TBS' postgame show will be presented by Captain Morgan Rum. What a coincidence. So is my week.

As the Phillies and Rockies prepared to kick off (take Colorado +3), I found one thing to take solace in. And it's a reach, but what the hell — it's not like I'm reaching into my pocket for Game One tickets.

At the All-Star Break, which is one of those junctures you're supposed to look at for who's leading and where they'll wind up, the four National League representatives to the 2007 postseason were set to be the Mets, the Brewers, the Padres and the Dodgers. I'm sure there were Power Rankings backing up that likelihood. For that matter, the Tigers looked like a lock in the A.L.

The teams that usurped the places of those teams were only marginally on the radar. The Diamondbacks were 3-1/2 out in the West. The Cubs were 4-1/2 out in the Central, one game over .500. The Phillies were the same length back in the East and at .500, behind us and the Braves. The Rockies were four from the Wild Card and also at .500. And in the American League, the Yankees were .500 and eight out of the Wild Card.

No, this does not make anybody feel better but there is a nugget of evidence that we are not alone in being on the outside looking in this week after thinking otherwise.

Maybe we can round up the not-quites and set up a tournament.

Getting more rest, at least. I drifted off while watching Baseball Tonight after midnight, but stirred long enough to see they were counting down the ten biggest moments of the year. Too groggy to follow the numerical narrative, I saw Matt Holliday sort of crossing home plate and figured it was No. 1. Next thing I heard was “greatest collapse in September baseball history” and thought, no, don't tell me…turns out we were only the No. 2 story of the year.

Never thought I'd say this, but thank heavens for Barry Bonds.

So, did watching the Cardinals accept their World Series rings inspire the Mets or what?

Finally, happy 56th anniversary to the Shot Heard 'Round the World. Next time ownership decides to model our team on one of its predecessors, can we look a little to the one that didn't blow a 13-1/2 game lead for inspiration?

Did you know the National League season just ended like half-an-hour ago? Yes, that was the Rockies and Padres pre-empting Family Guy on TBS. And it was quite a game.

Didn't watch every pitch of it (Stephanie was shocked that I wanted to watch any of it after my nonstop despondency since 4:30 PM Sunday), but found the back-and-forth fascinating. It was 6-6 through 12, when ex-Met Clint Hurdle sent ex-Met Jorge Julio into pitch and make it 8-6. But those indefatigable Rockies, on a leadoff double by ex-Met Kaz Matsui (whom I urged on vociferously, to my genuine surprise), tied that bad boy in no time off the Julioesque Trevor Hoffman (does he ever get a big save?). Troy Tulowitzki doubled home Kaz; then Matt Holliday, a more authentic MVP candidate than anybody in Queens, sadly, tripled home Tulowitzki. Helton was intentionally walked so Trevor could face Jamey Carroll, ex-Expo whom I always dreaded. Carroll was batting behind Helton because Hurdle pinch-ran him for Garrett Atkins; I missed that when it happened, but it didn't seem like a great idea in the 13th. But Carroll lined it to Brian Giles in medium-deep right and Giles, a good arm, fired home.

Michael Barrett, yet another ex-Expo who drove me nuts, blocked the plate beautifully. Holliday tried to slide to the outer edge of the plate but didn't touch it. Yet Barrett didn't handle the ball and Tim McClelland seemed more flummoxed than usual. The ball rolled around behind the plate while Holliday bloodied his face in the dirt. Barrett ran to pick up the ball and tag the dazed Holliday, but McClelland, after about an eternity, called him safe and the Wild Card belonged to Colorado, 9-8.

No argument from the Padres. Too crazy around the plate: Rockies descending on Holliday; trainer tending to his face (at first, Matt didn't get up, but he walked away all right); t-shirts and caps distributed. TBS did a lousy job of covering the moment of truth but offered the angles eventually.

Not sure if it was a great game, but it was a long one. And it felt, I don't know, fun to watch without the weight of worry that had attached itself to everything I had my eye on for the last couple of weeks. I'm sorry the Rockies aren't next flying to New York instead of Philadelphia, but I think I might actually look in on these playoffs sooner than I'd planned. I didn't think I was going to want to watch any of them.

There are teams I like a little in this postseason and some teams of whom I'm not fond. But I don't have a favorite and I'm really not in a mood to root against. Let's Go Baseball, I guess.

When it was over, when the disaster was complete, Joshua began to cry. That's the thing about being four — up until the third strike on Castillo, he really believed the Mets were going to win. It didn't matter that the Nationals were down 6-1 with two out in the ninth. He believed in them, too. When both of those beliefs were revealed as fantasies, he was genuinely astonished and grief-stricken.

I scooped him up and patted the back of his WRIGHT 5 shirt and said fatherly things. I told him that there were little kids and Moms and Dads who are Phillie fans who are really happy right now. (There are. It's true. I even know some of them.) I told him that in order to have miracles, you have to accept the possibility of disasters. I told him that this was the worst thing that had ever happened to a team in September, which meant he'll probably go his entire lifetime without another death spiral like this one. I tried to tell him that there was still baseball to watch, that it might be fun to root the Phillies or the Cubs or the Indians on to a championship.

