The state of the Mets, as far as we can tell from watching them on the field, is strong. How strong? Delgado strong. They're a first place team, a first place team repelling encroachments from their nearest challengers every week for two weeks running. That we can say with clarity clear up to 7:10 tonight when they get to prove it all over again. (We can also say with trade-deadline, white-flag-waving clarity that the Mets have only two challengers remaining in the N.L. East this season…aaaahhhh.)

But boy am I worried about the state of John Maine, diagnosed as he is with the deceptively innocent-sounding mild strain of the right rotator cuff. Jerry Manuel said it could be something serious, it could be nothing much. He could pitch Sunday.

He's not gonna pitch Sunday. There's no reason to pitch him Sunday even if he can. Off days being temporarily plentiful, he's not gonna need to see a regulation mound until a week from Saturday, August 9. That is contingent on Pedro Martinez going out and pitching on Friday and then five days later. Pedro returned to the team after traveling to the Dominican for very sad business. I heard him say he just wants to help the ballclub. He can help the ballclub by pitching Friday and then five days later.

Pedro is why I worry about John. How many times have we heard since June of 2006 that whatever is ailing Pedro is something that needs a little rest, maybe not very much rest, that he could be out on that mound when his next turn comes up? And how many times has he actually been out there to stay? Pedro knows from rotator cuffs and we know from Pedro's extended recovery times. Pedro says it will help that Maine is younger. I don't doubt that. Less mileage on the rotator cuff would imply less wear. But I do doubt that this is pie-easy recovery for John Maine. Even if he is pitching soon, do you really want him to be? It's a rotator cuff, for crissake. We wouldn't know what those are if not for pitchers straining them or tearing them.

Any time a Met is injured, I fully expect him to descend into a deep vacuum from which he will never be heard again. As recounted the other night, there has developed a ghost taxi squad of Mets who need a couple of days, maybe just a precautionary stint on the DL and they'll be back as good as new. Then they disappear into the ether, materializing for no more than innings at a time, maybe with the big club, maybe on a rehab field in some distant precinct. Then they disappear again. I feel for those who have spiraled into that black hole. I'll feel worst of all if John Maine joins them for the balance of 2008 and has to climb out of it to get to 2009. And it's not purely out of a sense of altruism for John Maine's well-being, decent fellow that he seems to be notwithstanding.

This team's starting pitching has become its calling card: Pelfrey, Santana and Perez — in that order — have made the Mets formidable. They've had among them no more than two discouraging outings in the last month, nothing you could label truly dreadful or alarming. You'd expect that from Johan. You've come to from Mike and Ollie. Their excellence has become so close to routine that you have to step back from it to realize how amazing it really is.

Pedro is still Pedro, which cuts both ways. If we receive a slightly enhanced version of what we saw out of him during the last month of last season (I'm not able to use the phrase “September 2007” with any kind of positive connotation), that would contribute greatly toward solidifying this rotation. That would mean four effective starters. We have no idea what Pedro Martinez represents for the final two months of 2008 because we haven't experienced any sustained, healthy contribution from him yet this year. That's the way Pedro being Pedro cuts uncomfortably. But he is Pedro Martinez and all that implies based on what you know about the man. That's the way Pedro being Pedro cuts reassuringly. I'm willing to lean just a little in that direction until completely disabused of the notion.

But you need a fifth starter, as the span between August 5 and August 27 presents 23 consecutive games with zero off days. John Maine has pitched like a fifth starter quite often these past couple of months. We now understand why, perhaps. The rotator cuff. You wouldn't ask anybody who makes his living with his arm to keep pitching with a strain, no matter how mild. You hope it unstrains on its own. You are dubious that it will. You try not to strain your fingers even as you cross them.

Retread Brian Lawrence pitches for the Richmond Braves, so that's positive. Prospect Jonathon Niese has jumped to Triple-A, so that's intriguing. Olympian Brandon Knight is on a fast plane to China, so that's way it goes. John Maine's status is as much up in the air as Team USA's Beijing-bound flight. That's what's discouraging, alarming and could be dreadful. You're in first place. The state of your Mets is strong. But you need John Maine to keep it that way.

We were supposed to go see the Cyclones.

