 against the Rockies when we had a similar view from Loge: right behind the plate, the Mets in the foreground, us together. That was then. That was now, too.

Shea La Vie — and Citi Field while we're at it.

The end of Shea Stadium and the fanwalk that brought us there is retraced 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.