“Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea that you were in heaven, Mr. Valentine? This IS the OTHER PLACE!”

—”A Nice Place to Visit,” The Twilight Zone

The Mets play the Dodgers Monday night at 6:30 on SNY. They will win. They take on the Yankees Tuesday afternoon at 2:00 on SNY. They will win. Thursday night at 7:30, the Cardinals are the opponents…and the victims. The Mets will win.

They always win, as long as the game has already been played.

By my count, SNY has aired 41 Mets Classics or UltiMET Classics since taking to the air on March 16, 2006. This means the network has been broadcasting, including today, for 1,054 days and has found room on its busy schedule for 41 of what it considers classic Mets games.

Of course much of its programming has been taken up by new Mets games, three seasons' worth, give or take a dozen or so per annum that went to Fox or ESPN (SNY produces Channel 11's telecasts). And often those games are repeated the next day or, if it's an afternoon game, that very night. Almost every game is condensed into Mets Fast Forward as well. Throw in SNY's commitments to Mets studio and entertainment programming along with its other sports news and debate shows, to say nothing of myriad college basketball games and Heartland Poker Tour, and you can't reasonably expect a classic Mets game to be rebroadcast at the drop of a hat.

But we can expect more than 41 across three years. Even if 41 is a most pleasing Met number.

That total is a little misleading, actually. At least sixteen of them appear to be completely out of SNY circulation. Those would be the 1986 postseason wins, that season's division-clincher, the 1969 World Series victories and the complete 2006 NLDS. The September/October '86 deluxe set seemed to be our welcome gift in SNY's first year. The '69ers were dug out of an attic somewhere in '07 and presented in a similar fashion, as if to say “look what we've got!” There is less mystique to the Dodger series, but that was also a limited-run proposition.

So if we're not seeing those sweet sixteen, it leaves us with 25 Mets games in something approaching regular rotation, some more regular than others. From as best as I've been able to absorb from my monitoring of the situation, here are what we get to see as Mets Classics every now and again (and again and again) from the pre-SNY era:

1986 (1): @ San Diego, the 8-2-5 double play

1988 (1): vs. Philadelphia, the division clincher

1991 (2): vs. Los Angeles, Darryl Strawberry's homecoming; @ Philadelphia, David Cone's 19-strikeout performance

1997 (1): @ New York (A), Dave Mlicki's shutout

1998 (1): vs. Milwaukee, Mike Piazza's first Mets game

1999 (3): vs. Milwaukee, Robin Ventura's first grand slam of doubleheader in which he stroked two salamis; vs. New York (A), Matt Franco game-winning pinch-single; @ Cincinnati, Al Leiter wins one-game playoff (this 10/4/99 Classic seems to have gone the way of the '86 postseason)

2000 (2): @ Tokyo, Benny Agbayani grand slam beats Cubs; vs. Atlanta, ten-run eighth inning

2001 (1): vs. Atlanta, Mike Piazza's homer caps first home game following September 11

2005 (2): vs. New York (A), Dae-Sung Koo doubles off Randy Johnson; vs. Los Angeles of Anaheim, Marlon Anderson's inside-the-park home run

The following are from the SportsNet New York era, all but one of them labeled an UltiMET Classic:

2006 (6): vs. Atlanta, Pedro Martinez's 200th win; @ San Francisco, Mets overcome Barry Bonds' ninth-inning homer; vs. New York (A), David Wright's walkoff single; vs. Philadelphia, Carlos Beltran wins 16-inning marathon; vs. St. Louis, Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran power Mets to walkoff win; vs. Florida, Mets clinch division (this is labeled a Mets Classic)

2007 (3): vs. Colorado, Endy Chavez's drag bunt wins extra-inning affair; vs. Chicago, five-run ninth inning bests Cubs; vs. Giants, Carlos Delgado blasts homer after Armando Benitez balks Jose Reyes around the bases

2008 (2): vs. Florida, Fernando Tatis walkoff double; vs. Florida, Johan Santana twirls three-hit masterpiece on short rest in final Shea win

How do I say this without being unappreciative for being brought approximately two-dozen rousing Mets victories? Like this, I suppose:

I am sick of them. I have seen almost every one of them as much as I need to for now.

