Five in the first. Five in the ninth. A whole lotta mess in between.

The Mets prevailed in a game that had neither manager inclined to take his charges to the Tastee-Freez afterwards. Lord, what a mess. That thing took 326 pitches, six walks, six hit batsmen, 18 strikeouts and a whole lot of forbearance in the face of lousy baseball. Yesterday we all vented a lot of our 2007 New York Mets frustrations, but let the record show that these enigmatic, infuriating Mets are not the Pittsburgh Pirates. The Pirates are young, bad and dumb in various measures, and the only sure thing with too many of them is that they'll get older. I felt for Damaso Marte when he finally decided, “Hell with it, I'm drilling someone” — not because poor Shawn Green had it coming, but because the rules make it difficult for a reliever to throw a baseball into the back of his teammates, general manager or owner. Speaking of which, has anyone seen anything to justify our apparent interest in Ronnie Paulino? Based on the last two nights' admittedly small sample, he can neither hit, run, nor throw.

The good news, for me, was seeing that Willie's legendary patience with veterans has finally run out where Green is concerned — Milledge will get the bulk of the playing time from here on out, as he should have a couple of weeks ago at least. And clearly Jorge Sosa has bumped Guillermo Mota from the relievers' ladder, raising the possibility that a revitalized Joe Smith could return and keep the Run Fairy II the hell away from our postseason roster. (Alternately, Mota could get better. Because it ain't personal. Well, Mota's a headhunter and a cheater and a dimwit, so it's a little personal. But I've forgiven worse.)

Speaking of tired, what's to be done with John Maine and Oliver Perez? A couple of days over at Metsblog, Matt did an interesting interview with Ron Darling, and one of the things Darling discussed was how difficult a full season can be for a young pitcher. He talked of how winning nine games in the first half of his rookie season turned out to be a burden, how it's not just mechanics and physical fatigue but mental fatigue that can rob velocity from your pitches and take the edge off your game. Perez's fastball is off and his slider's inconsistent, and Maine looks frankly lost right now, easily undone by anything that goes wrong behind him. On the plus side, there's plenty of season to go and time to get them out of the rut. On the negative side, there are the Braves breathing fire behind us, and — as covered amply yesterday — the unsettling sight of our exasperating, inconsistent reflection in the mirror. Get well, young men — we need you.

The one moment of pure beauty tonight? It was Carlos Beltran striding into the gap after Jose Bautista's ninth-inning drive — I'd say streaking but Beltran runs so gracefully that he never seems to be going all that fast. At first it looked like Beltran couldn't possibly catch up to the ball. Then there was the slight possibility he could — followed by the frightening possibility that he, Moises Alou and the baseball might wind up in the same space at the same time. Then the deep exhale, and the promise not to run down Beltran the next time he looks indifferent at the plate, or is sitting in the dugout because something's not 100%.

I was startled by the reminder that Alou left the Pirates in the trade that brought them Zane Smith towards the end of the 1990 season. The same Zane Smith who looked like a Cabbage Patch doll, and who throttled us in the front end of a doubleheader on Sept. 5, 1990 — one of the more-disappointing days of my life as a Met fan. Keith Miller led off with a single, but that was it — Smith absolutely shut us down in one of the most-dominant pitching performances I've ever seen. (Franco lost, 1-0, in the ninth, with the coup de grace a single by Barry Bonds.) In the second game Bobby Ojeda got beat, 3-1; a day later Buddy Harrelson sent Julio Valera to the mound for a shellacking. Between that and a horrific gag job against Montreal not long after (I knew I was remembering Chris Nabholz from somewhere), we never recovered.

Now Alou is the gimpy, aging force that's meant twice meant the difference between wins and losses against the Pirates, and just might save this lineup from itself. It ain't exactly payback, not 17 years later. But it's some small something.

Hey, Jace, isn't this the March conversation? The one in which I'm all “Who the bleep are these guys calling themselves Mets? I don't think I'm going to be able to get behind them as I have every April since I was 7”? And you tell me, no, of course you will…and I generally fall in line.

Now you, dear blog brother, are having these doubts in the dog days of August? That's a hoot.

A mighty familiar hoot, too. I've been feeling the same way, that I haven't been feeling the Mets. The lumbering performance has been a big reason, but personality has factored in, too. Who the bleep are these guys who have been calling themselves Mets?

You know how many individual Mets I've been into this year in that “I can't wait to see him do his thing” way? One. Reyes. He's it. He's been disappointing (in relation to Jose '06 and Hanley '07), but he's far and away my favorite. My only favorite.

Beltran's still my distant second-place favorite. Of all the “I wish he'd break out” stars on this team, he's the wishiest. A great Beltran is worth more than a great anybody. Last night he gave yet another hint that he's MVP-in-exile. I wish he'd offer more than hints. He's nothing like Reyes as a personality (so says my deeply informed perspective of watching from a distance), but I admire the way he carries himself. I just wish he'd carry himself into a dazzling hot streak.

I don't think I've had a third-favorite Met in 2007. Ollie was my wild card early. I get a huge kick out of him when he's on. When he's off, he's just wild. I do like his zest for pitching, however.

When the world was young, of course, there was Endy. I really miss him. It's been too long.

That's basically it. There are a lot of guys I like and respect and root hard for. There's nobody I hate. But there's also nobody else with whom I really identify or for whom I can claim a solid 2007 kinship.

Wright? Heresy here, but I've never completely climbed aboard the Wrightwagon with ten toes. It's bugged me ever so slightly all along how he was the anointed one after no more than a half-season, how I showed up on Opening Day 2005 and there were crisp white Wright shirts everywhere. It's probably my Reyes bias showing and my dismay that some idiot higher-up in the Mets' front office actually referred to our David as “our Jeter”. Ugh. I'm deep enough to admit that I'm shallow enough to look past that when he's blazing with the bat. Sometimes I'm that easy. I never said I was as deep as Atlantic Monthly. If Wright hits (and he has a good bit lately), I'm as big a sucker for this guy as anybody.