That was the plan for me and Emily: With Joshua away at his grandparents until tomorrow night, we'd hop the Staten Island Ferry to see the Cyclones take on the Staten Island Yankees. We'd drink beer, eat hot dogs and ice cream, watch the legions of Brooklyn stomp their hated rivals, and then marvel at the beauty of New York Harbor before hopping in a celebratory cab home. Along the way, of course, we'd check in via handheld radio on the Mets, who were sure to be showing the upstart Marlins that their run at first place was not just cute but even a little admirable, but reaching its end for all that.

None of it worked out that way.

At first it seemed even better: Our old pal Lyle was in town and cheerfully accepted our invitation to accompany us to S.I. Lyle's seen Met fandom from another angle: He's spent the last couple of years out west, seeing (among other things) the Mets stagger through Oakland and Seattle on that awful 2005 road trip, clinch against the suddenly hapless Dodgers in '06, and bring Jerry Manuel his first win as Met skipper. It was cool on the deck of the ferry, the beer was cheap in that inexplicable Staten Island Ferry way, and a big crowd had gathered to see the Cyclones and Yankees face off. What more could you want?

Well, you could want the game to not be sold out.

Needless to say, this hadn't been part of the plan. The larval Yankees have a nice park, with a killer view of three cityscapes — Jersey City to the left, Manhattan at dead center, and ever-growing Downtown Brooklyn to the right. But it's not Keyspan — in our experience sellouts are rare and the fans are interested in a rather distracted way. But not tonight. Nonplussed but not particularly worried, Lyle and I started walking up and down the block with our best Clueless Baseball Fan faces on, waiting for the inevitable call of “Tickets — who needs tickets?”

Except nobody said any such thing.

There were all manner of sketchy-looking guys outside the ballpark who certainly looked like they'd be selling tickets, but weren't. (What exactly they were doing is another question, since none of them seemed particularly employable.) We certainly tried, but the listless hangers-around looked vaguely affronted when Lyle tactfully asked, “You seen anybody selling tickets?” Perhaps Staten Island hasn't gotten the idea that hot commodities can be sold for more than face value — if you've been around the ferry terminal, you can probably attest that Staten Island isn't really up on the generally accepted basics of commerce. There is little to do around there but take in a ballgame — provided you have tickets — or get back on the ferry. Given the beautiful view and easy access to the rest of New York City, this makes about as much sense as a ballgame without scalpers. I don't get Staten Island.

So get back on the ferry is what we did. (Insult to injury: I'd somehow misplaced the radio.) This time around the beers didn't taste quite so sweet, and we took somewhat less joy in identifying Brooklyn landmarks. We were trying to figure out where to eat. This took some doing — the Financial District is about evenly split between Dickensian beer bars where you'd be scared to eat and fancy restaurants without TVs. But after a few false starts, Emily remembered that the last time we'd been to Mark Joseph Steakhouse (it's a cut off the Peter Luger's bone, except the waiters are nice), the Mets game had been on in the bar. So she got on the cellphone. Could you eat in the bar? Sure! Could you watch the Met game? The bartender's a big fan. Good enough for us.

And so it was that we piled into Mark Joseph, where the bartender was indeed a big Met fan (and a very nice guy to boot), the steak was prepared sizzling in butter (and what food is not improved by dunking it in butter?), the burgers were thick and juicy, and the Mets were leading 2-0.

Or at least they were when we got there. We watched John Maine successfully repel the ministrations of Manuel and trainers once, then succumb a pitch later. We watched Carlos Muniz outrun a shoe. We watched David Wright steal a run with remarkably heads-up baserunning. We watched Scott Schoeneweis get blooped and dinked and parachuted into unhappy submission, staring out at the field with the what-can-happen-next expression of a man whose car has just been staved in by a chunk of blue ice crapped out by an invisible 747. We watched balls elude Brian Schneider and Ramon Castro. We watched Robert Andino bedevil us again. (And in doing so, we remembered that Matt Wise was once a part of this team.)

In short, it was what feels to me like a typical Soilmaster Stadium game: a mess in which the Mets couldn't stop stumbling over their own feet, bled off enough of their reserves of Moxie and Grit and Fight to stay in it, and then were undone by a sloppy Marlin attack that was effective as it was aesthetically displeasing. My God I hate this place. Oh how I pray for this team to head off to San Antonio so I never have to see it again.

Trudging across the cobblestones to get a cab, Emily and Lyle and I agreed that everything had been wonderful — good friends, good Met conversation, good food, good drink. Everything except the final score. But that's the way it goes sometimes — on some evenings, all the audibles in the world can't account for an Andino.

(Oh. At least the Cyclones won.)

