“I see great things in baseball. It's our game — the American game. It will repair our losses and be a blessing to us.”

Walt Whitman may have said that (more likely he didn't), but then he never saw tonight's game. Because that was one of the purest forms of excruciation I've ever spent nearly three hours enduring while thinking I was doing something I loved.

When did it all go wrong? When we took the field, more or less.

Maybe it was when Reyes got picked off for the first time, sending the bird that is hope smashing into the plate-glass window that is same old, same old. (Joshua, always optimistic, chirped that “now he has time to rest!”)

When we let ancient Jamie Moyer wriggle free.

When Jimmy Rollins continued to back up his big talk by lasering a home run off Oliver Perez.

When Pat the Bat nearly hit the upper deck. (I'll say one thing for the Phillies, who deserve to have many things said for them in this series, however grudgingly and through gritted teeth: They're not hitting cheap Citizens Bank home runs off us so far.)

When Oliver hit two lasers in a row and the second one turned into a double play.

When Nunez erased a Luis Castillo double for the first time.

When Wright got rung up and another umpire went on the Enemies List.

When Nunez did it to Castillo again.

When Oliver kept catching Lo Duca's throws with his bare hand. (Don't do that. I mean, Jesus!)

When Reyes got picked off again.

When Beltran got under a fat pitch from Tom Gordon.

When Alou hit into a double play.

When Ron Darling inexplicably volunteered that he'd been to the Ziegfield in college to see “The Rose” because it had a great sound system, leaving the booth speechless.

I mean, how many ways could we be tormented in this game? How many ways could we be injured and outraged before being dispatched?

Well, one more than even I expected. In the ninth, Delgado battled bravely, but I kept waiting for Myers to pull out that curveball, and he finally did. But then Lo Duca got on, Endy got ready, and Marlon Anderson smacked a ball up the gap that Shane Victorino (whom I respect and admire and never, ever want to see again) somehow cut off. I wasn't convinced. In fact, I told Emily Shawn Green would hit into a double play, which was an expression of grim certainty and not a clumsy attempt at a reverse jinx, though I would have taken it.

And Green did. But goodness knows not in the way any of us could have dreamed. An obstruction call? Really? On Anderson, a veteran added for his intangibles? When the obstruction WASN'T NECESSARY BECAUSE GREEN WAS GOING TO BE SAFE AND THE RUN WAS GOING TO SCORE?

No, I never dreamed of that one.

(Outraged sputtering aside, I can't fault the call. I know Anderson could reach second, contrary to what Joe West said later, but that was a Wrestlemania two-handed slap. I've seen hard slides and slides out of the baseline, but not too many of those. Once I calmed down from magma to boiling, I watched the replay and found myself thinking, You Can't Do That.)

And anyway, I'm bitter enough. A seven-game lead down to three, the Phillies looking nothing like the Phillies we've come to know and scorn, too much road trip still ahead, the offense missing, the bullpen in tatters and the magic number too large to not easily turn tragic. My plate is full.

Perceptions are tough to shake. For example, last month in San Diego it was noted that Jose Reyes and David Wright had paired to become the Mets' all-time leaders in starting together at short and third with 395 such games in the lineup since 2004. My first thought was “somebody keeps track of that?” My second thought was “nah, no way!” I grew up watching Buddy Harrelson and Wayne Garrett start practically every game at short and third for like eight years. No way they didn't play like a thousand games together!

Of course the Mets were always acquiring somebody to take Wayne's place: Foy, Aspromonte, Fregosi, Torre. And Buddy always did seem to be on the disabled list. But still, c'mon! Buddy at short. Wayne at third. They formed a combination that was as much a staple of my childhood as canned ravioli and Chinese noodles.

Buddy and Wayne, fewer than 400 games together? Impossible. And even more impossible? Learning that Jose and David weren't breaking their record, but that of Kevin Elster and Howard Johnson. Elster and Johnson? For some reason, they wouldn't have even occurred to me as being in the top three — what about Rey-Rey and Fonzie? They were broken up on the left side by the arrival of Ventura, but they had to be second, right? Reyes and Wright have a long way to go. I'm sure of it.