Delgado? Delagdo was a sterling veteran sage last year. This year he's mostly one long slump who doesn't make himself available to reporters every night.

Lo Duca? The more I think about the raging eyeballs and getting himself thrown out of that game against Oakland, the more I think he's not using that thing under his helmet and behind his mask…his head. It's cute once in a while when he morphs into Paulie Go Nuts, but he really seems to let himself get the best of himself.

Maine? A good pitcher struggling to become great. A quiet fellow. Not enough there to get me excited when he's not mowin' 'em down.

Wagner? I get a big kick out of him and he's the only Met of substance having a far better than 2007 than 2006. But he gives me the impression he'll turn on a dime if he ever has two bad outings in a row. Too touchy for my tastes, though I suppose it comes with the hard-throwing closer territory.

Gotay? Nice contribution from someone I wasn't counting on. Then he became the cause of the year — why don't they play Gotay more? Because he can't turn a double play. It's less Gotay that doesn't thrill me than the aura that's attached itself to him.

Alou? Gone too long. He's in the wholehearted admiration category for now — until he swings at a first pitch and doesn't drive it (swinging at the first pitch and driving it as he did Tuesday night in Pittsburgh…that's fine).

Green? He's doing just a little less than I expected this year, which shows my expectations were pretty low. Thus, I'm kind of in this “it's not his fault he is who he is” forgiveness mode for Green. I won't deny external factors make me a wee bit protective of Shawn, but his RBI total keeps me from getting all Orthodox about it.

Glavine? We've been through this enough. Hell, he's actually moving up the charts.

Feliciano? I liked him a lot even if he was only in there for a batter or two. Say, whatever happened to him?

Pelfrey? Gads, what a disappointment.

Castro? How into a backup catcher can you be?

DiFelice? Like I said…

Castillo? His value, besides the occasional bunt and generally sure glove, is Reyes seems to like him. But Reyes likes all his second basemen. That Reyes sure is a swell kid.

Heilman? He's forever Sherman from Peanuts, right down to way he sets his shoulder to pitch from the stretch and/or join in the Linus & Lucy dance.

Sosa? I've been known to fall for surprising middle relievers (Hausman, Mahomes), but it's only been a few outings.

Lawrence? Not picking him out of a crowd.

Mota? I don't hate him but I don't want him here.

Milledge? Once bitten, twice reserving judgment.

Gomez? Too soon to know.

Smith? I felt that way about him before I felt that way about Gomez.

Schoeneweis? The approval matrix is almost at “backlash to the backlash” at this point. But he's still Scott Schoeneweis.

Hernandez? Outta sight the nights he pitches. Out of sight, out of mind the rest of the time.

Sele? He suffers from being associated only with blowouts the Mets are almost sure to lose.

Easley? I had a fan-crush on him for about ten minutes when he was, not coincidentally, hitting home runs. I love listening to him explain his sporadically successful at-bats. The rest of the time, sadly, he's a 37-year-old journeyman.

Valentin? More or less Easley.

Anderson? Good to have him back. Good. Not great.

Newhan? Playing long-toss with Ricky Ledee, I hope.

Randolph? He deserves a mention here because a year ago I was impressed by his calm demeanor and stoic leadership, this year I think he's a stiff. How could the onetime second base great not go out and argue that horrendous call at second Tuesday night? When did this wretched “transfer” rule supplant common-sense umpiring? But back to Willie Randolph: From Hodges to Howe in one season? I hope not.

Pedro? He hasn't been a 2007 Met.

So buddy, you're not alone in loving the Mets for always yet only kind of, sort of liking the Mets who are Mets this year. Given the standings and the ability to maintain their position atop them despite the lock they've had on lackluster, maybe that makes us the ones who are unlikable.

Editor's Note: Comics maven and illustrator par excellence Jim Haines points out Sherman from Peanuts was better known as Shermy. To my own recollection of him as an Aaron-straight straight arrow with a more formal name, I say Good Grief!

The schedule was for Joshua's grandfather to bring him back on the late side tonight — somewhere between 9:30 and 10:00. So this afternoon Emily and I started batting dinner ideas back and forth. About halfway through, she stopped and said, “Unless you want to watch the game….”

“Nah,” I said. “That's OK.”

As it turned out, I listened to or watched the first four innings or so, brought my portable radio to dinner (it stayed off at the restaurant, since I'm not a complete barbarian), heard Wright and Beltran start the rally on our walk back to our house, saw Alou deliver the decisive runs on TV, and watched Wagner put it in the books after a groggy Joshua was unfolded from his car seat and put into his own bed. This wasn't a WW in honor of the departed Phil Rizzuto.

But something's very wrong. Fanatics who talk other fanatics into starting crazy Met blogs don't shrug off that night's game. Particularly not when the current collection of Mets is in first place. I know that. I've spent no small number of hours worrying about it. But I can't escape it, just as I can't escape the awful truth.

I don't like this team.

I don't know what it is. The personnel aren't that different. The biggest change is the absence of Cliff Floyd, whom I loved unconditionally as one of the coolest guys to ever play the game — yet I was always realistic about Cliff's inability to stay on the field. It's no secret that the clubhouse misses Pedro Martinez and his spit-in-the-devil's-eye charisma. I undoubtedly miss him too. But Pedro was MIA for most of the second half last year, and I didn't love the 2006 Mets any less for it.

Is it the absences of year-ago sparkplugs such as Endy Chavez and Duaner Sanchez? The disappearance of Jose Valentin? Bouts of surliness from the likes of Paul Lo Duca, Julio Franco (from wise old sage to annoying codger in one season — ouch!) and Beltran? My head tells me those guys, however much I cheered for them, never had the keys to my heart. Those were always held by Wright and Reyes, and they're not so different. But my heart won't be reasoned with — it watches last year's heroes try and fail and succeed, and somehow remains cold.

