8: Sunday, September 14 vs Braves

Welcome back to the Countdown Like It Oughta Be. Today's removal of the number 8 is brought to you by Queens Bruised Produce. When you need a soft cantaloupe, an overripe tomato or a brown banana, discover Queens Bruised Produce. It is with QBP's compliments that ushers are passing out gift bags of not-so-fresh fruit and vegetables to every row in every section.

Ladies and gentlemen, today marks the final scheduled visit to Shea Stadium by the Atlanta Braves, the other half of the longest and most fiercely held rivalry ever played out in this ballpark. The Mets and Braves came together in the shotgun marriage of realignment in 1994 and for a decade, the phrase “Braves at Mets” has indicated the National League East's version of Family Feud is about to reignite. Welcome the same people over to your house so many times a year across so many years and you begin to think you're related to them…and what's that they say about how you can't choose your relatives?

Whether it was a grand slam single, a ten-run inning or something as beautifully mundane as the return of baseball to a city that had no idea how much it wished to take seriously something as allegedly insignificant as a game, intense competition between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves has left its mark on this site. The Braves have been tough foes, but unforgettable ones as well. You will not be able to remember Shea Stadium without thinking of them sooner or later. It is in that spirit we acknowledge the role they have played in the history of Shea.

To remove number 8 from the right field wall — a peeling, once again, brought to you by Queens Bruised Produce…everybody get a bag? — we have on hand the following Brave icons:

Today's home plate umpire, Angel Hernandez.

Folks, may I remind you the contents of your bags of spoiled produce are to be used at your personal discretion.

The hitting coach of the Atlanta Braves, a former National League MVP and the clutch-hitting third baseman on the 1987 St. Louis Cardinals, Terry Pendleton.

Really, you don't have to open those bags right now…unless you choose to.

Three-time National League Manager of the Year honoree, skipper of the Braves throughout their divisional dynasty, Bobby Cox.

You will see that the fruits and vegetables provided by Queens Bruised Produce aren't really what you'd call edible.

The mastermind of those great Braves pitching staffs for so many years, now rocking his Saturdays away as a Fox baseball analyst, Leo Mazzone.

Though bruised produce is not suitable for framing, it may be suitable for flinging.

The 1996 National League Cy Young award winner and quite possibly the best starter-closer the senior circuit has ever seen, he made his first Major League appearance right here in 1988, beating the Mets handily, and continues to battle your team successfully to this day, John Smoltz.

May we remind you that in the scheme of things, one forfeit is only one game against the backdrop of what feels like a lifetime's frustration.

One of the hardest-throwing, plainest-speaking lefty relievers to trot to the Shea Stadium mound — and a staunch advocate of diversity in public transportation ridership — welcome back the latter-day Georgia Peach, John Rocker.

Attention all Shea Stadium security personnel: you are dismissed for the day. Repeat: all Shea Stadium security personnel may abandon their posts.

And finally, leading these Atlanta Braves legends to their date with Shea destiny, two lifelong members of the Brave organization, recognized by Mets fans everywhere for their contributions to this rivalry — they'd be devastated if you forgot them now — the outstanding switch-hitter whose son bears a name near and dear to us all, Larry Wayne Chipper Jones, and the southpaw 300-game winner…

Ladies and gentlemen, today's game has been cancelled because of a water main break attributed to hell freezing over. The New York Mets thank you for attending, please be sure to forcefully empty your bags of bruised produce as you exit.

Number 9 was revealed here.

Off-day today, and I know the two of you probably have some things to discuss. Is Ramon Castro ready to come back? Who goes if Matt Wise returns? (I vote Sosa, though that's not why I'm writing to you.) How are Pedro and El Duque doing? There are probably a bunch of things to do with Citi Field, too. Busy day, in other words. So I hate to intrude.

But I think you need to get moving on one other thing today: finding a manager to replace Willie Randolph.

It's an unhappy business, using even a small public platform like this one to campaign for a man to be separated from his work. It gives me no joy; in fact, it makes me slightly sick to my stomach. But as a lifelong Met fan who's seen so many seasons come and go, I feel it's come to this: Willie has to be fired, and sooner rather than later. I say it reluctantly and unhappily, because I think he's a good man who's doing the best he can. But I say it nonetheless.

