On Tuesday as the Home Opener got away from the home team, I heard myself think “I'm glad I'm not watching this at home,” as if any barrier more substantial than four decks from the field wouldn't let me cope with the rampant futility at hand. Friday night, after having turned down a ticket from two different sources, I wasn't at all unhappy that I was missing reaching out and touching Nelson Figueroa's flirtation with perfection.

It played better on TV.

If I were at Shea, I would have crossed my fingers and counted the outs and all until the inevitable imperfection smudged Figgie's pitching line. I would have sat in the fog, said “oh well” and gotten back to the business of rooting, moderately aware that this was a hometown boy making good. When it was over, I would have dug a Babylon schedule from my bag and left, conscious mostly of what I saw last, not what I saw early.

But from the living room, I could see and hear what was really going on, that this was Mets fantasy camp come north and come true.

We criticize SNY for reasons overwhelming and petty, and no doubt we will continue to do so, but on Friday night, we saw the power of television when deployed for good. We got the closeups of Figueroa. We got the cutaways to the bulging box of Figgie's family — and the information that their accommodations came courtesy of the Sandman, the first of two Billy Wagner saves on the evening. We got the interviews with the father and the son from trusty Kevin Burkhardt. We got Gary and Ron narrating the drama as well as calling the pitches. We got the whole picture on television.

I'm not interested in turning this into a critique of SNY right now, so let's just say they did their job just about as well as Nelson Figueroa did his, and we know he did a swell job. There would be no no-hitter, no perfect game, but this was one of those nights that was perfect enough, fulfilling if not flawless…not unlike, for two examples that came to mind while watching, Bobby Jones' one-hitter against the Giants in 2000 and Rick Anderson's no-decision in the callup he'd waited forever for in 1986.

There were elements of nights like those that served as precedent for Nelson Figueroa's excellent adventure, but ultimately, April 11, 2008 was a Shea original. This was the kid who — unlike Seaver, unlike Gooden, unlike Santana later today weather permitting, unlike all the greats and not-so-greats who have thrown the first pitch that counted on a given night in that old house — really, really, really cared that it was taking place where it was. A few Mets over the years have raised the issue of playing in New York as something they aspired to as youngsters growing up in New York rooting for the Mets. Never did they look or sound as convincing as Figueroa in terms of what it actually meant.

No wonder it meant something to someone like me. Usually a Met win can be credited to any pitcher not named Hitler, bin Laden or Clemens and it makes me no never mind. Once in a great while, however, you get choosy. If there's a chance that the win can go to someone who you can imagine checking the Mets yearbook and marveling at the presence of his very own picture, maybe even clicking on to his very own Ultimate Mets Database page, choosy Mets fans would choose Nelson Figueroa.

When Wagner who lent out his box ($200 bricks, $8 beers, closers with suites…don't wake Branch Rickey) recorded one of the most authoritative saves of his Mets career, I was the most excited I'd been since this shaky season began. Our four previous wins — even the walkoff won on the wings of Angel — served only to remind me that triumphs in April can be canceled out if you don't keep compiling them through September (yeah, I'm that screwed up from 2007). This, though…this was different. This was better than anything we've witnessed to date in '08. This was the Figueroas piling into their stationwagon and one of their boys drawn at random to participate in a Dynamets Dash whose route ran right to the mound and straight to a W.

No wonder, fog be damned, it looked so perfect on TV.

It's the new guys who will heal us.

I don't just mean that Angel Pagan has been a revelation, that Ryan Church has so far proved a good bat and an excellent glove, that Johan Santana is Johan Santana or that Nelson Figueroa had a very nice night. (Or that even Raul Casanova chipped in when finally allowed to play.) All those things are true, but there's another factor.

We aren't mad at them.

Those guys weren't stumbling around these precincts after Memorial Day, plummeting back to the Phillies' level in September or getting keel-hauled by the Marlins on Tom Glavine's day of disappointment. Hopefully we'll soon get over being mad at all those branded with the tag “2007 Met” — it's no fun being mad at David Wright — but it hasn't happened quite yet. It's too early for that. But it's not too early for thoroughly enjoying the derring-do of Pagan and Church and Santana, the innocents.

Which brings us to Figueroa.