I always suspected that deep down, the day-to-day intensity of our fandom was more a reflection of a team's record than most of us would ever want to admit. 66-52 and first place ought to equate to finding the 25 guys who've forged that record plucky and valiant and loyal and likeable. But at least so far, it doesn't. Yes, there are Mets on this year's roster I have no use for — master out-maker Shawn Green and master run-allower Guillermo Mota come to mind. But last year I actively loathed Steve Trachsel and Michael Tucker and desperately wanted the pathetic Victor Zambrano and Kaz Matsui to just freaking go away already — and I still find myself daydreaming about the 2006 Mets. I get the feeling the 2007 Mets will never be more than an “oh yeah, them” in my memory.

I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the depressing frequency with which this team gets blown out, or looks inept against lousy teams. Or its inability to get out of its own way against the resurrected Braves. Maybe it was that horrid stretch in June and July. Or the inability to keep the same eight on the field so I can really get to know them as a unit. Maybe it's the conservatism that's retained Green and imported Luis Castillo at the expense of potentially deserving, exciting young players such as Milledge and Gotay. Or the endless, paranoia-driving parade of injuries. Maybe it's as simple as the fact that now anything less than the playoffs — and dominance en route — is disappointing. Maybe 2006 was just the prettiest girl in the room, and now I'm stupidly overlooking 2007's many admirable qualities.

I can't tell you, because I don't know. All I know is from the way I feel, it could practically be the 2003 Mets out there. And that's crazy.

I desperately want this to change. And maybe it will. Pedro's on his way back, Beltran has returned, Lo Duca and Castro shouldn't be long and Endy's out there somewhere. Milledge got to play tonight, Sosa's been a bright spot in relief, and Omar can read Mota's stat line as well as I can. A mettle-testing, character-breeding crucible of games against the Phillies and Braves awaits. And Tom Glavine's candor about our having to warm up to him and his having to warm up to us has led me to finally give him my full allegiance. If that can happen, nothing's impossible.

September's coming, with the possibility of an October that matters. But August ought to matter a lot more than it does. I wish I knew why it doesn't.

Dana Brand told a fib. But we’ll forgive him.

Up front in Mets Fan, Dana says he has written a book “for fans of the New York Mets, and for baseball fans everywhere.”

It’s a benign half-truth. This is a book for us. It’s a book for Mets fans. It’s a book we deserve. It’s a book we will absorb through our pores. Baseball fans everywhere who aren’t Mets fans? They can go read something else.

I’m not trying to undercut Dana’s book sales (which are reportedly and deservedly brisk). I hope he sells one apiece to Braves fans and Nationals fans and Royals fans and all fans. He certainly touches on themes universal in nature to anybody who cares — really cares — about baseball. But a few pages in, he begins to speak in the secret language understood only by us. Braves fans and Nationals fans and Royals fans will scratch their heads at the dozens of arcane-to-them yet plain-as-day-to-us references.

And that’s fine. If fans of Not The Mets need a translator, that’s their problem. This is our book. It’s about time we got one like this.

Though Dana and I have exchanged an e-mail or two and a couple of comments on each other’s blogs (he started his between last October’s LDS and LCS to help promote his to-be-published work), he’s not somebody I’ve gotten to know on any personal level…until now. I’ve gotten to know him as a Mets fan through reading Mets Fan. I’ve gotten to know myself a scooch, too. Dana’s a fantastic mirror for his core audience. It’s not so much that the author is one of us. He is all of us and he’s gone to the trouble of articulating it in a book.

The legend of Dana Brand, if you’re not familiar with him, began about two years ago when he wrote an essay that appeared in Newsday. He pushed a fairly novel notion for 2005: that there are Mets fans and we care and we have a history and we like ourselves just fine. The Hofstra professor’s take was so well-received, he followed it up with a series of essays that became Mets Fan.

We are well off for it. Dana has combined memoir with history and given us a rich tour of the lifetime of a franchise. He was 7 when the first season began and he has never not been a Mets fan as long as there have been Mets. One of the things I really appreciate about his book is the demystification he applies the early years. As much fun as the Original Mets were to have around, losing 100+ per annum wasn’t fun. Ed Kranepool wasn’t promising, he was just Ed Kranepool — “the older Kranepool was the same as the younger Kranepool” is one of his many Amazin’ lines. But Dana Brand bought into it right away. He was hooked for life (even if, as he rightly concludes, “Eddie didn’t happen. But he didn’t exactly not happen either.”) He was rewarded with 1969 and a handful of similarly great seasons. He has endured the soggy filling between pennants with good humor. If he wanted a dynasty, he knew where to find one. He didn’t. Like the rest of us, he wanted the Mets.

Dana moves in and out of the history portions to indulge in the personal. His life may not have been exactly our lives (he lucked into a trip to Tom Seaver’s house in the early ’80s and studied under Bart Giamatti), but it’s close enough. You will recognize yourself in Dana. I recognized myself in his words. We have lived parallel existences even though he had a head start. For example, he relishes the way Mets fans end letters and e-mails and conversations with “Let’s [or Lets] Go Mets!” I do that. Just about everybody I know does that. He says everybody he knows does that. Who knew we all did that?

You’ll get a lot of that sensation with Dana Brand. It will feel good. Baseball may foster a spirit of community, especially online, but really we root alone more than we root with anyone else. We replay games and seasons for at least a portion of each of our waking hours when nobody else is around or nobody nearby knows what we’re thinking. It’s nice to have it confirmed that somebody else out there is doing it, too.

Mets Fan goes for a level of subject-inclusiveness that few Mets books, even the good ones, go for. The effort is appreciated, though now and then I think Dana dug for material where there wasn’t that much on which to dwell (the fandom of Jerry Seinfeld, for example, or the minutiae of the local radio talk show scene). His salute to 2006 is a little eerie, as if the Mets are frozen in time there, forever leading the East by a dozen games (we wish). But better more than less. Dana’s not an anthropologist. He writes for us by us. Have I said something like that three or four times already? It’s just so true.