Don't be so sure. I did a little digging and discovered that Ordoñez and Alfonzo played only 350 games together as shortstop and third baseman. Elster and HoJo outpaced them by 44 games for the then-record 394. And my boys of every summer I could remember between 1969 and 1976, Bud Harrelson and Red Garrett?

Only 387 games started as shortstop and third base in tandem. Only 44 games in 1969. Only 77 games in the nearly as magical season of 1973. Only six games together in 1975. Never as many as half the games in any one season. Buddy Harrelson and Wayne Garrett, for all my perceptions of them as the eternal left side of the infield of my youth, did not play side by side at their trademark positions all that much.

So some perceptions crumble in the face of statistics. Others, like last night's twin reminder that Guillermo Mota and Armando Benitez always blow games, are probably immune to numbers. I could show you boxscores from 2006 wherein Mota was a positive difference-maker for the Mets and I could easily point to stretches from 1999 to 2003 when Benitez was as effective as any reliever in the sport. You, like I, wouldn't care at this point. We know they suck. We don't need confirmation that they don't. It's not going to change our minds.

Which brings me to one of the bête noires of my life as a fan: Jerry Martin.

Not J.C. Martin whose magical wrist stuck out from the baseline just enough to clinch Game Four against the Orioles. Not Billy Martin who looked so sad despite have just won the 1977 World Series (though maybe that was an actor with fake ears). This was Jerry Martin, a player for whom the term “nondescript” was conceived.

Jerry Martin played the outfield in the major leagues between 1974 and 1984 for five different clubs, including the Phillies' perennial division champs of the late '70s. He was a fourth outfielder for them, a starter with decent power on some bad Cubs clubs thereafter. He was of no interest to me whatsoever until his surfaced surprisingly on the Mets in the middle of May 1984.

It was a surprise to me, anyway. That was the year things were going so well while I was so far away from the Mets. I was at school in Tampa until mid-July. Not nearly as on top of the Tidewater Shuttle as I would have liked to have been, I didn't notice we had brought Martin in during Spring Training (even though I was close to Spring Training by being in Tampa). I must have missed his signing in the Transactions agate of The Sporting News the week in March that it happened. But I've generally given the benefit of the doubt to fringe players I've at least heard of, so if Jerry Martin was going to come to the Mets and help us continue our surprise run at first place, well, good luck to him, good luck to us.

'Cause we'd need it.

In short order, Jerry Martin would become my bane. You know the way you see Mota or saw Benitez and you groan or groaned a thousand groans? That was me and Martin — at least that's how I remember it. If Jerry Martin was batting, a popup was sure to follow. Jerry Martin plate appearances were where rallies went to die.

Having emerged from the dark ages of 1977-1983, you'd think there must have been dozens of Mets like that. I suppose there were, but how were you going to tell them apart? When you suck en masse, you don't stand out. When you suck alone, you're sucking for everyone to see.

Jerry Martin really sucked. Amid the promise of Strawberry and the incandescence of Hernandez and the otherworldliness of Gooden and all the spit and vinegar provided by Darling and Backman and Wilson and Orosco and pre-deterioration Doug Sisk, Jerry Martin was the sorest of thumbs on the glorious hand of the 1984 Mets. When we were holding first place, it didn't matter all that much. When it was slipping from our grip, I decided it was all Jerry Martin's fault.

Ryne Sandberg's, too, a little, but mostly Jerry Martin.

Jerry Martin wasn't Bob Bailor, my favorite post-Teddy Martinez, pre-Joe McEwing utilityman. Bailor went with Carlos Diaz to the Dodgers for El Sid and Ross Jones. People will tell you the Mets stole Sid Fernandez. I say it was equal value. Had Bailor remained on the '84 Mets, there would have been no Jerry Martin, there would have been no devastation by the Cubs, there would have been Miracle on 126th St., Part II. I can't prove it, I just know it.