No, I'm not mollified by that 12-1 pounding inflicted on the Dodgers, by a 3-3 road trip against pretty good competition, or by the fact that for all the Mets' sputtering, they're two good days from first place. Nor am I held back by the fact that just 20% of the 2008 season is in the books.

One stat says it all, and it's this: 71-71. That's the Mets' record since last Memorial Day.

Fred and Jeff, if you think the Mets are truly a .500 team, then Willie's probably no better or worse than anybody else who could manage this team, and you ought to keep him around. But if you think this roster you're paying $137 million ought to be better than .500, then it's high time to try and figure out what's gone wrong. There are ups and downs to any season, hot streaks and cold streaks, most all of them statistical fluctuations you can make go away by shifting your start points and end points. 71-71, though, is different. That's 142 games, the better part of a full season. It's signal, not noise.

I think Willie did a pretty good job with the Mets in 2005 and 2006. He was calm and disciplined, even-keeled in good times and bad. He served ably as a lightning rod for a young David Wright, keeping the media from putting too much pressure on his shoulders. He got results from a young Jose Reyes by teaching him to be aggressive within the strike zone. He did a lot right, and in 2006 he presided over one of your franchise's finest seasons, a glorious ride finally undone by injuries within a single line drive of the World Series.

But 2007 was an unqualified disaster, one of our most bitterly disappointing years — and the price is still being paid in the boos that rain down from the stands at the slightest provocation. I didn't think that was enough for Willie to lose his job — it's always struck me as unfair that we're counseled to be patient with young players learning on the job, yet expect managers to arrive fully formed, able to execute game strategy and manage a roster over a marathon season and police the lives of 25 rich, sheltered young men. Willie gave every indication that he would be different in 2008, that this time if he saw complacency in his clubhouse he would step in and put things right instead of waiting for his veterans to do it. He appeared to have learned a hard lesson, and to be ready to apply that lesson. Given that, it seemed like basic fairness to let him continue.

But things are no different. The 2008 Mets look very much like the post-Memorial Day 2007 Mets — they play far too many listless games in which they look like they're punching the clock, and all too often they turn in a true stinker marred by inexcusable mental mistakes. And Willie keeps saying the same things he said in 2007 — that they need to get a little rhythm, that his players are veterans who know how to win, that he has faith in them. The Mets have been in the same rhythm for nearly a calendar year, and it's a bad one. Too many of their veterans have forgotten how to win, or show little evidence that they care. His faith in them, while admirable, is misplaced.

Most damaging of all is that we're hearing the same excuses we heard in 2007 — that the Mets will be fine once El Duque or Pedro or Moises Alou returns to shore up the rotation or add punch to the lineup and brighten up the clubhouse. This has bred a dreadful passivity in the Mets, who have far too much young talent to wait around for old, fragile players to change the team's fortunes. (Not to mention that it's a poor strategy to rely on the aged and the infirm for anything.)

Does Willie deserve more time — say, enough for a full 162-game sample since last Memorial Day? Not if you have trouble imagining — as I do — that the Mets can pull off the kind of hot streak they'd need to make their record respectable. If the Mets go 15-5 over their next 20, they'd be 86-76 over their last 162 games. Beyond the fact that 86-76 isn't playoff material, do either of you really believe this team will go 15-5? If you don't, then it seems to me that waiting will just give Willie's replacement a steeper hill to climb.

What does the new manager need to do? For starters, engage his players more — and do so publicly. He should encourage David Wright to stop his endearing but self-defeating insistence on not raising his voice because he's only 25. Wright is already the best position player on this team and will be its captain within a couple of years — his voice should be heard in the clubhouse, and not just in the game stories of the reporters to whom he's invariably kind. He should look for a new way to arrest Jose Reyes' depressing regression from electric player who has some frustrating days to frustrating player who has some electric days. He should encourage Carlos Beltran to come further out of his shell, whether it's encouraging Reyes to dance or telling Jimmy Rollins off. He should make sure Billy Wagner's isn't the only voice that sounds tired of losing.