One of the ways I judge the effectiveness of a Mets book is how few mistakes make it into print. Most of Mets Fan is solid in this regard. Dana moved Darryl Strawberry’s debut from May to July and collided Cameron with Floyd instead of Beltran, but that’s forgivable in the big picture of heart and soul that he delivers for almost 200 pages. The one niggling annoyance — and I’m betting an underinformed editor was overinvolved on this count — is the strange spellings several Met icons come in for. Tommy Agee, Don Clendenon, John Matlack, Bobbie Ojeda, Bobbie Bonilla, Greg Jefferies and the truly offensive Edgardo Alfonso never played for the Mets. I wish publisher McFarland had been more careful. Dana’s work was too meticulous and too genuine to be marred by such sloppiness. A Mets fan notices these things.

Now that I’ve made certain to find fleeting fault here and there so I can’t be accused of just rolling over for a blolleague who gave us a nice shoutout on page 185, I can otherwise overwhelmingly recommend Mets Fan.

Have you ever watched a big game with your family? And then another big more than a decade later and realized how much had changed yet how much had remained the same? This book is for you.

Have you looked at Shea, shaken your head, yet defended it to its impending death? This book is for you.

Have you rolled your eyes to the point of Excedrin Headache No. 9 from listening to dopey politicians intrude on your baseball or your fellow fans booing your own players? This book is for you.

Have you given more thought to Mr. Met and the Home Run Apple and Cow-Bell Man than you ever imagined you could? This book is for you.

This isn’t unchallenging stuff either, by the way. It’s not “hey, we’re Mets fans, we’re kooky” shallow. Dana Brand is an authentic Mets fan and an authentic wordsmith. Save for a dissonant tic toward the adjective “stupid” (though, admittedly, so many obstacles to Met happiness can be just that), Dana strings together beautiful phrases like Mail Vail did singles during his hitting streak. 1969 represented “the bursting of all boundaries”; 1986’s characters did not blandly “blend into a mass of big chests and broad smiles”; Bobby Valentine “approached managing as if it were a combination of rocket science and performance art”; and, because he’d like to see another boundary burst, “I don’t know if Rusty is gay, but I’d like to think he is.”

His wife’s in there, his daughter’s in there, his parents are in there, his career is in there and, most importantly, the Mets are in there. Dana Brand has put it all in Mets Fan. You’ll want to get in there, too.

You can order Mets Fan through Dana Brand’s site. He says it might take a little longer than he’d like before supply catches up with demand, but be patient. This book is worth the wait. In fact, you’ll probably enjoy it a little more if it shows up unexpectedly in your mailbox once the season turns to winter.

I used to tote around a loose theory that if Al Harazin hadn't wasted the Mets' money on Bobby Bonilla in the winter of 1991 that he could have spent it more wisely one December later on Barry Lamar Bonds.

Wait with the “who needed him, the bum?” knee-jerk reflex if you can for a moment. This was 15 years ago when Bonds was merely unpleasant as opposed to law-skirting, immoral and a king-size jerk with a king-size head to match. This was when Barry Bonds really was the player everybody looks back on wistfully, the “he was a Hall of Famer even before he started doing whatever he did” Bonds. He could hit, he could hit with power, he could run, he could catch, he could throw, he could change the fortunes of an entire franchise. He had done it once for Pittsburgh, he would do it again for San Francisco.

He could have done it for the Mets. I mean why not? We were just itching to get back into the limelight in the early '90s, we just did it all wrong. Bonilla-wrong. If only management held out another year and let Bobby Blow sign with the Angels or Phillies. There may not have been a lot to choose from between them in terms of personality but at least Bonds, before he became utterly toxic, outperformed his problems.

I'm basing this mostly on a story I read circa 1992 about Bonds and Bonilla riding around Manhattan and Barry wondering aloud about playing in New York. I don't remember it being his dream to play with his former teammate. And he wasn't talking about the American League. One can always speculate that everything would have turned out differently. That somehow Bonds would have come to Shea, hit like himself and behaved more like a person because, gosh, he would have been a Met. In the meantime, he hits his 40 homers, steals his 40 bases, drives in his hundred runs and decides to smile a lot more. The Giants move to Tampa Bay as they almost did, Willie Mays returns to New York as godfather-in-residence, the Mets improve a lot quicker…

This is baseless, I have to admit. But for a while back there in time I thought it could have been done. Maybe that's why I've never completely, completely, completely had it in for Bonds the way so many baseball fans have, maybe that's why I found fleeting enjoyment in his establishing a new home run record for a single season and then a checkered career. I never much cared for the man but I always did enjoy watching the player.

In August 1998, Shea burst at the seams for Mark McGwire. It was the same everywhere, both for him and for Sammy Sosa. Great seasons they were having, but sideshow acts I thought them. As I left Shea after the Friday night doubleheader in which Mark was held homerless (and we split in our suddenly secondary quest to win a Wild Card), I asked Jason and Emily why we're selling out for McGwire yet it's no particular big deal when the great Barry Bonds comes to town? Why doesn't Bonds rock Shea the way Magic and Michael would cause a stir once a year when they showed up at Madison Square Garden?

Because Bonds is an asshole, Emily reminded me.

Oh yeah. How could I forget?

There are three Bondses to me, and none of them is capable of fully shaking off Emily's description.

There's the one who everybody has come to despise, a reaction I completely understand and respect; Bonds kind of lost me in 1994 when he didn't think it was worth turning around to track Kelly Stinnett's long fly ball at Candlestick — he stayed locked in to hands on knees, watching the infield position — even though it turned out Stinnett's hit was a double that needed chasing. That's the same Bonds who showed up in the Game of Shadows excerpt I read in SI last spring and made me want to puke. The same one who tried to pin some mysterious bottle in his locker on neighbor Mark Sweeney. The same one who gave me false hope for 1991 by arguing in full view of cameras with Jim Leyland during Spring Training. The same one who can't resist snarling at reporters even in his finest statistical hour. I could do without that Barry Bonds.

There's the one I watch late at night on Extra Innings, the one whose skills I've admired despite knowing I shouldn't wholly, whose batting eye frightens pitchers and managers into an ungodly accumulation of bases on balls, whose alleged deployment of extracurricular substances has been quite disturbing yet, as the numbers have revealed, most effective. That's the Bonds I take the slightest satisfaction in saying I got to see in his two primes, the Bonds for whom I undergo a bit of amnesia to appreciate.