Show me something else. Show me other Mets wins. Show me a compelling Mets loss — that carries historical significance or serves as prelude to an ultimately happier ending — if you have to. Show me more Mets games is what I'm really getting at.

We're 41-0 in Mets Classics. We're at least 20-0 in the games that I've ascertained are more or less still among us. The Leiter game seems off the table. I'm not sure if I'm imagining the sixteen-inning one was UltiMETted; I think it was shown in truncated fashion, but I know I haven't seen it lately. The Phone Company Park game, wherein Brian Bannister pulls up lame, may have been retired after, like Brian himself, being run into the ground.

They've almost all been run into the ground. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for a Mets win any time. But do they have to be the same Mets wins? As much as I can while away the hours floating on a cloud of timely hits and clutch outs in my mind, turning on SNY and knowing, by heart, the outcome kind of dulls the thrill. Easley's always gonna homer and Endy's always gonna put down that bunt against the Rockies. Jose is always gonna rattle Armando. Tatis…why is that a classic? I mean, yeah, a win in the twelfth, but the Late Randolph era? Really? And Pedro's 200th win? I love Pedro, I love that we got off to an incredible start in 2006, but we can be done caring about that one now.

This is tricky terrain to complain about. Before SNY, there wasn't much of any old Mets shown. MSG did a little good-faith stuff, like the Todd Pratt game with Murph & Cohen's radio call dubbed in, plus a few vintage highlight films, but MSG was never really in the Mets business. A million years ago, in 1986 for the 25th anniversary season, SportsChannel showed every yearly highlight film (including the ones that celebrated 50-112 campaigns). But nobody was superserving us.

Now nobody is superserving us correctly.

I appreciate that SNY has sort of, kind of tried to do right by us. The first time every one of the aforementioned Classics aired, it came off as anywhere from a moderate thrill to an immense thrill. It's just that there's a real law of diminishing returns at work here. David Wright tags Mariano Rivera in the ninth? On May 19, 2006, it was stupendous. By February 1, 2009, I'm stupefied to the point of having my senses dulled by it.

Half of these games feel exactly the same after a while. We win in our last at-bat or we beat the Yankees, perhaps in our last at-bat. It's the other half or the repertoire that make Mets Classics classic viewing. It's the curios. The Darryl returns to Shea game, which is on Monday night, is an exquisite example. There's a real End of the Empire feel to it, with '80s heroes and '90s nonentities meshing for one final lunge at contention (ultimately aborted, as becomes abundantly clear in the David Cone game). Piazza arriving feels like an accidentally uncovered gem that way. Yes, it has a hook, but we're dropping in on an otherwise inconspicuous game from a band of Mets that never won anything. It's a sneaky classic. It works despite Fran Healy.

Surely there are other games from 1998 or 1991 or any of the seasons that have yet to be deemed containing anything Classic. And surely there are more recent Snighworthy games that didn't air on Snigh. I love the ten-run inning, of course (though I love it a lot more with Gary Cohen than Gary Thorne; same for radio over TV where Marlon Anderson and Cliff Floyd against the Angels are concerned), but how about the Sunday night eleven-run inning from 2006, the one with two grand slams? That would be worth a few viewings. Or instead of the barrage of Pedro beating the Braves in early 2006, what about the Saturday game at Turner Field in midsummer when the Mets pounded the curse to dust once and for all, liberating us from the hell we always felt in Atlanta?

Those were, respectively, ESPN and Fox games. Might SNY have to pay extra to show them? Would it mean there'd be less inherent promotion of the SNY brand? I don't know if those are the problems, but those problems, if those are the problems, aren't my problem. The Mets network should be showing more Mets Classics, not less. They should be combing the archives and doing whatever it takes to fill their schedule with an abundance of Mets broadcasts from through the years, whether it's a great 2006 or 1986 year or a subpar 1996 or 1976 year. If they can't find full games, find footage. It's there. We've seen it on DiamondVision. We've seen it parceled out on Mets Weekly.