Inspired by Stephen King's Christine, Faith and Fear reader Joe Lauzardo offers us an alternate take on what everybody assumes will be the last days of Shea Stadium. He sends it, he says, out of “a spirit of loyalty” to our lame duck of a ballpark — and maybe a little for “revenge” toward those who would destroy it.

It is night. Shea Stadium is watching its apparent replacement in the close distance and its own subsequent demise in the very near future. The empty ballpark resonates with the faintest sound of cheering, perhaps screaming. Are they cheering for the Mets? The Jets? The Beatles? Clearly it is the sound of a day that has passed.

Shea on this night, however, doesn't merely sit and watch for long. A howling wind is the next sound to be heard. It blows in from left field, off Flushing Bay, and it thrusts corrugated steel plates — one blue, one orange — into the middle of the diamond.

A blue plate? An orange plate? Of all the materiel gathered at the construction site on the other side of the blue outfield fence, there is nothing matching that description. From where did these pieces appear?

This is no chance wind, no accidental accumulation of steel. No, it is as if the park is trying to rejuvenate itself supernaturally.

The ground begins to rumble uncontrollably. The stadium lifts itself from its foundation, then crawls from side to side knocking down fixtures and lights.

Approaching the structure planned as its replacement, Shea's open end surrounds the new ballpark and, with a quick shudder and the sound of crashing metal and rumbling concrete, Shea Stadium devours Citi Field like a late-night snack.

As daylight breaks, the sun sheds light on an apparent reversal of time.

There is only one stadium!

Shea Stadium!

It is adorned with hundreds of those blue and orange steel plates, looking as it did in April of '64. Off its shoulder, the departed subway extension, gone to make way for Citi Field, is somehow back up. It, too, emits its pristine 1964 vibe.

Everybody gasps at what the sun has revealed: an apocalyptic confrontation that has rocked the Flushing night. Two ballparks, one winner. They see it from the 7. They see it from the Grand Central. They see it from LaGuardia.

It is November. Demolition of Shea is to begin this morning. But there is Shea, standing as if new. And there is Citi, nowhere to be seen. Otherwise all is 2008 — nothing else is disturbed.

Everybody starts thinking the same thought: those idiots tore down the wrong stadium — typical Mets!

Into the confusion rushes a man we shall call Mr. Citi. Mr. Citi has overseen construction of the new temple, the temple that has now vanished from the face of the earth, let alone Flushing. He wasn't going to take this lying down.

His eyes set red with anger, Mr. Citi grabs a wrecking bar from a nearby chop shop and marches across 126th Street. If Shea is going to wreak havoc on his masterpiece, Mr. Citi is going to wreak havoc on Shea.

Or so he thinks.

As it is November, Shea is gated shut. So Mr. Citi goes after the gates. He bangs his way inside Gate C to the maze of escalators and ramps. The scent overwhelms him. It is paint. Fresh paint. Fresh paint from, yup, 1964.

Everything inside is new, too. New as it was, that is. Shea Stadium has returned to its youth. His fuming gives way to stunned silence. Everywhere he looks, Shea classic has replaced new Shea. It's got its whole future ahead of it.

Mr. Citi sprints up the first ramp he finds and tears out onto the field itself. It is indeed Shea Stadium from its World's Fair heyday. It is the most modern ballpark in America. The scoreboard is enormous. The public address system broadcasts a jazzy “Mexican Hat Dance”. The seats are a veritable kaleidoscope of color, starting with the yellow wooden chairs that are closest to the grass. The outfield walls are a calming sea green. And beyond those walls? Parking Lot B, of course. Nothing else. Citi Field isn't there. Who would build a new stadium in a parking lot of what is, as far as the eye can tell, a new stadium? A beautiful new 1964 stadium, at that?

Nobody, that's who.

Mr. Citi is left alone to contemplate the irony. But he doesn't have long to think, because he hears a crashing sound emanating from the home team bullpen.

It's a golf cart.

It wears a Mets cap.

It is driverless.

Yet it is speeding his way.

No ushers, no security, no union carpenters or contractors can save him now. It is Mr. Citi versus Shea's bullpen buggy.

The buggy is about to have its way with him.

He is cornered by the first base dugout.

He falls into the cart.

The cap snaps down on him.

The buggy takes a U-turn…

…across the infield…

…and then the outfield…

…and through the centerfield fence and out the parking lot.

The bullpen buggy is headed for the docks of the World's Fair Marina.

The faintest of splashing sounds can be heard over the happy organ.