Then there's the one who faces the Mets. He can go bleep himself.

We seem to have done a nice job of controlling Barry Bonds' worst instincts. Not the lashing out or shooting up but the swatting far. We're eleventh on his list of HRs against, way behind the Padres and other assorted Bonds targets. Shea has been the site of only 13 of his 758 (which doesn't really help my retrofitted cause to sign him in advance of 1993, does it?). His one postseason against the Mets was fruitless: he batted .176, drove in one run and made the last out of the two Giants losses that came with last outs. By those standards, we are the all-time home run king for we have bested Barry Bonds.

But he's had his successes against pitchers with some Met in them. As noted last Thursday, he's gotten to 75 different pitchers who at some point threw a pitch for us. They may have been clothed in Met laundry at the moment of contact, they may have been former Mets or they may not have known the Met future that awaited them. We asked if you could name some of them and at least a few of you, like Barry, gave it a shot. One of you, a reader named Schuyler, all but nailed it.

So here are the answers already yet…

1) I'm remembered as the second pitcher in some pretty good rotations, so it's fitting, I suppose, that I gave up Barry Bonds' second home run ever. I'm mid-'80s righty and current SNY analyst Ron Darling.

2) I gave up Bonds' 26th homer. And I wouldn't be on this list as a Met if the Mets weren't so hot to give away the guy who gave up Bonds' second home run ever. I'm reliever Tim Burke, traded to the Mets from Montreal for Darling and no good reason.

3) I had a no-hitter going in the seventh until Bonds hit his 201st home run off me. The shock for Mets fans was I had a no-hitter going in the seventh…and that it wasn't the Mets who were being no-hit, given how that particular year was going. I'm Frank Tanana, used-up soft tosser from the sad-sack 1993 Mets (I'm also one of only two pitchers who gave up homers to Henry Aaron and Barry Bonds, me and Rick Reuschel.)

4) If Bacsik's the 75th member of this club, then I guess I'm the 74th, even if the last of the three homers I gave up to Bonds only put his career total to 667. I'm spankin' new Met Brian Lawrence.

5) I once had something of a numerical nature the guy who's the answer to the previous question has now. But I gave up just one homer to Bonds: his 171st. I'm Mark Clark, the last player to wear 54 for the Mets before Lawrence (so says a reliable source).

6) Bonds got me for the 56th home run of his career. Once he went and hit another 554 off other people, I could have dropped to my knees and flung my glove in the air in celebration. But I would have exulted too soon, for I also gave up Bonds' 611th homer. With that kind of span between homers, I could be no one other than ageless Jesse Orosco.

7) Mets fans were far more annoyed that I gave up home runs to the likes of Alfredo Amezaga and Hanley Ramirez than they are that Bonds touched me for eight homers (even if eight is the most anybody in this particular club has on his ledger). I'm Chan Ho Park, and not only did I have a rough go of it in my single 2007 Met appearance, I'm one of five pitchers overall to have given up eight home runs to Bonds. The others are non-Mets Greg Maddux, Terry Mulholland, Curt Schilling and John Smoltz.

8) I had a perfect ERA of 0.00 in three appearances for Willie Randolph, but I wasn't so lucky when I gave up Bonds' 622nd homer when I was pitching for Bob Boone. I'm Felix Heredia and my earned run average somehow doesn't begin to describe my 2005 Met tenure.

9) I'm one of those myriad lefty specialists who hung around to face lefty sluggers like Bonds. When I was a Met, I wasn't all that special. In fact, I was a starter and gave up Bonds' 244th homer. I'd give up three more to him in my later incarnation in relief. The last two (Nos. 511 and 516), I'll bet, made Mets fans particularly happy given who I was pitching for by then. I'm longtime Brave Mike Remlinger and I'm finally retired.

10) I was involved in a trade with five other pitchers altogether, but I was the only one of the six who ever gave up a homer to Bonds. I gave up five of 'em, starting with No. 288 and ending with No. 434. I'm Kevin Tapani, but not Frank Viola, Dave West, Tim Drummond, Jack Savage or Rick Aguilera, my deadline deal buddies from 1989.

11) My name comes up tangentially in connection to Barry Bonds for some reason. I gave up his 657th homer, but that can't be why people have invoked my name when his comes up. I wonder why we're connected. I wish I had a shot at answering this. I'm Guillermo Mota and I don't wanna talk about it.

12) Some of the most notable closers in Mets history escaped the wrath of Bonds. I didn't. I gave up the 711th home run of the guy's career, but big deal. We won the game. I'm Billy Wagner. Get off my back.

13) I took care of Barry Bonds and everybody on his team when it mattered most. But I did give up his 286th and 524th homers, though I doubt Mets fans remember either of those blasts, so associated am I with the aforementioned great effort against Bonds' team. I'm Bobby Jones, and after my Game Four series-clinching one-hitter versus the Giants, there's nothing else worth bringing up about me.

14) I gave up Barry Bonds' 465th homer, but I prefer to bask in the afterglow of having been the only one in this club to have won a game the night before Barry got to 756. I'm the enduring Cleveland righty known as Paul Byrd.

15) I'm the person who gave up Barry Bonds' 438th home run. That's all you need to know. I'm the Personification of a cheap answer: Robert Person.

16) If all Mets fan knew about me was I gave up Bonds' 46th and 55th career homers, I'd feel a lot better about my career. I think a whole Nation would feel the same. Ah, but you know me, Calvin Schiraldi, for so many better reasons.

17) Boy did I suck as a Met. Wait, let me narrow it down for you. Exactly ten years before Barry Bonds became baseball's all-time home run king was the last time Mets fans didn't particularly care how much I sucked. As an aside, I gave up the 110th home run of Bonds' career. But mostly I sucked as a Met. I was traded to New York exactly one decade minus one day before Bonds' 756th, yet my name, Mel Rojas, still resonates down the corridors of suckdom.