We all have a wish list, some of which is probably out of range. We're never going to see all nine innings of the Jimmy Qualls game. We're never going to see every one of Tom Seaver's 19 strikeouts against the Padres as they appeared on Channel 9. We're out of luck if we want games from 1962. But so much more could be shown. So much more can enrapture us and make us hungrier for the next new Mets game and so much more loyal to SNY not because we have to watch it but because we want to watch it.

I don't watch much MSG, but they do one thing brilliantly: MSG Vault. Al Trautwig hosts, usually with a guest, and shows parts of vintage games or promotional films from the Garden archives. Don't have a full 1968 Knicks game? They give us part of it and Trautwig explains it. Why can't the Mets do that? It's a great idea that demands to be ripped off at once. Show some 1965 highlights, bring in Jack Fisher, bookend it with something from some other season, pay Gary or Howie or Ron a few bucks…bam, you've got a show that makes Mets fans happy. Filleting Mariano Rivera isn't the only thing that gives us reason to smile.

SNY has, in many ways, been a boon to Mets fans. Their Web site has plenty of relevant video and mini-shows. They shine a deserving light on MetsBlog, which is more than any “mainstream” outlet would have done with any blog three years ago. I may be biased because I've written for and appeared on Mets Weekly, but I find that an entertaining show. I like Kids Clubhouse even more most of the time, and I'm a kid only at heart. The game telecasts themselves are top-notch. You can't go wrong with Gary, Keith, Ron and Kevin.

But what a waste this network is when it comes to deepening the well of Mets history. Showing the same 41 or 25 or however many games over and over is a start, not a finish.

Keep 'em coming, for crissake. And next Super Bowl Sunday, don't show another Beer Money marathon. A Mets fan always welcomes counterprogramming.

***

A Faith and Fear salute to the hardy souls who paid one more round of respects to the home of the Super Bowl III champions yesterday. Hundreds of Shea lovers did as promised and toured the demolition site/burial ground Saturday, no matter how cold, no matter how potentially dispiriting. It sounds and looks like it was a great time.

To read more about it, check out the report from our friend Kingman at Loge 13, along with perspectives from pal Zoe at Pick Me Up Some Mets and DyHrdMET at the appropriately named Remembering Shea. Newspaper coverage can be gleaned from Newsday, the the News and the Times (twice), with video via Channel 2 and NY1.

Way to go, Baseball-Feverites.

This Saturday at noon, what is left of Shea Stadium will be celebrated by the denizens of Baseball-Fever and all who wish to join them. They're meeting at noon on the Northern Boulevard side of the street, at the plaza where the traffic circle sat, if you're interested. The occasion will be marked by walking around, taking pictures and remembering that there used to be a ballpark there. So bring your camera and a few Kleenex.

I've been morbidly attracted to the photos the Feverites, Stadium Page and others have been posting with diligence since the evening of September 28. Shea was the focal point of my life 'til now, so I suppose its demolition is a once-in-a-lifetime event. It's hard not to look, probably harder than it has been to look. The only time I really felt as if something inside me was being demolished was when I saw the Gate E entrance teetering on the brink of extinction. Let's meet at Gate E, I liked to say. Now Gate E was being permanently shuttered into oblivion.

The Gate E slice of Shea is gone now and I really don't want to gaze up close at what little remains, even if this weekend is probably just about it for Ol' Blue. I was out there in mid-October when the shell of Shea was still intact but many of its guts had already been pretty well hollowed. I don't need to see any more. I appreciate what the organizers are doing — it's very sweet — but, man, I don't want my last glimpse of Shea to be its stump. I wasn't that thrilled that I got a peek of it in post-September 28 form. That's not how I want to remember it.

That, of course, is not how I'll remember it.

“You guys gather food for the big feast tonight. And maybe a little wine for the older kids.”

“Delicious wine?”

“Exactly.”