Next April, the buggy is back in the bullpen, the fans are back in the seats and beautiful Shea Stadium, the Big Shea of memory, is open for business.

With plenty of parking.

Next Monday, we shift from the supernatural to something marginally more reality-based and dissect the official Greatest Moments at Shea ballot.

Reason 53,691 why I berate myself for listening to sports talk radio: the wet blanket hosts (you know who they are) who slap down every excited Mets caller with “don't go crazy now,” which is shorthand for you know your first-place team on the 15-4 roll isn't very good because I say it isn't very good.

To which I borrow from the advice of late Cardinal announcer Jack Buck: go crazy folks, go crazy.

If you're not enjoying your first-place Mets on their 15-4 roll, you are a little deranged. You're entitled to fret that it won't last and that they need more for the long haul and that, well, they're the Mets. I understand the impulse and I'm down with it, but honestly, to heck with that, amigos. ¡Van locas, personas! ¡Van locas!

I was going a little crazy myself at Shea this afternoon. Perhaps it was from the sleep-deprivation method of rooting that has become so familiar to me. Saturday night became Sunday morning and encompassed a long and winding road home, followed by the need to blurt out the great and terrible details, then a dozen winks, a quick shower, a peck on the cheek for the wife, a pat on the head for the cats (or did I peck the cats and pat the wife?) and back on the LIRR for more Mets. Thus, my baseball senses have been heightened and my reactions have been enhanced.

But why shouldn't they have been? Johan was pitching and for the first time in his Mets career, that meant something beyond accomplished starter keeps team in game. Johan Santana has been mostly a pleasing concept for four months. We loved the idea of getting him, we loved getting him, we looked forward to him. Then, for more than half a season, the Santana we got was akin to Tug McGraw's Peggy Lee fastball: Is that all there is? I couldn't tell whether the Mets' every-fifth-day inertia and our sour energies were letting him down or whether his ability to give up a given hit at the most suboptimal juncture was maybe, just maybe, letting us down. Either way, it was all good but not great. Where was this Johan Santana ace for the ages we kept hearing about?

Oh there he was: on the mound in the ninth, completing the first authentic complete game the Mets have banked since late '06. There he was again, belting two hits to right, even if one's fairness surprised him into a standstill. There he was before, taking a no-hitter into the fifth, efficient as IBM in its heyday.

The chants in the ninth that challenged my throat after a weekend of vocal pro-Mets, anti-Cardinal engagement were simple yet exhilarating: JO-HAN! JO-HAN! You could do it for any pitcher with two syllables, but for JO-HAN! it felt like deliverance. It's not so much the CG alone as it was the timing, a day after the night that wouldn't end, a day after the night when every reliever pitched and all could use a blow. Santana gave the Mets that. It would have been only a slightly big deal twenty years ago to throw nine. It was a huge transaction today.

Elsewhere in the Metstone galaxy of stars, Carlos Beltran began to twinkle again. I've held an article of faith about this club since 2006: if Beltran's hot, we're all on fire. Beltran was the one main Met not really joining in the parade of hits and homers since the Manuel era gained traction. But now he's hitting. And he's really, really fielding. The catch he made on Ryan Ludwick in the seventh — the one Steve Finley didn't make on Pratt in '99, the one Rick Ankiel didn't make on Tatis in the ninth Saturday night — I'm pretty certain was the best I've ever witnessed at Shea. DiamondVision chimed in with about a thousand angles immediately thereafter. They revealed Carlos made his catch with a bird floating by. A bird! And not a red one either.

Everybody hit, everybody fielded, everybody won. So when the standings were posted on the scoreboard after the final out (I don't know that I'd stuck around previously this season to watch postgame highlights), and I saw the GB column…

New York —

Philadelphia 1.5

Florida 1.5

…I went crazy folks, I went crazy. Not as crazy as the Yankees fan who (according to the sign his buddy waved) “lost a bet to a Mets fan” and paraded around in a summery gown, nor as crazy as the Missouri turnip farmer who wielded a PENDLETON 1987 placard all about before the five-run sixth exploded in his face (“WHERE'S YOUR PENDLETON NOW?” I shouted in sync with my borderline obnoxious behavior all weekend; “DIE ALREADY MOLINA!” was in heavy rotation, too), but good crazy. Just clapping and yelling and generally exuding over-the-top joy that first you wish your team would take up summertime residence in first place and then, hey, they've done it, with one of the best pitchers in the game shutting down a tough opponent, with three more batters busting fences, with every reason to laugh in the faces of those who would tell us our giddiness is unwarranted, that our enthusiasm is premature, that our craziness is crazy. (Plus I scooped up an abandoned giveaway lunchbox; whatever kid left it behind hasn't been a Mets fan as long as me and he surely hasn't been eating lunch as long as me.)