18) Yeah, I sucked as a Met, too. It was almost as if there were a rule that I had to suck as a Met for like an entire year. I would give up Bonds' 173rd career home run…as a teammate of the guy who gave up the 110th. I'm 1991 Rule V stickee Doug Simons, later an Expo who joined Mel Rojas in intense Montreal bullpen suckitude.

19) I was way better than my brother when it came to not giving up home runs to Barry Bonds. Sure, the guy got me for No. 180, but my brother gave up many more to him than I did. So I've got that going for me. Of course I'm Mike Maddux.

20) Greg thinks I'm the most obscure Met in this entire club, at least in terms of having been a Met. That's a purely subjective metric, but I'm so obscure Greg actually did a double-take when he saw my name. He was all “ohmigod, I totally forgot this guy was ever on the Mets.” It's like I was so obscure that any season I helped build as a Met couldn't have been worth finishing. I'm so obscure that once a season that wasn't worth finishing wasn't finished, I was finished, too…y'know? I'm too obscure to be on any list. I think I'm too obscure to have given up two home runs to Barry Bonds, No. 8 and No. 253. But I did. You know…I must have been around a while to have been tagged by Bonds 245 homers apart. That might help you figure out who I was. Honestly, I don't know what more there is to say about me. If Greg's forgotten me, you have every reason to have also. I'm strike-shortened 1994 Met Roger Mason…and you're not.

21) I doubt I'm all that well remembered by Mets fans either. Greg barely recalls my Met tenure. but I was a part of history. In the runup to Bonds' single-season home run record, I gave up three dingers to the big man in a week, Nos. 559, 560 and 562 in his career. Steve Phillips must have been impressed by me because he went out and got me the very next summer. I wouldn't say he traded the world for me, but he was willing to toss in a very valuable body of water. I'm Jason Bay trade bait Jason Middlebrook. Thanks Steve!

22) What the guy before me said? You know, about Nos. 559, 560 and 562? Guess who gave up No. 561? Me! I only gave up that one homer to Bonds, but in my only two Mets appearances, I gave up three homers, including two to a genuine World Series hero. (I really, really, really sucked as a Met.) I'm James Baldwin…sigh. The World Series hero, incidentally, was Luis Gonzalez, one of the supersaviors of the 2001 Fall Truly Classic.

23) Barry Bonds hasn't been that much of a problem for the Mets in terms of being a frequent threat since he became a Giant. But when he was a Pirate, he was a potential problem 18 games a year. Remember Barry as a Pirate? I do. I gave up his final Pirate homer, the 176th of his career and the first of three he hit off me in my fairly distinguished career. I won two Cy Youngs, but neither as a Met, which is why my being Bret Saberhagen probably doesn't mean all that much to you.

24) My kids weren't going to be as uneducated as I was. I saw to that. I guess I didn't seem too bright the five times I gave up homers to Barry Bonds. Five, incidentally, is the total of two plus three…and three is the number I gave up to Bonds after I decided my kids' education was my biggest concern. The last of 'em, so far, was No. 607. Home runs to Bonds, that is. I don't have that many kids as far as I can count. I'm as big a target for Mets fans as I've been for Bonds, for I am 2000 NLCS MVP Mike Hampton and I left you not just with a pennant but with a really poor explanation.

25) In my time, I also gave up five homers to Bonds, starting with No. 342 and winding up with No. 679. In my time with the Mets, I gave up the first grand slam to another player of some note. My Mets time was rather brief. I'm the man for whom Lima Time was named, Jose Lima! That granny, incidentally, was surrendered to Dontrelle Willis. It pretty much ended Lima Time.

26) I gave up four homers to Bonds, the first of them No. 190. But honestly, I've got my own big number that people have been talking about lately, so screw my being in this crappy club for jerks. I'm Tom Glavine and I'm trying to figure out what to do with 300 mounted golf balls.

27) That's almost exactly what I said about the Mets not long ago, even though I haven't put any big numbers that people are talking about. But I did give up Bonds' 519th and 551st home runs. Who cares about me? Nobody, not even Schuyler got you, John Thomson. Why you made a big point last winter of announcing you had no interest in pitching to Paul Lo Duca is one of the mysteries of our era.

28) Just as I sure gave up the second-most home runs to Barry Bonds that any pitcher who has pitched for the Mets has, the Mets sure gave up on me at a pretty young age. I sure made them look bad by going out and being the second-best pitcher in the National League shortly thereafter, at least according to Cy Young voters. The first home run I gave up to Bonds was his 175th. The last was his 394th. I'm Pete Schourek, enemy of Dallas Green and seven-time notation in Barry Bonds' home run log.

29) My career has been about as gaudy as Bonds'. I'm only in this club because I gave up Barry's 287th homer. I'm only pitching for the club I'm pitching for this week because I've been hurt. I'm recent temporary St. Lucie Met Pedro Martinez.

30) Barry got to me for Nos. 40 and 60 when I was one of the best pitchers in baseball and No. 156 when I was in noticeable decline. He never saw me at my absolute best even though he's actually a little older than I am. I'm Doc Gooden, who came up two years before Barry Bonds and had my best years before he saw pitch one from anybody.

31) As of Tuesday night, Mike Bacsik and I had our names next to Barry Bonds' record-setting home runs. The next homer Bonds hit, on Wednesday, Bacsik's name was replaced by Tim Redding's because No. 757 became the new lifetime record. But unless a slugger really bulks up the way Bonds did the year Barry hit the 567th of his career off me, then I'll be a trivia question well into perpetuity. Let's just say it's unlikely I'll ever knuckle under to another pitcher in this regard. I'm knuckleballer and awkwardly phrased answer Dennis Springer. I gave up No. 73 to Barry in 2001 so, technically, I'm still attached to the single-season record, whereas Mike Bacsik was replaced immediately by Tim Redding who, in turn, was replaced by Matt Morris, the pitcher who surrendered No. 758 Friday night.

The full Met club by quantity of Bonds home runs allowed follows. It's kind of a trip down Mixed Memory Lane for connoisseurs of Mets pitching.

8: Park

7: Schourek

5: Hampton, Lima, Tapani and Orel Hershiser.

