31: Friday, July 26 vs Cardinals

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to 1986 Weekend at Shea Stadium. We are saluting the most recent world championship in Mets history between now and Sunday and we're asking some folks associated with that season to remember to remove the Shea Final Games Countdown numbers from the right field wall. It's appropriate that we bring some '86ers in here because this seasonlong tribute, after all, is the countdown like it oughta be.

If you needed to pinpoint when the buildup to 1986 began to take hold, you would have to look to 1984, the year the Mets shook off the dust of several consecutive second-division finishes and began to contend in earnest for the N.L. East crown. That was when Shea Stadium began to shake, too, with the fierce belief by Mets fans that this team was going somewhere.

Nobody represented the crossroads of hope in the stands and the inspiration for it on the field like three young men who decided to express their belief one letter at a time. That letter was a K and their place was the left field corner from which they waved their Ks — much as National League batters waved at the pitches that resulted in K after K in 1984.

The guys who founded the K Korner are here tonight: Dennis Scalzitti, Bob Belle and Neil Kenny. And joining them to remove number 31…who else but the pitcher who kept them so busy by hanging his shingle out at Shea that summer and for a decade after that, Doctor K himself? Welcome back to Shea Stadium the 1984 National League Rookie of the Year, the 1985 National League Cy Young Award winner and the ace of those 1986 World Champion New York Mets, Dwight Gooden.

30: Saturday, July 27 vs Cardinals

Ladies and gentlemen, many were the hands that contributed to building a world champion at Shea Stadium in 1986, but no two pair of them were steadier than those that built the team and those that guided it.

To remove number 30, we welcome home two gentlemen who came from Baltimore, saw what Shea Stadium could be like when a World Series was won here in 1969 and decided to try it for themselves 17 years later. The general manager of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets, Frank Cashen and the manager of the 1986 World Champion New York Mets, Davey Johnson.

29: Sunday, July 26 vs Cardinals

We are excited, ladies and gentlemen, to be joined by a group of Mets who contributed to one of the two greatest achievements in club history. They were and will forever be champions…1986 World Champion New York Mets. A few of their teammates have come home to Shea this season and removed ceremonial numbers from the right field wall, and we have a hunch that a few more will make it back here before 2008 is out.

Tonight, we have ten men who proudly wear the rings they earned 22 Octobers ago.

The clutch-hitting backup catcher on the '86 Mets, say hello to old friend Ed Hearn.

A ten-game winner during the regular season, he is the pitcher of record on the winning side in the most famous game in Mets history, Game Six of the 1986 World Series, Rick Aguilera.

His walkoff, extra-inning grand slam home run electrified Shea Stadium on June 10. He would go on to homer in the World Series, too: Tim Teufel.

As sound defensively as they came at short, a fixture in the infield on those great Mets teams of the '80s, please welcome back Rafael Santana.

A rookie in 1986, he played with the steely nerve of a veteran when it counted most. Raise your cup and show your support for the man they called World, Kevin Mitchell.

No lefty was a tougher assignment for National League hitters in 1986 or, as he proved in October, that postseason. An 18-game winner for the world champs, ladies and gentlemen, Bobby Ojeda.

You know his voice now. You knew his right arm then, and was it ever right, to the tune of 15-regular season wins and two terrific outings in the World Series. Direct from the SNY booth, say hi to Ron Darling.

He was an All-Star starting pitcher in 1986, but it was in a World Series relief role that he truly earned his Met stripes for all time. His middle-innings appearance changed the tide of the seventh game and set the stage for the second world championship in Mets history. All the way from Hawaii, please welcome Sid Fernandez.

Nobody was grittier, nobody was guttier and, for that matter, nobody among the regulars had a higher batting average in 1986 than the second baseman from your World Champion Mets. Give it up for him as he always did for you…Wally Backman.

And finally, to remove number 29, he was the third baseman on those 1986 New York Mets, he was the comeback player of the year in the National League and he demonstrated some of the greatest never-say-die determination baseball has ever seen. The Most Valuable Player of the 1986 World Series, returning to Shea Stadium as a Met for the first time since the night of October 27, 1986, please give your warmest home-team welcome to Ray Knight.

Numbers 34-32 were revealed here.

At week's beginning, I questioned the efficacy of the Mets “watch parties” promoted by bars here and there. Well, I just came home from one and have to say they can be plenty of fun.

They give you something to do while the Mets aren't scoring.

The occasion was the launch of everybody's favorite book — surely it will be yours if you purchase a copy — Mets By The Numbers. Authors Jon Springer and Matt Silverman were there along with several members of the MBTN community who double as friends of FAFIF. A good time was had by all who weren't paying close attention to what was transpiring in Atlanta.

Which was absolutely nothing, save for the valiant, unsupported pitching of Johan Santana who must not have heard this is how we treat our aces.