Jerry Martin was Davey Johnson's old teammate. His old drinking buddy, I assumed. If Jerry and Davey hadn't been pals in Philly, why would have we signed him, why would have we given so many opportunities to screw us over? I can't prove it, I just know it as well.

I can prove this, however: Jerry Martin was completely unproductive. Completely. Well, not completely completely, because the record indicates Jerry Martin hit three home runs as a 1984 Met and in those three games, the Mets were 3-0.

The rest of the time? In the wake of last night's Mota show (we used to call such things horror shows but that was deemed redundant), I was drawn into a discussion of which Mets have driven you crazy just by their mere sight. The easy answer to such an exercise is always Mel Rojas, which seems both accurate and just a little cruel given that Rojas' awfulness has been cited so frequently that it's practically in tatters; I think Mota is here just so we'll have a different setup man to instantly put down. Somebody else then brought up Jerry Martin and I got rallykilling chills up and down my spine all over again.

But, y'know, I was so sure that Buddy Harrelson and Wayne Garrett played together at short and third so much, it seemed only fair to look up whether Jerry Martin was as bad as I remembered.

So I did. And he was.

According to the indispensable Baseball-Reference.com, Jerry Martin in 1984:

• went 3 for 24 with two walks, 13 strikeouts and two double plays grounded into as a pinch-hitter;

• went 2 for 23 with two walks, seven strikeouts and three double plays grounded into with runners in scoring position;

• and went 1 for 19 in “late & close” situations, walking twice, striking out eight times and grounding into three double plays in the seventh inning later with the Mets tied, up by one or the tying run at least on deck.

Presumably some of these plate appearances came as a pinch-hitter with runners on base in late & close situations, so there's bound to be some repetition in the futility, but that's all right. With Jerry Martin in 1984, I was pretty sure there was nothing but repetition and futility. And now I'm certain.

I've also been reminded that Jerry Martin was part of the group of Kansas City Royals who went through the ignominy of being outed as drug users in 1983, actually doing time for trying to buy coke. I'd completely forgotten that, and perhaps there is something to be said for an old friend, in this case Davey Johnson, giving another old friend a break (his last chance in the bigs, it would turn out). And I'm by no means suggesting that Jerry Martin was a bad person or is a bad person. I don't know what kind of person he is in 2007. I do know he was an immensely ineffective New York Met in 1984 — 3-5-.154 — right at the moment when we needed optimal effectiveness to succeed to our fullest blossoming potential. Amid a franchise whose history is chock full of immense ineffectiveness, he really stands out for that.

That said, he could probably hit Mota's fastball.

Gosh, didn't see that coming.

To borrow an observation from last week's Mad Men, watching Guillermo Mota set down the Phillies 1-2-3 in the ninth was like watching a dog play the piano. It was very impressive. And you knew he was highly unlikely to do it again.

Mets aren't hitting anymore, are they? For a while they had one scalding hot batter at a time — first Alou, then Beltran, then Wright. I kept thinking “if they could just get those guys to do it at the same time…” Instead everybody got together and went quiet. Reyes, too.

It's tempting to say games like tonight always happen to the Mets at the Cit as they always seemed to at the Vet, even if I know it's untrue. Yet the Mets played a virtual prototype of this game last May, including Heilman giving up a key run on a ball that didn't reach the mound. It feels very familiar. Hauntingly so. Maybe it was just one of the 54 you're gonna lose, though at this stage of the season, it's a little late to accept blows like tonight's.

Armando didn't kill the Marlins. They beat the Braves. They remain just close enough to merit concern. The Phillies are either charging or peaking. I'm not yet certain, but I'm certain they're making it hard (maybe it's supposed to be hard, but it's not supposed to be obnoxiously so). I'd rather be four up than four back. But I'd rather be six up. I'd rather Glavine had pitched the eighth. I'd rather Guillermo Mota had been suspended for 50 years, not 50 games.

You can't always get what you want.

How does Armando Benitez continue to stay employed as a relief pitcher?