Being a baseball fan of a certain stripe means sentimentality is always waiting to swallow you up if you're not careful. Baseball really is about lyrical green fields and the arc of the ball. But it's also about sweating and bleeding and cheating and managing egos and guys who don't get along and hangovers and baseball Annies and contract strife and labor wars and drug worries and the ruthless business decisions that assemble and maintain teams and franchises and ballparks. It's not all Ken Burns — black-and-white photos and piano and mannered narration.

But sometimes, man. Shut up, play that piano and let John Chancellor talk.

Nelson Figueroa grew up a Met fan in Coney Island. Scorned for being too small and not throwing hard enough, he wound up at Brandeis University, not exactly a baseball hotbed. His boyhood team drafted him in 1995, but without an excess of faith in his future — he went in the 30th round, the 833rd overall pick. And then the Mets sent him away in 1998, as part of a package for the utterly forgettable Willie Blair and Jorge Fabregas. He made it to the big leagues with the Diamondbacks in 2000, pitched well for the Phillies in 2001, then tore his rotator cuff after a cup of coffee with the Pirates. Then it was a minor-league deal with the Nationals and a spring-training look-see from the Mariners. It was a tour of duty in the Mexican League and a late-season job with the Uni-President Lions of the Chinese Professional Baseball League. He did well there, but Figueroa was 33, owned a 7-17 lifetime record and a suspect rotator cuff, and was pitching in Taiwan.

But somehow his story was just beginning.

You know the rest, but imagine it from Nelson Figueroa's perspective: He got a minor-league deal from his original team, the one he grew up rooting for, the one that sent him away. He pitched well enough in spring training to shove himself into consideration — and got cut on the last day of camp anyway. And then got called back almost before he left. Walking off the mound in Miami, wearing a Met uniform at last, he said he didn't want to be seen tearing up in HD.

Heck, he wasn't alone. That was a wonderful story right there, one that made anyone with a heart made of anything softer than granite excuse themselves for a moment because, hey, it's getting a little dusty in here. But you want more? You want Figueroa to take the mound at Shea with his family spilling out of a luxury suite and cheering him on? OK, the baseball gods can do that. You want him to retire the first three Brewers? Well, sure. The first six? Hmm, OK. The first nine? Easy there — sure, what the heck. The first 12? Man…but OK. The first 15? No. Too much! Sorry.

No, you had to settle for six innings of two-hit, two-run ball — and a win whose final moments were etched on Nelson Figueroa's face, in the arch of his eyebrows and the too-quick flash of his smile and every nervous duck of his head as Billy Wagner retired the last three Brewers somewhere out there in the fog. No perfect game, no no-hitter — even the baseball gods can reject a story as too perfect, too cornpone, too hard a yank for the heartstrings to bear.

But that's OK. That's more than OK. We thought about the perfect game, the no-hitter. We thought about it, hoped for it, knew it wasn't coming, nodded our heads when it didn't arrive. I bet Nelson Figueroa did all that too. And I bet he knew there wouldn't be 27 up and 27 down. After all, he knows how things work around here. He knows because as a kid he was one of us, and because now he is — at long, long last — a New York Met.

(Tip of the cap to the Star-Ledger's Jeremy Cothran for background via a nicely told tale.)

So long as they end properly, tense, nobody-can-break-through extra-inning games are the coolest. There's the initial annoyance/delight of free baseball (emotion dependent on whether your team's the one that tied it up or the one that let it get tied), the settling in for the long haul once things aren't settled in the 10th, and then the fretful wait from the 11th until whenever things will end. You figure out the rest of the rosters in your head. You think about the tales of redemption that might fit (Bruntlett? Delgado?) and try to spin plot reversals along with the baseball gods. You figure the end is near when it isn't (Jesus, they're a hit away with Utley up) and are sure the game will never end when in fact it's about to (Schneider and Clark make meek outs to start the inning, what's the use), and the whole time you're thinking that somebody's fated to wear the laurels and somebody's fated to wear the goat horns and soon it will make perfect sense who was who, even though you can't possibly guess who will be who at the moment.