You're not going crazy over how well these Mets are playing? You're the lunatic, buddy.

The Nikon folks can exhale. They won't have to update their 75-candidate ballot for the Greatest Moments at Shea. We were what felt like one timely hit, pitch, bounce or something from having a 76th genuine contender on our hands.

July 26, 2008 – Mets and Cardinals compete in endless game that is still going on.

Alas, it wasn't quite to be. Those of us who attended Saturday night's/Sunday morning's almost endless almost victory will remember at least bits and pieces of it vividly for years to come. It goes down as a Mets Classic that will never be rebroadcast as such only because of the regrettable outcome. The final score — and much of what informed it — necessarily keeps us from categorizing this as a great moment for promotional purposes (though that Nikon ballot has as many holes in it as Dave Kingman's swing, but that's another complaint for another time), yet between you, me and the unsanctioned dancer on the first base dugout, that was a great game the Mets lost to the Cardinals in 14 innings.

A great and terrible game. More great than terrible, I'd testify under oath, despite their 10 edging our 8.

Perhaps my vision on this one is skewed since I took such a proprietary interest in this affair from long before first pitch. I was through Gate C — all the other Gates were not yet open — two hours before first pitch. I was in my fourth seat and sixth level of the night when the last pitch was thrown. I saw a pair of crazy comebacks that lifted me so darn Row Q high, that I never for a second thought a third and definitive comeback was out of the question. I saw a pitcher I'd never heard of until like a week ago throw the kind of first inning generally reserved for Hall of Famers when their teams need them most: a horrible one. But Brandon Knight, unlike he who shall not be named, pulled himself together after throwing a number of pitches (39) higher than the number on his uniform (28).

Knight settled down and the Mets got riled up. These are the new and improved 2008 Mets who ain't afraid of no ghosts. Yadier Molina? He couldn't even throw out Robinson Cancel. Joel Piñeiro? Last September's bad news. The Piñeiro who threw to Molina this July night was no Brandon Knight. Knight battled from the second through fifth. Piñeiro surrendered a four-run lead as quickly as he could. Brandon Knight actually outlasted Joel Piñeiro. Most of the Mets lineup out-and-out mugged Joel Piñeiro.

Knight hangs in and pitches through five. If we can get a little decent relief, we're golden. But we get very little decent relief at first. Carlos Muñiz becomes Duaner Sanchez, and not the good one. Joe Smith misplaces his magic. Knight's gone. Piñeiro's gone. The Mets' lead is gone.

But the game is just regetting good. Carlos Delgado hits his second home run of the night, his hundredth home run this week, I believe. It's 8-7. When it's 8-7, you begin to think it can be 8-8. It's just a matter of time….

It's just a matter of time before Fernando Tatis makes it 8-8 in the ninth! At that moment all your train schedule issues go out the window. And as the ninth becomes the tenth and the tenth becomes the eleventh you don't get hung up on schedules. The Mets aren't watching the clock, why should you?

Of course the Mets aren't helping the time pass productively. Baserunners are wasted in the tenth, the eleventh, the twelfth. Normally you'd be steaming except you're too happy with what the Mets bullpen is doing. It's not allowing anything over a prolonged period. Smith recovered from his sinful sixth with a saintly seventh. Sanchez recorded outs for the first time in six days. Schoeneweis bent but didn't break. All-Star closer Billy Wagner held the tenth and eleventh together without flaw. And Aaron Heilman, whose first batter was Yadier Molina of all things, was a gem in the twelfth and thirteenth.

It was just a matter of time before we would score. I swore it was. But the thirteenth ended with Aaron Heilman batting for himself with nobody on. The Mets were out of players, out of opportunities, out of relievers, too. All that coming back was so five innings ago. Shockingly, a game that, through thirteen, encompassed 16 runs and 33 hits required more offense to settle it.