4: Glavine, Remlinger, Pedro Astacio, Pete Harnisch and Hideo Nomo.

3: Gooden, Lawrence, Middlebrook, Saberhagen, Manny Aybar, Steve Trachsel and David Weathers.

2: Jones, Mason, Orosco, Schiraldi, Thomson, Juan Acevedo, Kevin Appier, Willie Blair, Vic Darensbourg, Mark Guthrie, Al Leiter, Cory Lidle, Chuck McElroy, Dave Mlicki, Randy Myers, Bobby Ojeda, Rick Reed, Armando Reynoso, Rich Rodriguez, Pete Smith and Wally Whitehurst.

1: Bacsik, Baldwin, Burke, Byrd, Clark, Darling, Heredia, Maddux, Martinez, Mota, Person, Rojas, Simons, Springer, Tanana, Wagner, Rigo Beltran, Kris Benson, Chad Bradford, Bruce Chen, David Cone, Jerry DiPoto, Octavio Dotel, Sid Fernandez, Matt Ginter, Danny Graves, Greg Harris, Aaron Heilman, Eric Hillman, Kaz Ishii, Jason Isringhausen, Jason Jacome, Graeme Lloyd, Darren Oliver, Kenny Rogers, Dan Schatzeder and Masato Yoshii.

Was it the cruel Willingham slam off Mota? No, I still had hope then. The criminal bullshit out call on the expertly sliding Reyes? No, because we had at least efficiently tied it that inning. Heilman loading the bases on a walk, a hit by pitch and another walk? It was coming, but it hadn't arrived. Cabrera singling in two runs? That was it.

That was the moment. Right there. Marlins go up 7-5 in the eighth inning on the Mets. The goodwill of Glavine's homecoming and Wright's home runs and three defensive outs at home plate completely dissipated…and I could feel something snap.

By snap, I don't mean with rage the way I felt Thursday after Willie Harris' catch or the way I wanted to feel Friday but didn't quite after Miguel Olivo and Hanley Ramirez cast their teal magic on us. I didn't snap and go ballistic. I snapped and went placid.

I was OK with it.

Not with the score, which would soon enough be final. Not with the losing streak, which had reached three. Not with any of the key indicators either. I'm not OK with the division lead that keeps diminishing, nor the municipal lead which is completely gone, nor the vast and discouraging array of injuries that continue to hamstring the roster, nor, of course, the bullpen, whose most effective inning of late has been delivered by Scott Schoeneweis of all people.

I'm OK with the idea that this isn't the season we've been waiting for. Not happy about it. Not satisfied with it. Not necessarily resigned to the notion that it won't be, because it's August 12 and 46 games remain and we are in first and I still believe we are capable of staying in first, at least as capable as anybody else is of replacing us there. But as Miguel Cabrera drove home Cody Ross and Hanley Ramirez in the top of the eighth Saturday night, as I watched from an upper deck box another late-inning score turn away from the Mets' favor, as I considered how most of the past ten weeks have played out, as I took in the width, depth and breadth of the 2007 season to date, I realized that the Mets truly and really might not make the playoffs.

Not just might not win the World Series. Not just might not win the pennant. Not just might not win the first round. Not just might not win the division. Not just might not win the Wild Card.

The Mets might not make the playoffs in 2007.

I've probably mentioned the statistical possibility of that nonoccurrence somewhere in here since June, but that was just to cover my bases. I didn't really accept it as an option let alone a likelihood. As recently as Thursday, I was willing to engage in a Rocky vs. Rambo debate, one of those undecidable hypotheticals about whether it was legitimate to win a division title without taking it to the Braves or whether winning a division title mattered much in the big picture of winning the championship we all thought we were going to win last year.

Thursday was a long time ago. I no longer take anything about the Mets for granted. I thought I could take their elite status as a given for 2007 at least, but I can't. I thought I could go to Shea on a night like Saturday as I have so many other times this year and continue to feed off the residual 2006 vibe that has filled the place since April. I can't do that either. The default mood of Shea all season has been one of expectation, expectation that 2007 will not just live up to 2006 but exceed it.

I no longer know what to expect. A winning streak of epic proportions could begin at 1:10 today. Matching sets of wins and losses could await and befuddle us further. Or we could lose our fourth straight and be swept by the Marlins. We could never fall out of first — just as we haven't since occupying it on May 16 — or we could be in second or worse by the middle of the week. I honestly don't know.

I also honestly don't think it will kill me if we don't succeed. I will be disappointed, I will be frustrated, I will be barren for a time. But come some day yet to be determined, I will move past it. It might gnaw at me for years the way other seasons' disappointments, frustrations and big empties have gnawed at me, but it won't kill me. That surprises me.

The subtext of this season for me (and, I would bet, for you) has been to beat back the ghost of Game Seven, to capture the flag that eluded us by a single vile inning, to build on that victory and go one better and find ourselves brushing confetti from our hair some early evening in late October. That was the plan. In April and May, the plan seemed to be working well enough. In June the plan began to curl at the edges. We've been smoothing it out as best we can ever since but it won't take. The plan doesn't look anything like it was supposed to.

In April, especially in the heady first days of the first month when we swept the Cardinals and won our first game against the Braves, I had visions of blogging us to a championship. I don't mean blogging a championship as in recording the instant drafts of history. I mean helping it along any way I could through this medium. I thought all of us collectively, through our words and our faith, were going to will this season up the hill. I'm not sure how that was supposed to be put into action, but I couldn't believe after Game Seven and how determined we all seemed to make it better that we weren't capable of pitching in for the greater good, of making the Mets that much more formidable, of giving them that little extra edge they were going to need to overcome Game Seven. I may not have thought of a way we were literally going to do it, but I had confidence we — Mets fans everywhere — would figure it out. The Mets would more or less replicate the excellent parts of 2006 and we would take care of that last tiny bit of business for them. We would win this thing together, them and us.

That part of the plan doesn't seem to be working either. Not yet.