Another fun thing about these marathons (again, assuming all winds up OK) is how much of the regulation game disappears into the ether of “almost forgot about that.” Like John Maine's mostly reassuring start — he looked unfocused and gassed at the end, but it was April and an unseasonably warm night. Like Brian Schneider's rifle-armed erasure of Shane Victorino at second, which left me with my fist in the air and Victorino pop-eyed in protest. (He thought he was safe; he was out.) Like the pinball shot hit off the first-base bag immediately afterwards by Chase Utley. (In our recent nine-game stretch of martyrdom, that would of course have been preceded by Victorino being called safe, and followed by all sorts of bad things; instead Maine somehow escaped after walking the next two guys.) Like Pedro Feliciano coming in, pitching dismally, and then finding his slider in the way you devoutly hope off-kilter relievers will, while knowing they rarely do.

Where predictive powers are concerned, I was right about two things and wrong about one. First, I was right that Aaron Heilman was not going to follow Feliciano's example in righting himself. I had paused the game while rushing out to get spaghetti sauce, returned to watch Marlon's epic at-bat, then TiVo'ed too far through the commercials and missed Ryan Howard's bomb entirely. How in hell is it 3-2? I wondered, and almost thought for a crazy second that Heilman's mere presence is now worth an enemy run. (Just to make me think I really was insane, SNY then stubbornly refused to put the Phils' third run up until the end of the inning.) It's cruelly ironic that with the Mets down two starters, the reliever who'd most like to start is instead auditioning credibly to be the guy called in to catch bullets in his teeth when it's 7-0 in the second.

Next, I was wrong about what Scott Schoeneweis's arrival meant — as was most of Shea Stadium, by the reaction. Schoeneweis got the ground ball he also got in the home opener, this time with better results — and just maybe, a chance for a do-over with Met fans. HIs fist pump was uncharacteristic, welcome, and well-earned.

And finally, happily, I was right about Angel Pagan emerging as the hero. One of the occupational hazards of baseball blogging is with the game in the balance, you find yourself rehearsing posts in your head. (This post was provisionally titled “Sent Me an Angel” until the Shea Stadium A/V guys made the same musical connection.) Pagan has been easily the best story for the 2008 Mets, a minor-league hero come back wiser and, so far, much better than the player we sent away. Of course in a game like this Pagan just had to fire a sharp shot up the middle, instead of a little parachute that could have let Reyes walk home. Of course Jayson Werth just had to hurl the ball in head over heels. Of course Reyes just had to be within a whisker of an eyelash of an iota of a sliver of being out. But no matter. He wasn't; we win.

The first 2008 classic's in the books; more importantly, it feels like 2007 is finally over.

25: Friday, August 8 vs Marlins

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, is Faith Night at Shea Stadium where our Countdown Like It Oughta Be is concerned.

It's a chance for us to salute the players who came to Shea on the wings of high hopes and a prayer. They were touted to the heavens and flew momentarily close to the sun, giving Mets fans every reason to believe at often less than ideal junctures in team history that they would lead the way to a brighter tomorrow. For an instant or two upon introduction, anything seemed possible. And as the Mets and Shea Stadium have always stood as one in conveying a sense of optimism about the future, these men, no matter how brief their tenures or limited their résumés, surely deserve to be remembered for giving us something to grow on.

Representing hope at Shea in the 1960s, he was introduced to Mets fans as a defensive centerfielder the potential equal of Willie Mays. In his very first at-bat, leading off the 1967 home season, he singled against the Pirates. It was an auspicious start for Don Bosch.

Representing hope at Shea in the 1970s, he came up in late August of 1975 and started hitting, not stopping until the middle of September, reaching safely in 23 consecutive games — a rookie record. Say hello to Mike Vail.

Representing hope at Shea in the 1980s, he was a minor league sensation who tore the cover off the ball in August and September of 1988, stirring visions of an endless Met dynasty. He would have some fine seasons down the road, albeit away from Shea, but boy could he hit. Welcome back Gregg Jefferies.

Representing hope at Shea in the 1990s, this lefty is inextricably tied to two righties in the public imagination, forming the core of a rotation of dreams that would carry the Mets into the next century. It didn't work out that way for the trio, but our guest today enjoyed every minute of his promotion to the big leagues in 1995 and so did his many fans. Give it up for the portside third of Generation K, Bill Pulsipher.

Finally, representing hope at Shea in the 2000s, and leading our Faith Night contingent down the right field line to remove number 25, is an outfielder who became more than a name in the transaction agate on the afternoon of September 25, 2004 when with one swing he tied a seemingly untieable game in the ninth inning. With that ninth-inning, two-out, three-run shot off the Cubs' LaTroy Hawkins, he became a bulwark of hope for thousands of Mets believers. Ladies and gentlemen, the kid from Chicago, Victor Diaz.