It may not matter in the long term as in the race at hand. It may not even matter in the short term for tonight. But how does a manager, in this case Fredi Gonzalez, use Armando Benitez in any kind of competitive baseball situation?

I turn on the Braves and Marlins. Florida's up 3-1 in the eighth. Great, I think. Armando's pitching. Uh-oh. One on. Oh dear. Chipper Larry is at bat. No…

3-3.

Let's forget the Braves being six games behind the Mets and that the Mets were beating the Phillies and all extraneous matters of self-interest. I just wanna know why, why, WHY Gonzalez would allow a matchup between Benitez and someone who is so FUCKING OBVIOUSLY going to kick his ass?

We could have had this discussion in 2001 (and I would have found a way to have propped up Benitez because I was never one of his dedicated antagonists). But in 2007? When, if I may use exaggeration to make a point, HE ALWAYS FUCKING DOES THIS?

Don't the Marlins get the same scouting reports as everyone else?

ADDENDUM: I'm not too fond of Aaron Rowand either.

It should be hard. I like that it's hard.

—Matt Kelley to Toby Ziegler, “Twenty Hours in America,” The West Wing

The brand spankin' new vibe around the Mets after months of stick-in-the-muddiness is because their lead quietly ballooned to seven satisfying games over the weekend, the race is over and won. I've seen columns that have all but placed the “x” next to our name in the standings. I've heard TV commentators who haven't given us all that much respect for months pencil the Mets in as division champs. There's way less worry in the air than there was a few weeks ago.

Since we were unofficially declared to have accomplished our mission, the lead has inched downward to five. I'd prefer it be nine, but y'know what? Fine that it's five if it has to be five.

It's a division title. It should be hard. I like that it's hard.

I'm going to remember this season, by gum. I'm going to remember how hard it was. I'm going to remember that August bumped up against September and we were still getting all our Pedro Martinez updates from the Florida State League. I'm going to remember that heretofore barely known and lightly considered quantities like Chan Ho Park and Jason Vargas and Lawrence of Oblivion took Pedro Martinez's starts when nobody else would.

I'm going to remember the struggle. I don't want to overdo the pathos, but it's been a task-and-a-half maintaining the same position atop the East day after day since the middle of May. It's been done without Endy Chavez and without Carlos Gomez and without Paul Lo Duca and without Ramon Castro and without Carlos Beltran and without Lastings Milledge and without Duaner Sanchez and without Moises Alou and without Shawn Green and without Dave Williams and without Jose Valentin and without Oliver Perez and without Orlando Hernandez for at least 15 days apiece, usually more. That's in addition to doing it without Pedro Martinez.

I'm going to remember the shortcomings. I'm going to remember that Carlos Delgado didn't come through far more than he did, but I will remember the times he came through because there were several. I'm going to remember the slow burn up the charts by David Wright and the cartoon running start of Jose Reyes and how once he went whoosh! he really went whoosh!. I'm going to remember Beltran up a hill and Chip Ambres out of nowhere and Ruben Gotay crossing home plate on a Thursday and Luis Castillo all asprawl and Ollie in mid-leap and Glavine's wife and Glavine's speech and Glavine's round number and Endy bunting and Gomez bunting and Marlon Anderson picking up right where he left off and Shawn Green tickling the scoreboard and Armando Benitez shaken to his core like the rookie he will never stop being.

I'm going to remember Billy Wagner's fistfuls of sand, thrown with almost perfect precision from the middle of April to the beginning of August. I'm going to remember slugger John Maine. I'm going to remember El Duque's failure to obey the minimum speed limit. I'm going to remember the sidearming of Joe Smith and the resiliency of Aaron Heilman and Pedro Feliciano and Jorge Sosa. I'm going to remember Damion Easley running 360 feet without stopping. I'm going to remember Sandy Alomar and Mike DiFelice catching like pros and Ricky Ledee and David Newhan trying their darndest and even this Brian Lawrence fellow who can hit better than he can pitch, but at least he does something well.