Because I was deep into chicken wings and conversation, I didn't get a good look at John Smoltz, though after two decades, I think I've seen all I ever need to see of that mangy old goat. Baseball-Reference says Smoltz is a few games over .500 versus the Mets. I'm sure he's 500 games over and maybe we've won a few. It always looks worse when you're 2-3 in your bounceback season, but man did the Mets do anything today other than inspire us to order another round of Black & Tans?

The Braves aren't The Braves anymore, but they're still the Braves. I hope I've made myself clear. If I haven't, this is sort of what I mean: When the Mets go out and make a move, even a really good move, the Braves go out and match or trump it.

• In the winter of '02, as we're high-fiving over the imminent contributions of Robbie Alomar and Mo Vaughn, they get Gary Sheffield.

• Three years later, as we are ascending the ranks thanks to Pedro Martinez and Carlos Beltran, they manage to come up with Tim Hudson.

• Last summer, moderately jubilant that we have secured the pennant drive aid of Luis Castillo, they go out and grab Mark Teixeira, who was re-signed in January for exactly one year (whereas, as my partner so accurately put it, we filled a firehose with money and blasted Luis green in the face).

This offseason, the offseason of Santana, the Braves didn't match Johan. You don't match Johan. It was all they could do to replace Andruw Jones with Mark Kotsay. But they keep reviving bleeping John Smoltz. John Smoltz won't age. John Smoltz won't fall to pieces. Every series you turn around, John Smoltz is waiting to face the Mets. This was his 69th appearance lifetime against us, his 41st start. Both are career highs. His first start was at Shea Stadium in 1988, back when Rick Astley was riding high and the Soviet Union was at least riding. He won then, he wins now. He will, nuts to the knots behind his shoulder, keep winning against the Mets at Turner Field, at Citi Field, at whatever succeeds Citi Field. The John Smoltz Memorial Classic they'll call it. Buy a brick before they're all gone.

When it comes to pitching, John Smoltz knows his onions.

On our side of the fence, the Mets clearly aren't clicking, save for Santana and Church. Let's hope they can resist the pull of their new teammates and their old karma. It's already begun to suck Schneider and Pagan into that stale and dismal vortex that seems unchanged from last September, the one that makes you forget we're only five games into 2008. Funny, I thought that's what the Black & Tans were for.

34: Tuesday, July 22 vs. Phillies

Ladies and gentlemen, the unofficial motto of Shea Stadium for much of its life has been You Gotta Believe. How appropriate then that a man who inspired belief worldwide stepped into this ballpark on an autumn day in 1979 and brought with him, as he put it, “a message of faith and love.”

That man was Poland's Karol Wojtyla, known far and wide from 1978 until his death in 2005 as Pope John Paul II. He came to Shea Stadium in the second year of his papacy, acknowledging “the special character of this metropolis” and urging a predominantly youthful audience that “a city needs a soul if it is to become a true home for human beings.” Whatever your faith, it's a message for all New Yorkers to live by.

As we begin the second half of our final season in this ballpark, we remember the historic visit of the Holy Father to Shea Stadium on October 3, 1979. To commemorate it, we are honored to be joined by New York's Edward Cardinal Egan, who will remove number 34 from the right field wall.

33: Wednesday, July 23 vs Phillies

Ladies and gentlemen, from now until there is no more Shea Stadium, baseball will be the only order of business on this site. But as many of you know, last week Shea demonstrated more of its multipurpose versatility. Put more specifically, it showed one final time that this house knows how to rock.

The Who. The Police. Simon & Garfunkel. Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band. Elton John. Eric Clapton. Janis Joplin. Jethro Tull. Grand Funk Railroad. The Rolling Stones. And finally, Billy Joel. These were the headliners who made musical history at Shea Stadium these past four decades.

But before them, there was one act. And everybody who has ever played Shea Stadium bows to them and their impact on music.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done, nothing you can sing that can't be sung and nothing you can say except…the Beatles.

To take down number 33, ladies and gentlemen, Shea Stadium is proud to present, as it did in 1965 and 1966, Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney.

32: Thursday, July 24 vs Phillies

As a pitcher's park, ladies and gentlemen, Shea Stadium will never be mistaken for a seat of power, but it has had a longstanding relationship with those who have resided in America's most famous seat of power. This afternoon we wish to recall those White House denizens who graced Shea with their presence.

During the 1969 World Series, the Mets were proud to welcome two New Yorkers in particular, the former first lady of the United States and her eight-year-old son. To represent the memory of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and John F. Kennedy, Jr., we welcome the daughter of the 35th president of the United States, Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg.

In the late 1980s, after settling in the New York metropolitan area, this former president was a regular visitor to Shea Stadium. Sports had always been one of his passions and he held a particular fondness for baseball. To represent the memory of Richard M. Nixon, we welcome the son-in-law of the 37th president of the United States, Edward Cox.

Joining our special guests in removing number 32 from the right field wall, we have the man who threw out the first ball of the season in 1971 when he was the United States' ambassador to the United Nations — at the time, his uncle G. Herbert Walker was on the Mets' board of directors — and again in 1985 when he served as vice president of the United States. He would go on to the presidency and still knows some people in the White House. Ladies and gentlemen, the 41st president of the United States, George Herbert Walker Bush.