24: Saturday, August 9 vs Marlins

In the history of the New York Mets, ladies and gentlemen, only three editions of the club have put up one hundred wins in the course of a regular season. Two of them, from 1969 and 1986, are famous for reasons beyond their win total. The third we salute tonight.

The 1988 Mets are considered by many the most talented team in the annals of the franchise. That they fell short of another World Series appearance by a single game should not diminish the thrills they gave Shea Stadium in the course of the season that preceded the National League playoffs as they set a record for most home wins in a year at Shea, 56. The Mets have won five division titles. Theirs, like the others, is emblazoned proudly above the right field wall, above where we will ask several members of that team to remove the number 24.

He finished third in the 1988 National League Most Valuable Player balloting, a left fielder always on the hunt for another assist, stolen base or big hit, say hi to Kevin McReynolds.

1988 was his first full season in the bigs and he fit right into the infield with some of the surest hands Shea has ever seen. Welcome home Kevin Elster.

A catcher by trade, his talent shone most brightly at the plate when he had a bat in his hand. One of the most dangerous lefties off Davey Johnson's bench, how about a nice round of applause for Mackey Sasser?

Proprietor of one of the sweetest swings you'll ever see, he spent 1988 as understudy to one of the best at his position and proved himself worthy of an eventual starting role at first base. Give a big Shea Stadium greeting to Dave Magadan.

Up from Mississippi, delighted to have him just as the Mets were in the late '80s whenever they needed a dependable backstop or a determined at-bat. He's the catcher, Barry Lyons.

Many different types of vessels of dock at the World's Fair Marina, but in 1988, Flushing Bay was home to not one but two kinds of submarines…well, submarine deliveries. One was fashioned by the man who bewildered hitters as a starter and reliever during his frequent stays with the Mets in the 1980s — nobody will ever forget how he rescued the rotation in 1987 — Terry Leach. The other submariner holds the distinction of pitching in more games for the Mets than any Met who never pitched for another team. Say hello to Jeff Innis.

In the Met bullpen in 1988, the sight of this lefty warming up was generally a sign to opposing lineups that the game was about to end, and not well for them. Twenty-six saves in '88, all of them with a little extra on the fastball. It's Randy Myers.

Finally, leading the pack from 1988, one of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball from that or any season during his 17-year career. He went 20-3 in '88 and won forever the affection of Coneheads everywhere. Ladies and gentlemen, David Cone.

23: Sunday, August 10 vs Marlins

Today, ladies and gentlemen, it gives the New York Mets special pride to turn our countdown attention toward two gentlemen who never played a single game in Shea Stadium yet inform in so many ways why Shea had to be built and the Mets had to be founded.

Generations removed, one may not automatically appreciate what it meant for New York to be left bereft of National League baseball in 1958 or to have it return in 1962. The phrase “National League town” was not a marketing slogan. The fabric of this city was almost literally intertwined by the deep and abiding allegiances to and sometimes against the New York Giants and the Brooklyn Dodgers. To say their triumphs and heartbreaks represented life and death to millions of New Yorkers is to accurately state their impact on the pulse of a metropolis that was beating at its peak in the middle of the 20th century.

Those Giants and those Dodgers, no matter the westward direction their respective ownerships took, bequeathed a legacy of loyalty and passions to their successors, the New York Mets, and it is a legacy that the Mets, to this day, take very seriously. That is why we have invited back, to remove number 23 from the right field wall, the living embodiments of the twin traditions that gave way to this team and this ballpark.

One man threw a pitch. The other swung a bat. The result is talked about still, as is the friendship, the sportsmanship and the quality of the both of them as individuals. It is irony that the one who grew up rooting for the Giants would pitch for the Dodgers and that the one who grew up rooting for the Dodgers would hit for the Giants. That they would converge as they did on October 3, 1951 and create history that echoed from the green of the Polo Grounds to the field they take today to that which rises next door was, when all is said and done, a very good stroke of fortune for us all.

Ladies and gentlemen, the New York Mets are proud to welcome back to the National League town where both starred, the Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca and the Giant hitter Bobby Thomson.