Sadly, it came from St. Louis, especially Albert Pujols. You can't play fourteen innings of baseball and not have Albert Pujols heard from in the most resonant manner possible. He crushed the last reliever the Mets had, Heilman, and ain't that a shame? Aaron Heilman threw three pitches on Thursday and got credit for a win that was mostly the doing of Ollie Perez (the same Ollie Perez who was warming up for the fifteenth, FYI). Saturday into Sunday he gave it his heart, his soul and 57 pitches. Aaron Heilman got to be a starter again, sort of, and just as it started to feel like a good fit, that damn Pujols made it feel terrible.

The bottom of the fourteenth ended without incident and just soon enough for those of who abide by the entreaties to use mass transit to use it effectively. My companion for the evening has since relayed to me that New Jersey Transit, early on a Sunday, carries “a lot of drunks on the last train out of town”. I can report the Long Island Rail Road does precisely the same on the 1:50 to Babylon, and most of them, in their toasty, chatty state, are prone to address each other as “bro”.

But they were, at least in my car, curious drunks, curious about this game that was apparently becoming legendary in the watering holes of Manhattan. Dressed as I was, I was asked repeatedly what happened tonight…we heard the Mets had come back, that the Mets had forced extra innings, that they had not won…but what happened?

Well, lots. Like I said it was a long day, what with all those innings and levels and runs. I met up with Sharon in Penn Station for the 4:49 and we delightedly found Charlie on our platform and the three of us made a cameo in the Diamond Club lobby ('cause they wouldn't let us in the Diamond Club bar, even though a guy in the Diamond Club store actually recognized me…and have I ever used “Diamond Club” this much in one paragraph?). Failing to cocktail with the Shea power elite, we settled for a corner of the field level where we could stand undisturbed during BP and curse out the Braves for not beating the Phillies and the Phillies for beating the Braves and ourselves for rooting for the Braves at all. Seventeen escalators later, it was off to the Upper Deck with the likes of us, Charlie to his barony in Section 22, Sharon and I to the people's air of Section 3, Row Q, where you get the idea that Mile High Stadium is alive and well well east of Denver, but where you can still see the U-Haul sign, so there.

And while we sat in Row Q, encouraging Brandon Knight to hang with 'em and thrilling to Delgado and Reyes jumping ugly on Piñeiro, we got our very own Greatest Moment at Shea, the kind that won't be on any corporate ballot. It was Dancing With The Fans, that worthless thing they do where two people — Choice A and Choice B — put on ugly hoodies and one of them eventually does the worm on one of the dugouts and somewhere Verizon presumably collects a rumpload of money for taking your texts. Pretty mundane between-innings entertainment, except for Saturday night.

Choice B had a partner. Choice B was dancing on the first base dugout alone initially, but then someone, presumably with very good seats, jumped up to join her. The joiner, also a she, wasn't wearing an ugly hoodie. She was, in other words, unauthorized to be Dancing With The Fans. Hence, while DiamondVision, as ever, featured Choice A and Choice B shuffling their feet, a Pepsi Party Patrol girl leapt up on the dugout and tackled the interloper.

John Stearns sacking Chief Noc-A-Homa it was not. Pretty it was not. In an instant, security got involved: one older man in an orange golf shirt joined the Pepsi Party girl in dragging away the unsanctioned dancer. And all of this — all of this — played out on the right half of DiamondVision while “Stayin' Alive” blared and Alex Anthony instructed us how to text our votes for Choice A or Choice B. Choice B's backup dancer was being wrestled to the ground. Choice A just kept boogieing to the Bee Gees.

After that, fourteen innings seemed like a sure thing.

Sharon and I thought we were onto something by moving from Row Q to an unoccupied Upper Deck box for the eighth. We sought egress, as Sharon put it in her best SAT. We just wanted to be able to make a cleaner getaway after the last out was all. It was in that Upper Deck box where we watched Tatis homer. It was also in that Upper Deck box where, as Endy Chavez was bunting away the winning rally in the tenth, that a woman decided to pose her family in several award-winning tableaus for a bushel of snapshots in our line of sight. (She must have really taken that Nikon sponsorship of Great Moments seriously.) It was only the tenth inning of an 8-8 slugfest. I could see where she'd need a diversion.