And to make it a truly federal fab four, we welcome the only sitting president who ever visited Shea Stadium. He was with us the night Jackie Robinson's 42 was retired throughout baseball and he has been back from time to time since taking up residency in Chappaqua. Ladies and gentlemen, the 42nd president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Numbers 40-35 were revealed here.

I don't know what the heck a rulebook expert like Bobby Valentine would have made out of what just happened in Atlanta. I don't know what the rulebook even says regarding a mess like that. But sometimes the best thing to do is put the rulebook aside and work it out like 12-year-olds would have — eventually — on the sandlot.

Which is what — eventually — happened.

1. OK, the ball was trapped. Bad call by Bruce Dreckman.

2. OK, Angel Pagan clearly passed Ryan Church on his way to a cancelled rendezvous between his foot and home plate.

3. OK, but Church had to stop and tag up once Dreckman's fist went up. He can't first assess whether random baserunners are speeding past his position.

And so … you could … but then again … and how about … You know what? Atlanta, get back on the field. Met runners, come here. Not you, Church — you go home. Pagan, you go stand on third. And we're not gonna talk about it anymore. Play ball already. I SAID WE'RE NOT GONNA TALK ABOUT IT ANYMORE!

You know what? Fair enough.

I'm only left with one question: Why do you never see both managers talking something over with the umpires? Would Cox and Randolph automatically start spitting on each other or come to blows? Aren't the arguments they'll make the same whether or not the other guy's in attendance? And isn't the explanation the same for both of them?

Ah, the mysteries of baseball.

Update: Tomorrow's Santana-Smoltz, shades of Pedro-Smoltz three years ago. All I'd like to commit to memory about today's crapfest is the promise of the game coming tomorrow, which I suppose kind of says it all.

Last night, en route to the rainout, Kevin Burkhardt interviewed T#m Gl@v!ne. It wasn't to check in on the wife and kids.

The transaction was predictable. Kevin, who I think does a very good job making something out of what could be a very superfluous role, tossed him an “I have to ask you this” softball about the inglorious end of his mixed-bag Mets career. Gl@v!ne spun into damage control mode with all the aplomb of a Mitt Romney or a Joe Biden demonstrating the kind of political skills that got each of them so far in his respective presidential bids.

Paraphrasing, Gl@v!ne said people were upset with him because he didn't say he was devastated…and reminded us that he and Christine have been busy fighting the scourge of childhood cancer and he understands what real devastation is, but sure he was upset, it was a lousy start, he couldn't sleep.

Thanks for clearing that up, big guy.

Burkhardt's question was a little awkward, making it sound as if millions of us had asked ourselves last September 30, “gee, do ya think T#m is devastated?” when in reality it was Gl@v!ne himself who introduced the d-word into the Met lexicon. We didn't care that you didn't say you were devastated. We were annoyed, maybe more than annoyed on top of how livid we were over your crappy pitching, that you said you weren't devastated. It's not a fine difference.

Once a person has casually brought up his admirable work on behalf of aiding the youngest victims of a terrible disease, he makes us look small for questioning any of what we perceive as his shortcomings in something so silly (yet strangely so lucrative) as baseball and its attendant reactions. But we're not biting. You say you didn't sleep much after that final game? Welcome to the rest of us, T#m. We have families. We have concerns. We — surprise, surprise — have lives outside the Mets. Yet we were whatever it was you said you didn't say you were. And we weren't compensated lavishly for any of it.

Old news, old wounds at this point. My only real interest in invoking Gl@v!ne these days is to hope Johan Santana devastates him and his teammates Sunday afternoon. Still, with Friday night rain having given me the void in which to contemplate it clear into Saturday morning, I do wonder if it could have been different there at the finish.

How?

Alternate History 1:

We write of him something like…

You can't blame Glavine for this. Maybe for the two previous starts, but he came through like the pro and the Hall of Famer he is Sunday and I appreciate him more now than I did when he won his 300th, when he beat the Dodgers and Cardinals last fall. Yes, his two previous starts were killers, but whatever happens now — even if he returns to, yeech, Atlanta — we and he can go in peace. It hasn't been for naught.

Alternate History 2:

We write of him something like…

So that's why we signed Tom Glavine a half-decade ago. So that's why you invest in two Cy Youngs and 242 career wins. So that's why you cast aside a generation of enmity and hand someone like that the ball every five days for five years. So that's why we're going to Philadelphia Monday afternoon for a one-game playoff. So that's why so many of us were wrong about this man.

Alternate History 3:

We write of him something like…

Glavine sucked, but at least owned up to it. Geez, I didn't think anybody could look worse than I feel right now, but he appears to have taken this debacle pretty hard. I don't know that it helps matters — no, actually, I do; it doesn't — but as a footnote, it doesn't hurt to know that at least one of these players understands the dimensions of a disaster like this. It's almost like Tom is bearing the burden for the rest of us. Maybe he wasn't Manchurian after all.

There are better things worth imagining.