Numbers 28-26 were revealed here.

What we wanted was Met domination — Pelfrey to somehow rise from the prospect-turned-suspect dead and show no rust after being a spectator for an entire road trip, Delgado to bang more homers off the scoreboard and fewer throws off Chase Utley, Jose Reyes to work counts and lace liners and race around second, Beltran and Wright to be Beltran and Wright, and Angel Pagan to keep being someone who bears no particular resemblance to the historical Angel Pagan. We wanted the Mets we loved in 2006 and the first two months of 2007, as opposed to the listless impostors who showed up for the last four months of 2007 and then reacquainted themselves with us at Shea yesterday by stumbling over their own feet. And we wanted it so badly that we were squeezing programs to pulp and beer bottles to metal shards and levitating our caps on little puffs of steam. The Phillies may or may not be in the Mets' heads, to revisit this morning's tedious newspaper theme, but there can be no doubt that they're in ours. After 45-odd years of scarcely noticing we shared a division with them, we now see them in every shadow. They're under our beds, in our closets, and the cops just called to say they've been phoning us from somewhere inside the house, asking if we've checked on the children.

AUUGGHHH!!! BEHIND YOU! PHILLIES!

What we wanted was for the Mets we used to know to show up, turn on the lights and demonstrate that there are no maroon-and-gray monsters in the closet. But dominance isn't like turning on a switch, and so not surprisingly we didn't get what we wanted.

But what we did get was probably what we needed: a laugher that was kind of on both of us.

What we got was a stupefying, goofy, doofy mess of a game — proof that the baseball gods are fickle and cruel but also downright weird. The way they tormented Pelfrey by asking him to get a key ground ball again. The way they tormented Kyle Kendrick by making an 0-2 count child's play and then shrinking the plate to the size of a postage stamp. The way they lit out after Eric Bruntlett like Furies for the crime of not being Jimmy Rollins. The Phillies played a horrible game, the kind of game that makes you grind your teeth and mutter that instead of kicking the other guy's teeth in and making a statement, your guys showed up in clown paint and fell down for a while and then crawled offstage. But we didn't exactly paint a masterpiece ourselves, not with Reyes heaving a ball over Easley's shoulder or the bases being left loaded repeatedly or Pelfrey following up admirable early innings with so-so middle innings that brought the bullpen in too early once again.

It was goofy and doofy and messy, but it was a win. So there! The Phillies' coach is so mad at them that he wouldn't take them to the Tastee-Freez, and our bus just zoomed by the Tastee-Freez without stopping, but at least we're getting to bounce on the seats and sing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” without getting yelled at. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we might win and not make lots of mistakes. And then I'm totally getting fudge and butterscotch and that weird pineapple stuff nobody gets. You just see if I won't.

28: Tuesday, August 5 vs Padres

Ladies and gentlemen, often this season as part of our Countdown Like It Oughta Be, we have saluted some very, very long nights in the history of Shea Stadium. It didn't get any longer or later, however, than it did on the night of September 11 — and the morning of September 12, 1974. Let's just say if you were here from first pitch to last pitch, you developed a new understanding of the phrase “in for the duration”.

Twenty-five innings played. Fifty players used. Seven hours and four minutes of action. Ten major league records set, including longest night game ever played. Approximately 1,500 fans in attendance when Sonny Siebert struck out John Milner to seal the 4-3 win for the Cardinals. Behind the plate for every ball and strike: umpire Ed Sudol, who officiated the Mets' 23-inning game here in 1964 and the 24-inning game they played in Houston in 1968.

And on Channel 9 after the game? Kiner's Korner, of course.

To remember the night Shea nearly greeted the sun, we've brought back a few old friends to remove number 28.

While Ed Sudol manned the plate, this longtime National League ump monitored the goings-on around third. Please welcome Frank Pulli.

A young man who collected a couple of hits that night…in eleven at-bats, more than anybody else. Say hi to Dave Schneck.

He made his Major League debut as a pinch-runner in this game and must have wondered, “Is it like this every night?” A real Shea fan favorite, Bruce Boisclair.

The Mets' pitcher of record, though I think we'd all agree it was wrong that anyone had to take a loss that night, welcome back Hank Webb.

The Cardinal who singled to lead off the 25th and scored on a pickoff throw that got away. He had a wonderful season and a wonderful career, Bake McBride.