The game went on, our egress gathered momentum. Wanna try Mezzanine? Sure. So we scooted down a level. That didn't change the score. How about Loge? OK. (But only after a second curiosity-fueled end run at the now-closed Diamond Club and slightly surreal elevator ride that deposited us in a sterile corridor that appeared abandoned from the set of Being John Malkovich.) It wasn't Loge's fault, I don't think, that Pujols got to Heilman. Aaron held the lot of 'em for a while while we were there. It was while we were there, too, that we received that Shea treat almost as rare as friendly and efficient customer service: a fourteenth-inning stretch, with Clapton's “After Midnight” subbing for Monte's “Lazy Mary”. We received five hours and nine minutes of baseball, all the offense we could stand until, alas, we could stand no more, some fairly courageous (Murph's word) relief pitching and a trio of Dancing With The Fans dancers for the price of a pair. Our egress was sound in the end, too — sounder than it was for some unfortunate soul.

A great and terrible game, I tell you. A great and nearly endless evening. A great moment at Shea. If we'd managed a couple more runs, I might have had to have written it in as one of the Greatest.

That Argenis Reyes can play a little, huh? When your team is going as well as our team is going now, you really come to appreciate all the swell storylines that go into weaving the greater narrative. The lead headline is METS EXTEND FIRST PLACE LEAD. The sweet sidebar from Friday night — among others — is the second baseman, enjoying his first month in the Majors after more than five years in the minors, hit the first home run of his big league career. In half a season as a Zephyr he hit none. What a heartwarming sight it was, A. Reyes taking B. Thompson deep, the Mets' dugout quickly huddling and perfecting its no big deal straight face for three beats before embracing the kid en masse.

“We had to break him in,” Carlos Delgado grinned afterwards. When your team wins, your team grins.

Yes, save for the nagging inability of Duaner Sanchez to retire a single opposing batter this week, all is peaches and cream to the blue and orange. What keen chemistry! What an amazin' mesh!

What's that Gary Cohen said? That Luis Castillo has been cleared for baseball activities? That he's going to start playing rehab games in St. Lucie? That he could be back with the Mets next weekend?

Oh.

Hmmm…

Y'know, it's not Luis Castillo's fault the Mets felt compelled to enrich him beyond his and our wildest dreams over the winter. He has taken, as far as we know, no oath of self-deprivation, so of course he was going to accept the absurd amount of money ($25 million) and the insane number of years (four) with which the Mets plied him in the offseason. So what if the only party in any of this to find the transaction objectionable was us, the fans? Like you or I wouldn't have accepted $25 million over four years to display limited range and zero power. It's not like his diminishing skill sets were a secret. Luis seems like a nice enough guy. You're never supposed to wish injury on anyone not named Yadier Molina, so on a strictly human level, it's welcome news to know that whatever it was that placed Castillo on the DL a few weeks ago — a hip flexor — is getting better.

But, um, does he really have to come back?

The semi-dark side of loving the currently configured Mets is wanting nothing to do with those who played a role, however benign, in torpedoing the ship before things got good. Don't bother me with your logic that almost all of those responsible for raising us from the depths and keeping us afloat of late were part of that crew, too. I've completely forgotten that I used to find Mike Pelfrey and Carlos Delgado part of the problem before they emerged front and center to comprise the solution.

But Castillo? He's kind of a reminder of not-so-better times. That whole taxi squad of mending Mets who are still technically Mets because of contractual obligations looms and hovers uncomfortably in the subconscious.

The Mets have climbed into first on the backs of contributors like second basemen Damion Easley and Argenis Reyes. Neither is as accomplished in the context of an entire career as Luis Castillo, but both are here now and getting it done. Castillo was here when the Mets collapsed and when the Mets muddled. It's hard to reconcile his abilities (pretty fair hit-and-run type, turns a nifty double play) with the better days that have coincided with his absence.

Ryan Church…sure I want him back. I'm thrilled to hear from Kevin Burkhardt that Church's eyes offer a window, not a wall now, that he doesn't seem dazed and confused post-concussion. As potential Recidivist Met Xavier Nady has been definitively cast into the flaming abyss of unlikability, Ryan's return to right becomes that much more critical, the sooner the better. Still, all of Church's yeoman Met work is from that dark period when the team wallowed in misery. It's illogical, but I see him and I see the Mets of April and May and June and my instinct is to look away.

When it was reported Angel Pagan was done for the year, I was less unhappy than I should have been for a fellow human being to say nothing of a Met. Pagan contributed mightily those first few weeks. But those first few weeks were painful in ways that had nothing to do with Angel Pagan.

When word trickled forth that El Duque was finally getting it together (until he wasn't), I sighed more than exulted. El Duque? El Duque had nothing to do with the lackluster 2008 Mets, but I was actually a little sore when it was threatened that he was rumored on the road to recovery. El Duque has had a way of ducking out on us at the worst times. How dare he think he can waltz back into our lives? No danger of that, it turns out. Duque's right foot won't be waltzing into Flushing or onto any mound for the foreseeable future.