I'm going to remember a horrible Fourth of July in Denver and a listless checkout before the All-Star break in Houston and desperate nights in L.A. and sorry afternoons in Detroit and frightful endings against an assortment of Marlins and Nationals. I'm going to remember Willie Harris and a 5-0 lead in Pittsburgh and pitiful performances versus everyone from Tyler Clippard to Johan Santana to David Wells to J.D. Durbin. Because I remember this stuff, too, I can't automatically forget how hard this has been and pretend that suddenly it's easy, not with a month and change to go.

I'm going to remember, whatever the outcome, 2007. It has been a very different animal from 2006. We won't know 'til it's over whether it was better or worse. That's part of the fun, you know — finding out. I'd like a nice big lead like the one we had a year ago at this time. I'd like Philadelphia and Atlanta buried once and for all. I'd like to join the growing murmur that the Mets are surely on their way to October. I will if and when I know for certain it is merited.

Right now I don't. But that's OK. It's not supposed to be as easy as it was in 2006 and I think we all knew that then as now. It should be hard.

Well, that could have gone better.

J. D. Durbin looked like D.T. Young, Jayson Werth looked like Ty Cobb, Lastings Milledge looked like Ryan Thompson, Jose Reyes looked like a distracted 13-year-old in the infield, Carlos Delgado looked like his post-knee-tweak self, and Brian Lawrence and Chase Utley looked like their usual selves. Which all added up to a big, steaming portion of suck for us to choke down.

Once upon a time I was excited about this game. Something akin to the original-plan lineup on the field all at the same time, Met fans invading Philly for the possible end of the Phils' season, Pedro pitching down in Florida, the calendar getting closer to magic numbers and October plans. And all those things could still prove true this week — but not if we play the way we did tonight and they play the way they did tonight.

This one looked raggedy from the moment Country Joe West's gift out on Jimmy Rollins couldn't spring Lawrence from a jam. The Phils hit the hell out of most anybody who showed up, and these weren't cheapies — those shots by Pat the Bat and Utley would have been out anywhere, and Ryan Howard's tracer almost went through the outfield wall. Meanwhile, while they were doing their Ut-most, we looked off at the plate (substitute Conine for Alou in the “Missed Hanging Breaking Ball That Could Have Changed Complexion of the Game” file), deplorably lackadaisical in the field, pissy in the dugout, overly chummy in the bullpen (get back topside, Wagner) and, eventually, outnumbered in the stands. About the only sight I enjoyed was a glimpse of an apparently mobile Endy Chavez (who sure looks like he'll get a chance to claim right field, now that the flu and youth have set Milledge back) and the return of Lo Duca, who was in midseason form when it came to barking at C.B. Bucknor and glowering at anyone who rubbed him wrong, a list that eventually included most everybody.

The Phillies, for all the fight they showed tonight, are battling not just us but time — and time may prove their toughest antagonist. They have to go on an enormous run, starting right now. We just have to stay afloat. Same goes for the Braves, last seen demolishing the Marlins. You wouldn't think either of those teams can go on such a run, seeing how they've gagged on every conceivable chance to make up ground this summer. On the other hand, you wouldn't think we'd survive the June and July we endured, yet somehow we did. We'd like a relatively bland, excitement-free trek to October, but this has been a season for strange doings. And when Schoeneweis was ducking beneath tracer shots, it was hard to find much comfort in stretch-drive math. Tomorrow is another day. A better day than this one would be nice.

OK, it was kind of amusing and kind of cool to watch a 44-year-old man with a history of gout beat out a bunt single. (I mean, gout? Seriously? What is David Wells, a Dickens character?) It was less amusing and less cool when this little adventure didn't result in that 44-year-old man laboring on the mound and getting tattooed by the Mets. No, this time it was the Dodgers who did the tattooing, pouring on the kind of two-out rally that's been Metsmerizing of late.