—Bart, allaying Nelson's fears, “Das Bus”

While we await the official release announcing the signing of Oliver Perez or Manny Ramirez or Adam Dunn or anybody who isn't Freddy Garcia or Alex Cora or Cory Sullivan or Rob Mackowiak, there is this Met missive from Monday to mull:

The New York Mets and ARAMARK — a world-class leader in professional services and the Mets' food and beverage provider — today announced a partnership with Zachys Wine & Liquor Inc. to design a world-class wine program for Citi Field, the Mets' new home opening April 13.

A world-class wine program for our World-Class ballpark. Well then. Don't bogart that bottle. Pass it on over.

Listen, I don't want to be one of those rabid callers to talk radio who complains that Congress shouldn't be wasting its time declaring National Cotton Swab Week when the economy is in the crapper, for I'll bet even Congress can stimulate two things at once. Thus, there is little logic to complaining that the Mets, with their unfinished roster and their half-assed patch, shouldn't be worrying about “bringing Citi Field guests an extraordinary range of wines”.

But I will complain anyway.

Stop putting out releases like this, Mets. Stop being so proud of stuff like this. There is no underestimating the interest any given Mets fan has in this news. There is none. Perhaps there could be less. There was a movie twenty or so years ago called Less Than Zero. It was about the amount of concern Mets fans would have two decades hence regarding the stadium wine list.

Five years ago, you hopefully recall, there was a much better movie called Sideways, about a troubled wine connoisseur. It could also describe the Mets of late. They make lateral moves in the standings. They make lateral moves on the roster. They make a lateral move across the parking lot if viewed from Roosevelt Avenue or Northern Boulevard. But they really enhanced the wine menu, so that's something over which we can all burst with oenophiliac pride.

Of course there is that downwardly mobile patch on the sleeve, belying the “world-class hospitality environment at Citi Field” and undermining, it seems, every step the Mets have taken for the last month. This thing has departed the realm of bemused bloggers and uni obsessives and entered the everyday sports realm. A friend from another time zone sent me an article to let me know the whole country is laughing at the Inaugural Season patch. I turned on WFAN one night for the first time in a while, and Steve Somers — who only knows what he reads in the paper — is laughing at the patch. Stephen Colbert (and not Jon Stewart, who actually cares about the Mets) laughed at the patch. Sports Illustrated laughed at the patch, quoting Colbert on its genericism: “Notice the way the patch mirrors its fans, by not wanting to actually say it's for the Mets.” For that matter, the Sunday before last, I opened the Daily News, found Bill Gallo's regular laughable cartoon (of the unintentionally laughable variety) and, below it, his weekly column. Bill Gallo, whose cartoons are mostly clouds and comic balloons, actually got off a brilliant line at the Mets' expense:

For the rest of next season, Met players will sport the blandest, most unimaginative baseball logo of all time. Actually, in fairness to the people who put this simple patch of blue and orange together, it shouldn't even be considered a logo. Instead, it's more like a nametag one wears at a company meeting.

And they say, HI, MY NAME IS OH NEVER MIND.

Bill Gallo is laughing at you, Mets. Everybody is laughing at you. Not with you. At you.

The word the Mets have put out to explain why this awful patch is acceptable — that it is “compatible and consistent with Citigroup's overall branding and graphic design elements”; that given their deal with Citigroup, “we're going to give substantial deference to their design and graphic treatment”; and that the Mets are “flattered” that Citigroup bothered to sign off on blue and orange at all — is only more hilarious, unless you're a Mets fan. Then it resides somewhere between embarrassing and galling, especially the promise Tyler Kepner wrung from Dave Howard that “the team would not change the sleeve patch,” despite having a sharper, Rotunda-driven iteration in its quiver.

Maybe Omar Minaya can't take his marching orders from a Peavy-starved supporter, but why not accede to popular demand on this one? I understand why the Mets are hanging in there with Citigroup. I understand there are contracts and long-term considerations and world-class payments (taxpayer-funded or otherwise) at work. But how flattered and deferential must the Mets be in all this? How much rolling over must the Mets do at the expense of their own brand? When Citigroup isn't at the center of bailout-related news, it's being reminded by the President of the United States that it wasn't given $45 billion so it could direct a cool 50-mil toward a sweet private jet…which is what Citigroup planned to buy before Barack Obama gave them an emphatic tap on the public relations shoulder and suggested they reconsider their priorities.