It occurred to me, halfway through, that I might really be trying to comfort myself. But that wasn't it. Because I was OK.

No, I'm serious. I really was.

And coming from someone as fanatical as me, that should stand as one of the ultimate indictments of the 2007 New York Mets.

This isn't to say I was happy. By 12:15 I was losing track of conversations and spacing out, aware that game time was near and I had to get myself home. As Glavine neared fatal impact, I was unmanned by rage and unleashed a torrent of words not acceptable in our household. (Joshua: “Daddy, please don't say bad words.” Followed, moments later, by “this is the worstest game ever!”) When Ramon Castro lowered his hand, triumph derailed, I let out a scream of torment.

But after that, I was calm. Unhappy, but calm. The Mets lost. I watched the fans stare at the field and listened to Gary and Ron and Keith prattle on about the crew until word came that the Nationals had lost. And then I got on with my day.

I never liked this team. Early on, when they were ahead of last year's pace, I was vaguely embarrassed by this. Like a lot of us, I found myself groping for explanations, and worrying about why they left me cold. Was this the ugly side of raised expectations? Of the first stages of hegemony? Was this how being a Yankee fan began? What wasn't to like?

But I struggled to warm to them during the spring, and when they stumbled through the summer I stopped fighting it. I let a bit of hard-earned cynicism take over, dissecting fandom like social scientists examine human attachment. I told myself that when they made the playoffs, I'd find myself liking them just fine. But then the second half of September came, with the second horrible body blow administered by the Phillies, the inept handling of the pitching staff, the idiotic displays of temper, and the repeated assheaded baseball. And finally, those horrifying quotes by Delgado and Glavine and Pedro, the astonishing admissions that yeah, the team was bored and complacent. That right there was the end of the pretending that I would change my mind.

And that, oddly, made the rest easier. I will always love the 1985, 1999 and 2006 teams, despite the fact that they never won titles. I was never going to like this one, even if it wound up rolling down the Canyon of Heroes. (Maybe that's a massive rationalization. I wouldn't know — until now, I hadn't had any experience analyzing my feelings after the worst collapse in major-league history.) The 2007 Mets were the smug, self-satisfied hare to the tortoises of Philadelphia and San Diego and Colorado. Badly constructed and badly led, in the end they got exactly what they deserved.

After it was over, Emily and I watched in bewilderment as a few stubborn fans remained behind the dugout. What could they possibly be waiting for? I actually hoped they wanted stuff to sell on eBay, because the alternative was so pathetic: At the conclusion of this self-inflicted disaster, who would want to lay eyes on a single member of this band of choking loafers or their bloodless, self-deluding leadership?

There were fans crying after that third out. I cried last year, but why would I shed a tear for this team? For whom, exactly? For Tom Glavine, now undressed and revealed as the Frank Viola of his Met generation? For Willie Randolph, who never stopped issuing pronouncements about winners from the mountaintop while his team died in the valley? For Jose Reyes, regressing before our eyes as a ballplayer? For Billy Wagner, running his mouth and then trying to weasel out of his own words? For Lastings Milledge, jogging after balls with the season hanging by a thread? Those crying fans had never been complacent or bored. They hadn't decided they were such good fans that they could start caring when they needed to. In the end, they cared far more than those to whom they'd entrusted their hopes.

There are 2007 Mets I never want to see again. There are others I'll forgive and find myself cheering for with all the wild hope of fandom. But I didn't want to see any of them after that final out. I didn't even want to think about them. I know that will change, but I can't tell you when it will be. And yet those fans waited behind the dugout, the stadium emptying around them, the season dead. Why would they possibly want these Mets to return?

And finally I thought of something.

“Maybe,” I said to Emily, “they've filled their pockets with rocks.”

First pitch minutes away. But there's always time for a good show tune*…

Join us

Our way

Let's Go Mets. Let's Go Nats.

*Pippin was advertised incessantly on local TV in September and October 1973 in a commercial much like this one. You Gotta Believe in timing.

All right brain, you don't like me, and I don't like you. But let's just get me through this and I can get back to killing you with beer.

Tom, we've had a strange relationship for five seasons. I made no secret that I never wanted you to be a Met and you always gave me the impression that the car to take you to the Delta terminal was idling out front. But you stayed and I learned to respect you. I celebrated your 300th victory along with everybody else, and when — on that day they gave you 300 golf balls — you said you understood how we had felt about you because you had felt the same about us, I found myself truly liking you for the first time.

So we're in this together, you and me. I know you're a cool, calm customer, I know you've pitched World Series games and won them. I know you pitched some big playoff games right here last year.

This is bigger than all that. This may be the last time you pitch for us. It's surely the first time I've felt you're pitching for me. There is no distance between us any longer. You're my favorite Met today. You're my man.

Go pitch the way Tom Glavine can. Do it for us one more time. Do it for me this once. If other occasions arrive in the near future, we'll deal with them then, but for now, there is only today. There is only you. You and me, Tom. We can do this.

Let's Go Mets. Let's Go Nats.