For all I know my son may grow up to be president, a beloved philanthropist, or a Hollywood star. But as I told Greg a couple of weeks ago, in a tone of voice a bit less guilty than it probably should have been, I don't think I could be prouder of him than I've been when he knows 2-2 is a neutral count, or that that ball up the gap was a two-run double, or other foundation blocks of baseball knowledge. Being a dad is pretty great most all the time, but it's particularly fun when I get to pass along some lessons about the game I love.

And it's even better when baseball cooperates.

Today was one of those typical weekend days when baseball was the counterpart to a flurry of household activities — by the middle innings of Game 1, we had three TVs on and two radios playing. (Remember the ad a couple of years back with that guy watching soccer on TVs everywhere in the house? Obviously the ad was pointing out how smart and prepared that guy was. Right?) Joshua had cheered on Santana faithfully, and Emily had pointed out that Johan (typically pronounced “Yo-ho” by Joshua) didn't have his best stuff, but sometimes you learned more about a pitcher then than you did when all his pitches were working — witness Johan today vs., say, Oliver Perez recently. (In our house, fathers have no monopoly on baseball lessons.)

In the bottom of the 6th, Joshua thought the game pretty well in hand with the Mets up 6-3, runners on second and third and one out with Jose Reyes at the plate. I pointed out this was the time that good teams really bear down — that a three-run lead in the 6th can get pecked away to a one-run lead in the 8th before you know it, leaving you a bad relief outing away from disaster. Joshua was a bit puzzled when Mom and Dad weren't thrilled to see Reyes draw a walk. Luis Castillo, we explained, doesn't have enough power to be a reliable source of sacrifice flies (in fact, in 1,431 big-league games he has a ludicrous 17 of them), meaning if he didn't get the job done, the Mets could easily be turned aside on a double play or needing a hit to get that extra run. Good teams convert here, was the lesson. They tack on runs instead of giving their opponents a chance to get back into the game.

Joshua knows a 2-1 pitch is a hitter's count — and we all watched Castillo get a meatball on 2-1 and foul it back, causing consternation in the Bernstein-Fry household. The kid found that a bit unfair. That was the best pitch he was likely to see, we explained — and sure enough, Mike Lincoln fanned him on a called third strike. Which left it to David Wright, searching for a two-out hit. Lincoln went to 3-0 on Wright, and I counseled Joshua (by now paying pretty good attention for a five-year-old) that Wright should be selective, that he had three good pitches to work with and no need to be overanxious. Lincoln's next pitch was a strike, but one on the inside edge of the plate, which David would have rolled out to the shortstop if he'd offered at. Nicely done. Lincoln's next pitch was a ball, forcing in a run. Good at-bat for Wright.

But here came the real lesson: Beltran up to the plate. Bases loaded, two out. Now, I told Joshua, Beltran should look for a strike on that first pitch, and hit it hard if it proved to his liking. I know most all of us know this, but remember the kid is five — it's a bit puzzling how one hitter should be selective but the next hitter should be aggressive. Lincoln went to 2-1 on Castillo and walked in a run against Wright, I explained. He's going to want to get ahead of Beltran really badly — so badly that he may well be too concerned with throwing a strike, and not concerned enough with making a good pitch.

Well, you know the rest. Beltran nailed Lincoln's first pitch for a bases-clearing triple. 10-3 Mets, and for a moment Joshua was persuaded that his father wasn't, in fact, a complete idiot.

Someday it won't be that big a deal that Johan Santana won a home start for the New York Mets. Today it kind of was.

The matter was never in much doubt, but Johan stretched Shea's patience just the tiniest bit there in the sixth as he couldn't quite close the Reds out for the longest time. How long? Thirty-four pitches long. Felt longer.

Who's counting? Well, I just did, with ESPN's help. I only noticed because Johan has yet to lay down one of those Santana masterpieces like the one he dropped off at Shea as a visitor last June (of which we saw the highlights every single day throughout the winter) and, somehow, had not earned a victory here as a Met. I also noticed because as the end of his day approached, the Mets' conclusion was nowhere in sight. In the afternoon portion of a day-night doubleheader, you love that you've got your ace going in the opener. You'd love it more if he could give you seven, eight or — dare we ask for it? — nine innings.

Johan gritted his teeth and got through six. A win is a win (we say that a lot lately) for the team and for the pitcher, but on a minimum 18-inning day, with Mike Pelfrey starting and doing who knows what in a few hours, it would have been swell…sweller…had Santana breezed through the Reds.

So he didn't. So it took ten pitches to strike out David Ross and six more to fan Corey Patterson. By then nobody thought Johan was coming back for the seventh. By then it was an achievement to save the bullpen in the sixth. And he did. And he won. So good for Johan.

Very good for Carlos Beltran in Game One, too. Perhaps Carlos B. has earned enough equity with the ticketed insta-critics so that he has escaped the sort of unconstructive feedback that has fallen on the heads of several of his teammates. Maybe the fans who are quick to boo Delgado and Heilman (and Schoeneweis and Castillo) remember Carlos Beltran was as big a get in 2005 as Johan Santana is in 2008 and are cutting him the slack now that they didn't then. Maybe they remember that the Carlos Beltran of 2006 was MVP-caliber and the 2007 version rode himself hard to the very end. But Carlos Beltran was batting .218 coming into today's first game. Carlos Beltran was having as bad a season as Carlos Delgado.

He's not having a bad season anymore. He looks a great deal like the original zillion-dollar signee and he's playing like he's determined to stay on everybody's good side. A dozen points have been added to his average since this morning and five steaks have been tossed onto his RBI pile. Everybody hit, but Beltran belted. Made a real nice catch as well. Beltran, like Santana, never had a Shea honeymoon, but he's having a pretty placid marriage. May he and Johan continue to make themselves at home.

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.