So every time, say, Cory Sullivan steps out of the box to let a plane pass overhead, it won't be because a Citigroup executive is winging his way in world-class style to a world-class meeting amid what the Post referred to, in its inimitable nonjudgmental prose, as a “plush interior with leather seats, sofas and a customizable entertainment center”. Chalk one up for the middle-class baseball fan viewing his or her team's home games in the shadow of “Citi Field's premium dining areas, including suites, lounges, restaurants, and other locations in the more than 60,000 square feet of available event space” where all that world-class wine will be offered.

If Citigroup can be strongly invited to drop its plane purchase plans, why can't the Mets be, for once, deferential toward their fans who almost completely universally hate that dimwitted patch?

Premium dining area people, knock yourselves out via whatever Zachys is pouring. If I'm ever invited into the Caesars Club — bread and circuses and, if there's time, baseball for all! — I'm sure I'll be Harry Hypocrite and drink up (particularly if Freddy, Alex, Cory and Rob are our last, best acquisitions of this offseason). As a semi-regular patron of the old Daruma of Great Neck stand and intermittently successful pretzel shopper, I won't pretend I'm not a little enthused by the installation of El Verano Taquería and Box Frites, whatever those food “concepts” are exactly. They sound tasty, and I think any ol' schmo can queue up for 'em. Truly, I am an ol' schmo.

Y'know what, though? Surprise me with this stuff. I'll probably get a ticket eventually and I hope to have a few spare bucks on me and I'd love to try the food. I'm not shy about trying food, believe me. I'm not much on wine, but some people are. L'Chaim.

But if you can't acquire a top-flight starting pitcher and you won't sign a legitimate starting corner outfielder and you can't bring yourself to admit that your miserable patch will evoke, with every single glimpse, the cringeful reminder that we are in bed with the financial wizards who tried to buy a nifty private plane with beaucoup taxpayer bucks…then please, for the love of our collective self-esteem, keep the freaking world-class wine news bottled up.

As fans, we know very little about what's going on in the general manager's office. Beat reporters, pundits and rumormongers get what they can, but what they get isn't a tick-tock of phone records and meetings. It's a mix of honest-to-goodness facts, negotiating ploys, trial balloons, competing agendas, axes being ground, recycled tales, rumors and fantasies. Which isn't to disparage sportswriters — that's what you get when you're talking to lots of people who shouldn't be talking to you about fluid situations in which different people want different things to happen. And even the stuff you can trust is just a small part of what's actually going on. We never even find out about the vast majority of the exploratory calls, semi-serious proposals that may become serious-serious, back-up plans, or anything else.

Which is a roundabout way of saying it's silly to assume that the Mets, having patched up their bullpen, are done and will try to get by with the likes of Alex Cora and Freddy Garcia while large holes still remain at second base, in the outfield corners and in the rotation. First of all, it's a long way to April — remember at this time last year, Johan Santana was a Twin. (And the Mets were a bunch of September choke artists. Anyway.) Second of all, we have no idea what Omar Minaya and Co. are up to out at CitiField, besides making bag-on-head-quality sleeve patches. We don't know if the disconnect between Jeff Wilpon and Omar over Manny Ramirez (as reported by old Faith and Fear pal Danielle Sessa) is exactly what it seems to be, the stuff of misunderstanding, or part of a larger plan. We don't know how many teams Scott Boras really has calling about the services of Oliver Perez. We don't know how many years the Mets might give O.P. We don't know what's going on between the Mets and Ben Sheets. And there are other things going on about which we don't know enough to even lament not knowing more.

(By the way, though, I do know that giving Derek Lowe $15 million a year until he's 40 would have been nuts.)

Whatever's going on, I sure hope Omar is out there kicking tires.