And finally, the Mets reliever who came away with a no-decision but deserved something more for his eight innings of shutout relief, give your Shea Stadium best to Jerry Cram.

27: Wednesday, August 6 vs Padres

Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, to remove number 27 from the right field wall, we have an all-star team of sorts. The catch is they all play the same position.

By the time Shea Stadium opened in 1964, the legend of third base as the hottest of hot corners for the New York Mets had already taken root. It was a position that saw many occupants, but no owner. It would take a long time before there was genuine stability at third. Before then, there was many a Met to ply his trade and try his best. We have nine of them with us tonight.

He played 53 games at third base as a Met, including 28 in the opening year of Shea Stadium, say hi to Bobby Klaus.

Twelve games in 1967 added our next guest to the list, but no list of Mets third basemen would be complete without the name of Joe Moock.

From Westrum to Parker to Hodges, this infielder gave the Mets 54 games at third between 1967 and '68, how about a warm round of applause for Jerry Buchek?

He wasn't only from Brooklyn, he was the final Brooklyn Dodger to remain active in the big leagues, doing so as third baseman 97 times for the 1971 New York Mets. A big Shea Stadium welcome to Bob Aspromonte.

This next Met from the '70s played all over the infield and a little bit in the outfield. He made two tours of duty with the organization, manning third for 38 games in 1970 and '71, and eventually wound up with a well-earned World Series ring from the Pittsburgh Pirates. Say hello to Crazy Horse, Tim Foli.

One of the bright prospects from Tidewater in the mid-'70s, he was the Mets' third baseman on 142 separate occasions in 1975, 1976 and 1977. It's good to see Roy Staiger once more.

A utilityman of the most useful order, he gave manager Joe Torre 14 turns at third in '78 and '79. Every Mets fan from that era remembers Sergio Ferrer.

It was a brief but memorable tenure that this ex-Tiger established as a Met third baseman in 1980 and 1982. He played the hot corner 16 times as a Met, he's here tonight, he's Phil Mankowski.

And finally, the man who may have seemed just another in the long line of Met third basemen at the beginning, but he would grow into the first Mets third baseman to claim the position as his own for an extended period of time, paving the way for later, less roiled circumstances at third. He came up in late 1980, won Rookie of the Year votes in 1981 and was a key member of the Met renaissance of 1984. He left in a swap that benefited both teams but returned in the early '90s as an outfielder. Always loved at Shea Stadium, the third baseman in 516 games as a New York Met, welcome home Hubie Brooks.

26: Thursday, August 7 vs Padres

Imagine, ladies and gentlemen, you are inserted into a major league lineup. You're probably pretty happy about that. Except it's a day game in April and the shadows are a little unkind. Plus you're facing the hardest-throwing and best pitcher in all of baseball that afternoon. He's at the top of his game. It's a tall order.

It's one our guests today accepted. They didn't do so with the intention of being on the wrong side of history, but they undeniably became part of the record books at Shea Stadium on April 22, 1970. They faced the future Hall of Famer Tom Seaver. It was the first Earth Day. It was also Seaver's day. He tied a National League mark by compiling 19 strikeouts in nine innings and he set a major league record by striking out the last ten batters in order.

We have with us the eight surviving San Diego Padres who struck out in the sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth innings against Tom Terrific. For being such great sports and returning to the scene of that 2-1 Mets win from 38 years ago, Tom has graciously sent each man a case of fine wine from his California vineyard.

Raise a glass of your own, then, to these 1970 Padres who became a part of Shea Stadium lore:

• the great slugger who would go on to drive in 13 runs in a 1972 doubleheader, Nate Colbert

• a longtime ESPN baseball analyst, one of the best, Dave Campbell

• drafted by the Padres from the Mets in 1968 and the Mets' rightfielder a dozen years later, Jerry Morales

• the catcher Bob Barton

• pinch-hitter Ray Webster

• third baseman Van Kelly

• two-time world champion manager for the 1992 and '93 Toronto Blue Jays, Cito Gaston

And to take down number 26, the Brooklyn-born outfielder who may have struck out first and last among Tom' ten victims, but homered that afternoon, too. A real solid player for eight big league seasons, please welcome Al Ferrara.

Numbers 31-29 were revealed here.