A possibility I keep returning to is Larry Bowa, no shrinking violet but also a guy who's been a mentor to young players (Robinson Cano sure seems to miss him) and shouldn't be blamed for being tuned out by a cancerous Phillies clubhouse that Patton would have had trouble motivating. Would the Mets tire of Bowa's high-strung ways? Undoubtedly, and perhaps fairly quickly. But he's the opposite of Willie, and for a time that 180-degree change in demeanor would register with a team that needs a good shake-up. One of the unhappy truths of baseball is that nearly every manager eventually stops being effective in leading his team — it's as if players naturally build up an immunity to his ways and his style, and need the antidote to those ways and that style. RIght now the Mets need a high-energy, aggressive type — whether it's Bowa or Wally Backman or Bobby Valentine or some name you have in mind that fits the bill.

It's not fair that too many of the current Mets have quit playing for Willie, and yet he's the one to take the fall. But that's an old unfairness in baseball. I wish it were otherwise, but Willie's time has passed. You need to ask him to step aside, before the 2008 Mets' time is gone as well.

Respectfully submitted,

Jason

Friday Update: Dan Graziano of the Star-Ledger is thinking along similar lines, though he and I differ on what kind of manager is needed. Added bonuses: He has some excellent psychological insights into Willie and why he's the way he is, and of course an actual from-the-clubhouse view.

One of the unfortunate tics that accompanies blogging a baseball season is the daily desire to detect patterns, trends and leading indicators of what a given game means. So what does winning a 12-1 romp portend for the 2008 New York Mets?

Damned if I know, damned if I care.

We just kicked the rear end of a Penny so convincingly that an imprint of the Lincoln Memorial should be on the soles of our shoes. We just slipped a mickey into Joe Torre's green tea. We just won 12-1.

What does it mean for the 2008 Mets? It means that for one day, they rule, they totally rule. Clinically speaking, you can't win 12-1 and not rule. You can't win 12-1 and be subject to any serious questioning of your immediate future. Your immediate future belongs to another day. Relax, you just won 12-1. What does it say about the Mets' future? It says the present is perfect. Tonight, live in the present.

Who contributed? Everybody. Everybody contributed. John Maine contributed, coming within two outs of a complete game, falling three baserunners shy of a shutout. Last I checked, pitching 8-1/3 innings and allowing eleven fewer runs than your team scored counts for a win. So he didn't go the distance and he didn't get the shutout. He won. John Maine's the player of the game.

As is every single New York Met who played. Somebody grab a baseball and slice it eleven ways. Hell, cut it into 25 portions. How do we know somebody who didn't pitch or play didn't say something encouraging that made all or some of the difference? It's a good night to hand out benefits of the doubt as well. You've got nothing but players of the game when you win 12-1.

Which we just did. Feels good to know that, if nothing else.

The Church mostly giveth. The Church, as it turns out, occasionally taketh away.

Ryan Church is this team's OVP, its Only Valuable Player. OK, Wright, too, but David is mostly good this season, not stupendous. Nobody's stupendous on the Mets, not David Wright, not Johan Santana, not nobody. But Ryan Church has been as close as it gets.

Yet he's imperfect. Ain't we all, but he can be glaringly if well-meaningly so, no more than on Tuesday night when his imperfections outweighed his wonderfulness just enough to nudge matters in the wrong direction. Church's goodness was embodied by his first-inning home run and can generally be found in his refusal not so much to lose but to let the game get the best of him. At heart, he's one of those cartoon kittens who runs and runs, unaware that some bigger cat is sticking his paw out, thus halting the kitten's forward progress even as his feet keep moving. That's the indefatigable part of Ryan Church with which we've all become smitten. Church strikes me as someone who's figured out New York, who's figured out that the last thing you can look like here is you're not trying. Ryan Church is always trying.

But sometimes he tries a little too hard. Never mind, for now, the fly ball he didn't catch and didn't know was trickling away still in play while Blake DeWitt's total bases counter clicked uncomfortably from 5 to 6. Go back several hours from the bottom of the fifth to the top of the second, the frame when the Mets were positioned to get their laugher on.

Pagan made it to first when Kuroda couldn't handle his bunt. Schneider…well, it doesn't take a genius to recognize Brian Schneider is all-hit, no field (no jukebox has ever contained as many singles as Brian Schneider's bat). Luis Castillo momentarily freed himself from Jace Purgatory — the dark and humid place where players my partner decides he doesn't like are condemned to linger for years — with a rare base hit that scored Angel. Figgy bunted and was Paganically gifted by Kuroda, loading the bases for Reyes who delivered Schneider with a hit single of his own.