Moises Alou…Brady Clark…Matt Wise…Trot Nixon…they were all 2008 Mets when I could barely tolerate the 2008 Mets. They're all getting paid somewhere in this organization to heal. I've lost track of Nixon. The others, I think, are out for the season — like Jose Valentin, who shouldn't be held accountable for any of the mess that went down after he went down in the middle of '07, but where was he and his veteran leadership when we needed him and it most, the addled side of my fan brain asks. I'm a louse for thinking such thoughts, but I think I don't miss any of these fellows, not even Moises.

The taxi squad could pull up to the players' entrance at Shea and drop off one of its healthier ghost passengers at any time, and that particular spirit of 2008 past — some guy I've developed an allergic reaction to considering part of the spirit of 2008 present — could awaken and be a huge help to the Mets directly. Being a fan, I will embrace that tanned, rested and ready Met I've all but forgotten about and kind of written off. One base hit in a key spot, and Luis Castillo can be the new Argenis Reyes in my affections. It wouldn't be the first time I've turned that easily. But right now, with everyone who's here representing so darn near perfectly and everyone who's not, well, not, it's hard to imagine.

Then again, it was hard to imagine mere weeks ago being so enamored of the 2008 Mets at all.

Get well, Luis. We'll see ya when we see ya.

Amid the hand slaps, fist knocks and hip bumps the victorious first place Mets exchanged with one another after the final out of this afternoon's game, there was an embrace. David Wright hugged Carlos Delgado.

David was hugging Carlos for all of us. There isn't a Mets fan I know of who doesn't owe Delgado a hug. Hindsight being what it is, the time for the hug was a couple of months ago when Delgado was dragging and taking the team, we were sure, down with him.

We're not that pure of heart. We are, bottom line, results-oriented. We are often not as smart as we think we are. We saw a washed-up ex-power hitter who couldn't or wouldn't move around first and we were ready to trade him, release him, place him in the blue and orange bin that goes by the curb.

We sure like him now.

Were we wrong to declare our frustration with Carlos Delgado when he was batting in the low .200s, when he was leaving runners on as if abiding by a Do Not Disturb sign, when he was more likely to grunt or hide than take responsibility for his bad days? No more wrong than Carlos Delgado was washed up. We're human like he's human. He had a bad stretch, we reacted. He's having a great stretch, we react differently. If Delgado knew better — that he wasn't done, that he was busting his rear to correct what was awry, that he understands baseball more than all the fans and all the media combined — then let's be glad it's manifested itself in moments like the eighth inning today, the eighth inning when he conquered J.C. Romero, when he went down the left field line with authority, when he drove in the two runs that propelled the Mets into sole possession of first place.

Delgado isn't done and neither are we. I'm very happy we're still going together.

Ollie Perez…Aaron Heilman…Billy Wagner two games in a row…Jose Reyes last night…same deal. Their earlier 2008 shortcomings were obvious and expounded upon here and elsewhere. They all stepped up, manned up, moved up into first this series. They all overcame that Pendletonian nightmare of a ninth from Tuesday night. They all forgot how the Phillies haunt us. The Phillies don't haunt them. The Phillies, for now, trail them.

Mets in first, everybody else follows. It's an ideal alignment.

And for everyone who has scoffed and scoffed some more at the presence on this roster of Robinson Cancel, tell me that guy doesn't have a touch of the Mora in him. Cancel gets a chance and delivers three times now. Three times Cancel has literally rallied the Mets to a victory. Cancel seemed as preposterous when he arrived as Fernando Tatis did. There was a time when another manager trusted has-beens and never-weres named Rick Reed and Matt Franco and Benny Agbayani and Melvin Mora to make all the difference in the world. Those guys seemed preposterous or at best mysterious before they meshed with Mike Piazza and Edgardo Alfonzo and Al Leiter and Robin Ventura and Turk Wendell and indeed made all the difference in the world.

That was my team then. My team now leans on Fernando Tatis and Robinson Cancel and Argenis Reyes and Damion Easley and Jose Reyes and Billy Wagner and Aaron Heilman and Scott Schoeneweis and Ollie Perez and John Maine and Carlos Delgado and David Wright and Carlos Beltran. Some nights they let us down. This afternoon, they lifted us up. Way up.

First place Mets. Let's hug it out.