The guy I can't get out of my head is Jake Peavy, the soon-to-be 28-year-old who's about the only thing the San Diego Padres have going for them. Sure, he plays in West Kamchatka, but even we've heard of him. Evil fastball and slider, pretty fair change-up and curve. Some injuries in his past, but nothing that's a Sheets-level flashing red light. Peavy's under contract through 2012 with a deal that escalates from $11 million this year to $17 million three years hence, with a $22 million option ($4 buyout) for 2013. By my thinking, he's worth that money.

The Padres need to cut payroll because of their owner's bitter, wallet-ravaging divorce. They need to rebuild, and Peavy's their best chance to do so in a hurry. They tried to trade their ace to the Braves, which didn't work. They may trade him to the Cubs, who have been stockpiling pieces but are in the midst of an ownership transition and don't have their house in order quite yet.

Before it imploded, the Braves' deal was going to send shortstop Yunel Escobar and outfielder Gorkys Hernandez west, along with either Charlie Morton or Jo-Jo Reyes (both pitchers) and either Blaine Boyer or one of two minor-league lefties. That's a pretty good prospect haul — just as the Cubs' offer would supposedly include pitcher Garrett Olson, stud prospect third-baseman Josh Vitters, and various pitchers from a pool including Kevin Hart and Sean Marshall.

It seems to me that the Mets could provide something comparable. How about Wilmer Flores, Nick Evans, Bobby Parnell and Brad Holt? That would be a blue-chip shortstop/third baseman, a guy who could play first or left in the bigs now, and two young pitchers with upside. Or how about Fernando Martinez, Reese Havens, Parnell and Dillon Gee? Or how about some combination of the two — pick F-Mart or Flores and we'll discuss the other pieces. You can argue whether or not those packages are comparable to what the Braves almost gave up and the Cubs might give up, but they're real value.

Why not try? Wouldn't Johan/Peavy/Maine/Pelfrey/Whoever make you feel pretty good about 2009?

I don't mean to disparage Oliver, or Randy Wolf, or Ben Sheets, or even Andy Pettitte — who'd be fine with me on a short-term deal, pinstripes and all. Except to say that the problem with Oliver or any of those guys is you're looking at more sixth-inning appearances by the bullpen, which was a big factor in the last two Met teams bleeding out catastrophically in September. (Which I guess is disparaging them after all, so never mind.)

As for the excuses, I'm not buying them.

Peavy won't come to New York. Pshaw — I get that he's a huntin'-and-fishin' guy, but for the money he'll make by the time he's done, Jake Peavy could bag deer from a low-flying Gulfstream. Besides, like it mattered that CC Sabathia was a big West Coast guy when Steinbrenner and Steinbrenner appeared in front of his house in the cab of a dumptruck full of money. (And didn't Mark Teixeira yearn to return to Maryland?) In New York Peavy would keep earning gobs of money with a change to earn googolglobs of money when he's still relatively young, and he'd have a shot at October. These two factors are the ones that motivate (in various proportions) most any athlete you've ever cheered or booed, and Greg's said everything else I needed to know on this score.

We'd be stripping the farm system bare. C'mon. I'm a sucker for prospects, but they're relentlessly overhyped here, and we're talking about Jake Peavy, a Cy Young winner in his prime — not, say, a converted infielder with a bad elbow who doesn't know how to pitch. Peavy is great today, and young enough to be great for a fair number of tomorrows. That's worth a good chunk of Met maybes and hopefullys.

There's no payroll flexibility. You make exceptions for the right players. Jake Peavy seems like one of them to me. (So would Manny Ramirez, for the right number of years. But that's another post.) Peavy would need to be compensated for his 10-5 rights resetting, but another no-trade and making that option guaranteed would probably do it.

It's not a big enough package. The Mets got Santana (going into his walk year, granted) for a fleet outfielder with potential and a trio of arms that were at best promising. What I've proposed is a better deal than that in terms of promise and big-league-ready personnel.

And remember a year ago. Who among us thought Santana wasn't going to the Yankees or the Red Sox? Why not Jake Peavy? Why not at least try? Sometimes you kick the tires and the dealer decides to come down a bit and throw in whitewalls. Sometimes you keep calling folks and they call you back. Sometimes good things happen.