What a setup! Nobody out, everybody on, our hottest hitter up, our best player behind him. A three-run lead about to…

…stay at three.

Churchy (as I've been calling him through the TV) so wanted to make New York happy — or perhaps keep New York off his back — that he couldn't resist lunging at ball three. Perhaps he was thinking Kuroda would throw away yet a third ball hit practically right to him, but no. The easiest 1-2-3 double play you'll ever see ensued. Wright, enduring a night at the plate as bad as the night in the field he was enjoying was good, struck out. The tide had inexorably turned. As in that inning when Jair Jurrjens was walking Mets like crazy yet was never knocked out, the other team was about to survive what little fight the Mets had in them.

We've noticed mostly the good in Ryan Church because he's been mostly good. But he is prone to overanxiousness at the worst times. There was a game early in the season (against Atlanta I want to say, though 2008 is rapidly devolving into a blur of missed opportunities) when Ryan couldn't help himself and swung at an offering that was dirtbound. A Met rally went to its premature reward.

Hard to get on Church for stuff like that, even as it lurks beneath the surface of a .314 batting average and an .887 OPS. He has been the human rally by his own self for more than a month. He has been the offense on too many nights. And he doesn't let walls get in the way of his instincts even if his sense of where he and the ball were simultaneously didn't work out in Dodger Stadium. Only a collapse-scarred curmudgeon would note that if we are going to give a few underperforming Mets the benefit of the doubt that they won't be .219 or .216 hitters the whole summer long, it's quite possible that Ryan Church won't be all-world all year.

But while he is, he makes watching the Mets…what's that thing that provides a sensation that isn't painful or disturbing?…a joy.

Did you enjoy tonight's game, Jace?

No, I did not.

Why not?

Where to start? How about because the Mets sucked again and because they took forever to suck this time?

The Dodgers didn't look that great either, though.

No, they didn't. But as Greg likes to note, style points don't matter. They won. Jeff Kent and Joe Torre and Juan Pierre and Hong-Chih Kuo and Brad Penny and Nomar Garciaparra and the whole vaguely disagreeable lot of them.

The Mets took an early lead, did some hitting, showed some daring baserunning. That was good.

Yeah. An early lead that they blew.

But David Wright turned in some nifty plays at third.

He did. He saved Nelson Figueroa's bacon a couple of times. On the other hand, a good first baseman would have speared Blake DeWitt's two-run single in the third. Carlos Delgado is not a good first baseman. Fielding giveth, fielding taketh away.

OK, but you've got to like Nelson's guts and guile. He's pitching his heart out there every time.

Yeah, he's a journeyman with brains and toughness, and every romantic baseball fan is a sucker for those guys — the Rick Reeds and Brian Bohanons and late-model Frank Tananas of the baseball world. It's a bit of a myth, though — you think Johan Santana doesn't work his butt off to outthink hitters too? He does, he just has better stuff. Your cliched find-catcher-and-chuck-it guys — the Nuke LaLooshes of this world — aren't really all that common. Well, there's Oliver Perez. He sure as hell does get woolly, doesn't he? Sure, I like Figueroa. I also would have liked to see him get past those second outs a little more easily, and last more than five innings. On the other hand, this game took so frigging long, he was in danger of dying of old age out there.

That fatal play wasn't his fault, though. Wasn't that something?

It was something all right. The next time I see a hitter get an inside-the-park home run because the right fielder is sitting on the warning track thinking the ball was a home run of the regulation variety will be the second time. The next time something like that is the difference that beats the Mets? I'll be happy never to see that again.

But c'mon, Ryan Church has been great this year.

Hey, no argument there. You want to know the funny thing? It's that every night I thank God for Church, because he isn't Shawn Green. Nothing against Green as a person, just against him as a right fielder. Remember all those balls last year that would drop five or 10 feet in front of him, because he never seemed to get a good read on balls and his first step was so slow? Ryan Church doesn't do that — he's got good range, a great arm and fine instincts out there. That said, here's the thing: Didn't Blake DeWitt's drive remind you at least a little of Scott Spiezio's triple off Guillermo Mota, the one that hit Green in the wrist? Ugh. Just ugh. Stupid Guillermo Mota.