I was supposed to be at this game — back in July, Joshua's chance to run the bases got rained out, and a kindly friend got us superb seats for today's matinee — the next available dash. Hello ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, goodbye kids running the bases. (At least I assume — if there were exhausted, sugared-up toddlers pinwheeling around the Shea infield at 11:30 p.m., I feel for their parents. I also wonder what the hell they could have been thinking.) Fortunately, Joshua seemed to have forgotten — he accepted that his mom was going to Shea without her boys with only perfunctory complaints. I can report for the first time ever I saw someone I know in the stands at a televised game — late in the proceedings, Emily and Co. alerted me, after a lot of fruitless studying of paused TiVo on my end, that they'd moved from their seats behind the on-deck circle to the blue ones behind home plate. She spent most of her time behind the NYM 2 on the ESPN status bar. I am happy to report that she of course did not wave at the camera.

I amused myself with Joe Morgan and Jon Miller — Joe referred to Sean Hillenbrand, the Mets' acquisition of Marlon Byrd and why Rickey Henderson hasn't retired yet, which is about par for the course for the world's least-attentive baseball analyst. (Joe did at least excoriate Milledge — whose pitch selection recalls Ryan Thompson's at the moment — for his headfirst dive into first.) It was left to Peter Gammons to deliver something of substance. Brad Penny said — ha ha, actually, I just wanted to see how that looked on the screen, since I could not conceivably give a fuck about what Brad Penny says about anything. Let's take that again: Gammons said Pedro had called Guy Conti from down in St. Lucie to warn that Guillermo Mota, the trusty den mother when it comes to making sure opposing baserunners get home safe, wasn't striding properly and therefore was tipping his changeup. Conti said Mota had made adjustments in the bullpen and looked great — and Mota then promptly turned in two unblemished innings.

Part of what makes that story worth dissecting is that all of us desperately want it to be true. (I don't like Mota and never will, but since he's here, we may as well make use of him.) But what struck me was how I instantly believed it because, hey, it's Pedro. Has any player ever had so large a role on a team despite five months of not throwing a single pitch in anger? If Gammons told me that Pedro Martinez had passed the time in St. Lucie by coming up with a cold-fusion reactor that reversed global warming, I would have exclaimed over the genius of Pedro for several minutes before wondering idly about his credentials as a physicist and climatologist.

Update: This seems like a garble of a story about Sosa, not Mota, one that happened a long time ago. Memo to self: Stop greeting apparent good news without shred of skepticism or even recent memory. Also: Get off pipe.

As Saturday's tilt with the Dodgers wound through the early innings, I kept singing a little bit of doggerel I'd adapted for the occasion:

(to the tune of “Green Acres”):

El Duque is the pitcher for me

He speaks Duque language

El Duque was masterful, Sandy Alomar Jr. looked like a 19th-century gunslinger, and Aaron Heilman (Aaron Heilman???!!!) overcome whatever fears we had on his behalf to step in for Billy Wagner (whose issues, whatever they are, can wait another day) and secure a scary yet satisfying victory — one punctuated by the Braves and Phillies both obligingly sliding further into the background.

Along the way there was Ralph Kiner's reunion with Tim McCarver (my favorite moment was when Ralph gently punctured McCarver's kind but typically overwrought praise that he was famous in New York and California to interject: “What about Pittsburgh?”), Jose Reyes stealing a base by the widest-possible margin I've ever seen and Fox proving recent problems are larger than I think by advertising “Halloween” and “Death Sentence” in broad daylight, just as the CW11 did a few days ago.

But my favorite moment was everybody's favorite moment: Carlos Delgado in the bottom of the fifth. Delgado was 0-for-19, leaving runners on in droves, sinking in the batting order, and drawing boos like a dead thing draws flies. For him to step to the plate with two out and the bases loaded seemed cruel, like dangling a pinata in front of fans armed with sticks.

And those fans, in one of 2007's goosebumps moments, cheered.

It seemed to begin slowly, with a few fans, then spread like a brushfire: Fans putting their hands together, giving voice, and finally getting up, until the stadium was standing and Delgado, I suspect willfully uncomprehending (“I wasn't sure if it was for me,” he grumped, as if the CitiField workers had maybe just performed some masterful girder pirouette), stood at the center of a most-unexpected standing ovation.