Approximately every two series since June started slipping away, I've tried, in my own way, to save this season. I've tried to rationalize the Mets when they've been less than we expected. I've tried to forgive their foibles, ignore their shortcomings, read them the riot act, damn them with faint praise and praise them amid loud damns. I've tried to go overboard, I've tried to demonstrate reserve, I've tried to pretend nothing unusual is going on here.

I've tried everything. Maybe they have, too. Maybe they have something else that will work. Me, I'm out of answers. I'm just going to let them play. If they win, I will be happy. If they lose, I will be anything from murderous to morose, as ever, but I won't be surprised anymore. I want them to be those 2006 Mets-plus, still. I love that Shea Stadium is filled with that kind of expectation every time I go there. But I understand there's an aspect of cognitive dissonance to those expectations as we near the middle of August in 2007. It still feels like 2006 in the stands, which is neat. Long live the emotion and the vocalization of 2006. But down there, on the field? It's another year. It's another epoch, practically.

2006 may very well have been the exception, not the new rule. Maybe we go back to being a crapshoot of a franchise, not the gathering juggernaut we've sensed we've been watching since 2005. Maybe we don't just keep improving until we're rewarded with a parade and a better burger. Maybe we had one decent year then one awesome year and are now having one so-so year. Maybe we don't know what will be next. Maybe instead of the last game of last year ending a beautiful season, maybe Game Seven was really just the first game of this year.

Most of this entire season, actually, has been one long Game Seven. We get nice pitching. We get a memorable moment. We get the bases left loaded with nobody scoring and the other team winning. We get dismay that things don't turn out as well as they should and could. We don't get it once, however. We just keep getting it.

If that's 2007 in a nutshell when all is said and done, I'm OK with it. If this is my lot as a Mets fan, then it's no different from what it's ever been. I'm not suggesting we are doomed for all eternity. We'll have other 2006s and 1999s and 1973s. We'll have another 1969 and another 1986 in whatever incarnation they reveal themselves, I swear we will. We'll probably have loads of 1976s and 1989s when we're a little above average and a few too many 1982s and 2003s when we scrape bottom. We'll come around, we'll fall back, we'll cycle. We'll triumph. We'll fail. We'll play ball.

Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was.

I'm OK with it. I'd prefer success and I'd prefer it immediately. I'd prefer invincibility along the lines that I'd anticipated all winter and spring and that I hadn't fully given up on as the summer developed. I just don't see it anymore. The Mets are in first place? That's what surprises me now.

The Mets don't get to win just because I think they should. I'm OK with it because it's finally hit me that I don't have a choice in the matter.

On the Friday afternoon of May 3, 1996, while the Mets played the Cubs at Wrigley Field on the tiny TV I kept in my office for the stray Channel 9 game, something work-related pissed me off tremendously. I couldn't tell you what anymore, but in the habit I used to have that I've either outgrown or not had cause to reach down to the toxic side of my soul for, I yelled and I cursed and I threw things and I sat and began to stew with my door closed. Everybody in the office knew I was radioactive at that moment and wouldn't come anywhere near me if they knew what was good for them.

About five seconds after my fuming crested, Sammy Sosa hit a two-out, three-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to beat Paul Wilson — who had struck out 10 Cubs in 8-2/3 innings — and the Mets 4-2. I wanted to yell and curse and throw things, but I had just done that over something far less repulsive (the home run had to be worse because it I remember). All I could do was sit some more and stew doubly hard. A person only has so many demons he can properly service, only so many tantrums to unleash into the atmosphere.

I was seriously pissed off Thursday afternoon after Willie Harris robbed Carlos Delgado and the Mets of a 7-7 ninth-inning tie. It didn't matter to me that, as young Joshua correctly pointed out, the Mets had tried real hard to win the game late. I also didn't pay even lip service to how they didn't do much about not losing early. I saw Harris leap and had to buy a new dictionary thereafter. Mine had been depleted of f-words.

One night later, the Mets lost another game, also essentially decided in the ninth inning. It was probably worse than Thursday's. It was against a team clearly not on a par with the Mets or the Braves. Not that that really enters into the equation, but in the case of Atlanta, you could grudgingly force out a rationalization that losing to a club that's more or less on your level is…well, it sucks, but it's instantly and logically understandable. When you've gotten used to the idea that your club is generally good to very good to occasionally excellent, you quietly drop the “on any given night” pretense of taking nothing for granted and tend to accept the idea that there are other clubs that simply don't deserve to beat you.

Yet they do manage the feat from time to time. In the case of the Marlins, they've done it on three of the four dates they've come to Shea this season. We're 1-3 against Florida in New York. That's every bit as statistically bad as being 2-4 against Atlanta here. Not scoring in seven of the first eight innings is bad. Not touching raw rookie Daniel Barone (rhymes with baloney) until the fifth is bad. Not to do anything to fellow neophyte Ross Wolf or journeyman Lee Gardner or Met castoff Matt Lindstrom after we scored our only runs off Barone is bad.

Billy Wagner failing to hold a one-run lead? Carlos Beltran not properly tracking a deep fly ball from Hanley Ramirez? A professional 3-2 win morphing instantly into a revolting 4-3 loss? Bad results, but bad timing mostly if you want to finger these two. Wagner is totally doubt-benefited this season. Beltran was playing center for the first time in weeks, Ramirez's ball rode the same Jetstream that drove poor Pat Leahy to distraction and, shoot, Hanley hit it hard. Beltran clearly giveth with his three-run shot in the fifth. I'm not prepared to say he tooketh away by not making a Tal's Hill type catch on flat ground. I can't blame Wagner and Beltran, at least not exclusively, for the way a win receded into a loss.

But behind 4-3 in the ninth when you entered the inning ahead 3-2? And going out 1-2-3 to Kevin Gregg to seal your fate?

That's bad, mmmkay? It was a bad loss. Probably a worse loss than Thursday since the game was far more winnable and the opponent was technically less formidable. Still, after being so sauna-steamed at Willie Harris and the Braves, I just don't have it in me to figuratively toss furniture or more than nominally curse the Olivos, Woods, Ramirezes and other assorted Fishes.

The toxic side of my soul, however, is getting quite a workout these last two games.