But Moises Alou stole home! How cool was that?

Very cool. If we'd won, I'm sure I'd be waxing rhapsodic about it. The title of this post would be something like “Holy Moises!” (Though I bet we've used that before.) But we didn't win.

I don't get you, Jace. Last night you tried to get all misty-eyed and profound about a 5-1 Met loss. Tonight the Mets lose by one run on a freak play and you're lousy company. Why? Because what?

Because we're coming up on the calendar anniversary of the day my team started to play far below its talent, and I'm sick of it. Because I can't see any indication that anybody who makes decisions about my team is as sick of it as I am, and intends to step in and change things before it's too late. Because two years ago this team looked like it couldn't wait to get to the park and play baseball, and now they look like they can't wait to stop. Because this could be their best chance to forge the kind of cohesive team that's a contender year-in and year-out, and that chance is slipping away because those who do lead this team can't and those who could lead this team don't. Because I'm fucking tired, OK? Just plain tired, because it's two in the morning, and tired of dead-ass baseball no matter what time it's played. Is that enough for you? Cause it sure as hell is enough for me.

9: Saturday, September 13 vs Braves

Ladies and gentlemen, we direct your attention to the centerfield flagpoles where you will note the presence of four flags, each representing a Mets championship: two world championships, two National League championships. Today, as our Countdown Like It Oughta Be descends into single-digits, we pay homage to the last of those four flags to be raised over Shea Stadium, the final pennant of which we can say with clarity was earned right here in this ballpark.

Today we recognize the 2000 National League champion New York Mets, the only Mets team to win both a division and league championship series — both clinched at Shea — and the last Mets team to bring a World Series to 123-01 Roosevelt Avenue…pending the unknown events of the next several weeks.

As we hold out hope for that elusive fifth flag, there is no denying that whenever it is earned, even if it is this October, it will eventually fly above another centerfield fence. Thus, we hold a special place in our hearts for the last Mets team to ascend the Shea Stadium flagpole even as we sort out our emotions regarding the paths the various individuals took in the wake of their team success. Yet given what they ran up that flagpole, it only seems fitting to salute them now.

First up, two sparkplugs from Bobby Valentine's bench, utilitymen who would play anywhere and would do anything to help their mates. Let's hear it for Super Joe McEwing and the all-time pinch-hit king Lenny Harris.

The Mets might not have come back to Shea in a position to clinch their second consecutive LDS had these next two men not combined to bury San Francisco in the tenth inning of Game Two. One doubled, the other singled him in and, before you knew it, it was a brand new series. Welcome back two key outfielders from the 2000 champs, Darryl Hamilton and one of the great glove men from the turn of the century, joining us from Baltimore, Jay Payton.

Let's say hello to several members of the 2000 bullpen, men who kept the Mets in tight game after tight game and the man who closed out the last World Series game the Mets won in Shea Stadium. That flag wouldn't be flying if not for the efforts of Rick White, Dennis Cook, Turk Wendell and the record-holder for most saves in a season by a Met, Armando Benitez.

He was the fifth starter on a staff that needed every arm it could get and, in the postseason, became a key long man for the Mets. All the way from San Diego, there's no mistaking Glendon Rusch.

His injection of speed was just what the Mets needed to zoom past the Giants and the Cardinals in the 2000 playoffs. There would have been no pennant if not for the fleet feet and scalding bat of the one and only Timo Perez.

You can't recall autumn in New York eight years ago without remembering the contributions of the first baseman, a team leader with a hot bat who hit .400 in the Fall Classic. He would eventually come back and finish his career in style, homering in the very last at-bat of his career, right here at Shea. Ladies and gentlemen, a warm Flushing welcome for Todd Zeile.

Only three Mets have won postseason Most Valuable Player awards. There was Donn Clendenon in the 1969 World Series; there was Ray Knight in the 1986; and there was the southpaw who came to the Mets from Houston in 2000 and pitched brilliantly in the National League Championship Series, winning twice and capping off matters by twirling a three-hit shutout against St. Louis in Game Five. That makes him the last home pitcher to celebrate a pennant-clincher on the mound of Shea Stadium as far as can we can infer. And as our special guest would tell, you only know what you know unless you find a good school somewhere to learn a whole lot more. Coming off the Atlanta DL to join us tonight…is that a mortarboard he's wearing?…your 2000 NLCS MVP, Mike Hampton.