I was about to get in the shower, but I heard the cheers and Howie Rose's excitement and stopped. This was an old-fashioned morality play, a potential turning point in the relationship between a franchise's fans and one of that franchise's key players. It was a Franco-and-Beltran moment, and damned if I was going to miss it. I grabbed a towel and rushed upstairs in time to see Delgado rifle the first pitch into center for a two-run single and sweetest redemption.

Met fans boo. Sometimes justifiably, sometimes unthinkingly, sometimes corrosively, sometimes obnoxiously. We'll boo consistently horrific performances (I'm looking at you, Mel Rojas), boo players by proxy (we're not booing Mota so much as we're booing Omar for forcing us to boo Mota), boo players in mutual acknowledgment that they should be somewhere else (sorry, Kaz), and sometimes boo players out of some weird self-destructive streak. (Yes, Met fans once booed Mike Piazza.) We've booed players out of town and temporarily booed players who will be the cornerstones of this franchise.

We've booed Carlos Delgado of late — and of early and of often. But that fifth inning was proof that while we do boo, above all else we want desperately to cheer. And with Delgado at bat, with a game and possibly a postseason and a proud, aging player's psyche on the line, Met fans remembered that. And they cheered and cheered and cheered. And they were rewarded. Remember this moment — I've got a feeling it will prove important.

Eighteen home games remain in the 2007 season. Eighty-one home games can be assumed (barring weather, wildcat strikes, goodness only knows what) for 2008. And then that's it for regularly scheduled baseball at Shea Stadium.

There are 99 games left in the life of the ballpark that was born in 1964 and is slated to die before it can turn 45.

Holy Phil Mankowski! Y'know?

Like the Delta Shuttle roaring in for a landing just over the visitors' bullpen, time is just flying by. Those eighteen remaining games will be over soon enough, giving way — knock concrete — to some irregularly scheduled baseball in October. Those are extra innings, nothing you can pencil in yet, not easy to get your mitts on. Then we count down to next year and next year we count down from 81. When we get to zero, maybe there'll be some more extra innings. We hope so. But then those will end, too, and that will be that.

It's really happening. We're in double-digits. There are fewer than 100 regular-season games left at Shea Stadium. Ever.

I must be inoculating myself against the bitter end (I mean promising beginning) because without really meaning to, I've been at Shea a lot this year. A real lot. Friday night marked my third consecutive game and my 25th of the season, a crowded dance card even by my personal hardcore standards.

Twenty-five home games is more than I have made myself present for in any Mets season but two. In fact, last night's Los Mets fiesta at the expense of Los Dodgers tied pennant-winning 2000 for third place in The Log's regular-season pages (which don't reflect the five delightful dates tacked on that October). I believe I'm done for this weekend, but I'll be back out there when the Astros come to town, and have no reason to think I won't show up at least once for each remaining opponent. If I get to an even 30, then this here 2007, for all its faults and foibles into which we have so deeply delved, will have passed my beloved 1999 (29 games) for second place all-time. I suppose I could go nuts, purchase a Pennant Race Pack and give all-time champ 2001 (38 games) a Dynamet Dash for its money, but that's a fairly prohibitive exercise in terms of time and resources. Going to more games this year than in my favorite year will be a significant enough fan achievement.

In case you're wondering — and I can't imagine you are — the Mets are 16-9 with me in attendance in '07, behind only my '01, '99 and '00 regular-season Shea win totals. I am apparently the antidote to the home record blues (the Mets are 18-20 without me…so why don't they “take care” of me?). And just when I begin to get nervous that I'm anathema to victory, such as I was Thursday night after back-to-back L's, it was W time again Friday.

At the risk of being unnecessarily sappy about it, especially when I've stoked my share of “what's wrong with my first-place team?” discontent, every game at Shea Stadium feels a bit like a win to me in 2007. It's not just that I'm trying to enjoy what little time Ol' Leaky and I have left together; it's that I no longer even have to think about how much I want to be there. I'm just drawn to Shea, like a Paul Lo Duca to a flame. If you're not getting paid to do so, you don't voluntarily show up 25 separate times in less than five months to a place that is not particularly convenient to you. It must be more fun than I let on.