Finally, to lead our 2000 champs down the right field line to remove number 9 from the wall, we have a pair of aces, the rocks who formed the foundation of Bobby Valentine's rotation for the nearly four seasons they pitched together as Mets. One was a righty who came out of nowhere and pitched gem after gem, including the start in the last World Series game the Mets would win at Shea, and one is a lefty who grew up to live the dream of every Mets fan, pitching long and successfully for his favorite team. Few will forget the grittiness he displayed across 8-2/3 innings in the last World Series game the Mets played at Shea. Please welcome Rick Reed and Al Leiter.

Number 10 was revealed here.

Well, it's past 1 a.m. and the Mets showed very little in a 5-1 loss.

Oliver Perez missed Brian Schneider's mitt by three feet on his third pitch of the game, resulting in a Rafael Furcal home run, a 1-0 Dodger lead and a stare from Willie Randolph that could have frozen magma. And it was vaguely downhill from there: Oliver hung around out there to make matters worse with a blah effort that won't get him or Rick Peterson off the hot seat. Oliver, being paid a lot of money, will get time to work things out, but the Jacket has painted a target on his back at a time when ownership may be itching to squeeze off a few rounds. If it was bad when it turned out Peterson was ducking the scribes, it got worse when Jay Horwitz flatly contradicted his excuse that writers suddenly and mysteriously had to go through media relations.

Keeping with the ledger of frets and fears, what's wrong with Carlos Beltran? (Sentence with unspoken, uncharitable but inevitable addition: “What's wrong with Carlos Beltran now?”) Sometimes you need a psychiatrist, mediator and a soothsayer to interpret Beltran's physical condition: There are times he doesn't play because he's only X percent healthy, and long stretches in which it turns out he played when he should have been on the DL. Between his batting average and oddities on the basepaths tonight, you have to wonder if we're not back to the latter problem. Why didn't Sandy Alomar send him home on Delgado's third-inning double? He sure looked like he could have scored, and of course Schneider struck out and Luis Castillo did what he usually does, wasting a chance to pull within 2-1. (From a neutral, baseball-first perspective, kudos to the Dodgers for not robotically walking the eighth-place hitter and so letting the Mets clear the pitcher.) Then, in the sixth, same question in reverse: Beltran made a stop sign of his own at third despite Alomar waving him home. To paraphrase an old baseball tale, did Carlos think Sandy didn't mean it? I wonder if something beyond post-surgical aches and pains is wrong with Beltran's legs — and if so, if anybody is going to find out what and deal with it.

All in all, ample reason to get to bed early rather than go into the night watching a mediocre team get beat on the other side of a big continent. So why am I writing this now?

Well, most immediately because I went to sleep a little after eight for nearly two hours. But beyond that, because it's what we do when the body is willing. Our team's playing somewhere, so we watch, hoping that our vigil will be rewarded.

Was it? Not particularly. And yet absolutely.

No one will remember this game very long, but it had its moments. Like the leather flashed on both sides. There was Furcal's nifty stop on the backhand in the outfield grass, after which he threw out David Wright (a reasonably speedy runner) by a full stride; the awkward but effective dance between Delgado and Perez to beat Juan Pierre to first base; and the double play started by Wright, kept alive by a balletic pivot by Castillo and completed with a nice scoop from Delgado. There was the sight of Joe Torre in new colors, the absence of the Vertical Swastika from his head miraculously transforming him in one observer's eyes from surly, gimlet-eyed and unwelcome to calm, reflective and familiar. And there were the misadventures of future DH Matt Kemp — tell me the sight of the bewildered ballguy retreating farther and farther into fair territory (and lugging his chair!) as Kemp floundered after Beltran's triple wasn't worth at least a smile.

Little things, but they'll all go into memory, to be subconsciously retrieved and analyzed and fussed over and made part of the storyline for a dozen games yet to be played over the coming years. Is it crazy to watch your team lose a not-so-great ballgame when you could be sleeping? On the contrary — it's the rest of the world that's crazy. It's spring and the Mets are playing baseball — who cares what time it is? Besides, from November to March there's nothing much to do but sleep.