Plus there's always something new. Yes, new, despite the age of the facility and the nominal repetition of the exercise. I've made Shea debuts with a fistful of people (including the two I joined Friday night) who've entered my life this year and my fandom and I have been enhanced by their companionship. I suppose I'll be doing that sort of thing at Citi Field, going to games for the first time with somebody I've only recently met. When I do, I'll tell you if it's exactly the same, if it's way better or if it doesn't really measure up to the experiences I've had forging relationships where I've been doing it for so long. For now, I've got Shea and it's still showing me new and good times.

For Los Mets night, I sat in the left field loge…and I mean the left field loge. We were in a box to the fair side of the foul pole, a 90-degree drop from Tommie Agee territory. This was my 348th regular-season game at Shea Stadium yet my first sitting in just that loge spot, taking in just that view and perspective of the ballpark that won't be there the year after next. It made for a magnificent vista. Deep fly balls in our direction were best left to the imagination, but otherwise, you saw everything. Unlike in fair territory in right, you saw the scoreboard. You saw the DiamondVision. You saw Lastings Milledge tumbling and snaring. You saw Carlos Beltran covering acres of ground. You saw Moises Alou and wished he wouldn't get in Beltran's way. You had to squint, but you saw the Los in Los Mets.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this was Bizarro Shea, but I met my companions outside Gate A, which is literally completely opposite of where I do most of my meeting, at Gate E. It wasn't the first time I'd gone in at Gate A, not even the first time in 2007 I'd gone in at Gate A, but I definitely felt like Kramer when he found himself in a panic downtown far away from his familiar Upper West Side. I don't even know if Gate A is in 718.

The security's a lot tighter at Gate A, apparently. Uniformed TSA types didn't simply and indifferently paw at my bag — they aggressively searched it. I mean they opened my glasses case, examined my radio, asked me “what's this for?” when handling my innocent iPod splitter (which I didn't even know was still in the bag). I actually don't think this was a Gate A thing, more a Fiesta Latina Night thing, sadly. I'm willing to give those who make these decisions the benefit of the doubt as to why there were suddenly crisp white-shirted securitarians (no Mets or Shea logos on their uniforms) by the escalator at the entrance to loge checking tickets. I don't think it was because loge is undergoing some kind of field level gentrification, but rather somebody figured out that when the Mets host postgame concerts, they often get patrons who don't know their way around Shea and thus wouldn't know loge from mezzanine any more than I know salsa from merengue. Actually, it's not a bad idea. They do that in Broadway theaters, you know. (Come 2009, we'll all be strangers in a strange seating chart land and we'll need all the help we can get.)

But the superdiligent searches of bags? Gee I wonder why they chose this particular promotional night to be all Checkpoint Charlie and not, say, DHL Drawstring Bag Night, which was Thursday. Threat Level Los Mets? I wonder if any families who came to Shea specifically for Fiesta Latina Night but decided the baseball was good enough to merit a return on a future evening will wonder why there's not that kind of security when there's no Fiesta in sight (and I'm not the only one wondering). Something tells me marketing and operations did not dance on the same page in advance of Friday.

I have no idea why there are people who get up in arms over the Mets' acknowledgement that Latinos y Latinas play and/or watch baseball. It's New York, there are lots of people who speak Spanish, there happen to be lots of players who do the same. If it's good for business and it's good for the standings, I'm all for it. All anybody wants is a good ballclub. In our little slice of loge, there were fans of every international strain, it seemed, and you know who they cheered most wildly for? Whoever on the Mets did something good. Those are my kind of fans. As I've said via my actions 25 separate times this season, we Metropolitan-Americans gotta stick with our own kind.

Fox is doing something brilliant for once: Watch today in the third inning for a reunion of longtime totally awesome broadcast team Tim McCarver and Ralph Kiner. Oh baby I love it!