10: Friday, September 12 vs Braves

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we honor a Mets team whose exploits are too recent to have been forgotten but whose accomplishments may have dimmed given the rush in which we inevitably find ourselves to reach the next game, the next win, the next season, the next park. But we should pause and ponder one more time at Shea Stadium the club that made this place the place to be for Mets fans and sealed shut a void that drifted far too deep and stretched far too long.

We speak this evening of the 2006 National League East Champion New York Mets. They were the last Mets, as far as we can say with certainty at this moment, to bring postseason baseball to Flushing — the last Mets who could post a marker of any kind above the right field wall. For what the 2006 Mets did in reaching the heights they achieved, we salute them now.

In advance, we thank the organizations that currently employ some of our '06 Mets for graciously allowing them to return to us tonight. As this is the Countdown Like It Oughta Be, we felt they oughta be on hand.

Without further ado, then…oh, but wait, there will be further ado, for it might take this first 2006 Met a little while to reach the mound. But Mets fans should be used to him taking his time. That's probably how we are destined to remember him, but maybe we should recall instead six seasons of steadfast service in the blue and orange and the slick work he put in on the night of September 18 when he earned the victory that clinched the Mets' first divisional crown in eighteen years. How about an appropriately languorous round of applause for Steve Trachsel?

The final out in that milestone game came on a fly ball to left field, caught by another Met mainstay who preceded the 2006 revival. His best — and healthiest — year was 2005, when his monster season foretold, perhaps, the good things that lay ahead for the franchise. Welcome back to Shea, Cliff Floyd.

Although the Mets fell a little shy of closing out 2006 on the most desirable terms, nobody could say the Mets didn't know how to close out games throughout that 97-win season. When the bullpen gate flung open, confidence generally followed in the stands. How about some recognition for a pen that wrote the end to 92 wins in 2006? Say hello to long reliever Darren Oliver, specialists Chad Bradford and Pedro Feliciano, veteran presence Roberto Hernandez, set-up men extraordinaire Aaron Heilman and Duaner Sanchez and the Sandman himself, Billy Wagner.

A playoff team is only as good as its bench and the 2006 Mets had a fine one. Tonight we acknowledge the roles of three key reserves: infielder Chris Woodward, catcher Ramon Castro and the ageless wonder himself, Julio Franco.

Thanks to too many injuries to count, the Mets' rotation had a bit of a revolving-door feel to it two years ago, but these three pitchers helped stabilize matters and turned in some memorable outings, in-season and/or postseason. You know them as Oliver Perez, John Maine and El Duque, Orlando Hernandez.

It was a formidable lineup that ate up National League pitching early, late and often in 2006 and we have three of the hitters who helped make it happen: first baseman Carlos Delgado, rightfielder Shawn Green and the utilityman turned everyday second baseman who proved so vital to the Mets' success, Jose Valentin.

One of the most unforgettable baseball personalities of this generation, his pitching proved every bit as charismatic as his personality when he brought his act to Shea Stadium in 2005. He was one of the biggest reasons the Mets stormed out of the gate in 2006 and he remains a fan favorite for all time. His name says it all: Pedro Martinez.

Mets fans knew their organization had grown serious about winning and winning soon when management courted the prize of the 2004-05 free agent market, a speedy, slugging, Gold Glove-caliber centerfielder who brought to Shea heretofore unknown meaning where the phrase “five-tool player” is concerned. In 2006, he put up some of the best results any Met ever has: 41 home runs, 116 runs batted in and one body given over on innumerable occasions in pursuit of victory. He promised the world there would be a “new Mets” and he delivered. He still does to this day, Carlos Beltran.

Finally, to lead the 2006 Mets to the right field wall to remove number 10, we call on two of the most special players in team history, the tandem whose spark lit up the faces of Mets fans everywhere just as their talents lit up every ballpark they played in — particularly this one. If the crowd wasn't chanting for one of them, it was singing for the other. They lead us not only to this juncture in the final season countdown but they lead us as well toward what we believe will be a thrilling future in the park next door. Ladies and gentlemen, your starting shortstop Jose Reyes and your third baseman David Wright.

Number 11 was revealed here.