I want to tell you about Ralph Kiner Night. I really do. But first I have to tell you about Norris Hopper Weekend.

Norris Hopper is the Reds' centerfielder. He plays Ken Griffey's former position and wears Ken Griffey's former number. That's all I knew about him as of the first inning Friday.

Well, that's not entirely true. I also had a very strong hunch that he would provide, through no fault of his own, heckling fodder for Joe, my uncommonly intense Mets companion for many a Mets game over many a Mets season. Joe wants the Mets to win. Joe wants to help the Mets win. Thus, Joe goes after the other team with whatever he can muster. He finds what only Joe can find and he pounds away at what he perceives are the vulnerabilities of an individual opponent.

For example, some random Marlin might remind him in some random manner of some random actor from some random '60s sitcom, let's say, and for the next nine innings, Josh Willingham becomes — I don't know — Jerry Van Dyke, as in Hey Willingham! “My Mother The Car” SUCKED! Invariably, Joe will scream this at every Josh Willingham plate appearance and Josh Willingham will hit for the cycle and the Mets will lose 11-3.

Joe's default position when he doesn't see an obvious (to Joe) angle is to take shots at the first thing that jumps out at him…a player's first name. Never heard of Norris Hopper? Uh-oh. That can only mean I'm in for an evening of…

NORRIS? WHAT KIND OF NAME IS NORRIS FOR A BASEBALL PLAYER?

Though Joe thinks he is psyching out every non-Tom, Dick and Harry with that kind of observation, it never, ever, ever works. Friday night in the first inning, Norris Hopper, whatever the derivation of his first name, bunted his way on. Two batters later he crossed the plate.

In a later at-bat, Joe only got madder.

NORRIS! WHAT KIND OF NAME IS NORRIS FOR A BASEBALL PLAYER? NORRIS! YOU'RE A NERD!

Norris the Nerd singled and later scored.

Clearly the psyche-out had backfired. Karmically if not actually (given our distance from home plate), Norris Hopper heard Joe's taunt and shoved it right up John Maine's and Mike Pelfrey's respective two-holes.

I hate when Joe does stuff like that not only because it's bad — or at least weird — sportsmanship, not only because it is so destined to produce opposition runs, not only because it gets those uninitiated in the ways of Joe staring at us, but because how the hell do I know there isn't another Norris, perfectly proud and terribly touchy, sitting right behind us, having come to Shea just after his late-afternoon workout at Gold's Gym or perhaps a swing by the nunchuck store? Maybe the Norris one row back will fail to see the humor or utility or Joeness of these barbs and accept them good-naturedly. In other words, as I suggested to Joe in weaving this hypothetical scenario to him Friday, perhaps he should shut the fudge up with this line of Norris-baiting.

Joe professed not to be worried about another Norris materializing in the mezzanine and beating our asses to a bloody pulp for making fun of his name. But he did, blessedly, give “NORRIS!” a rest.

It's 24 hours later. Joe and I are at it again, back-to-back nights. We wanted our Endy Chavez (Joe's a bobblehead fiend) just like we wanted our Ralph Kiner. Ralph's ceremony, which I will delve into in a later post (because I don't want to sully him by association with this sordid tale), is concluded and the game is on. The first inning has passed without incident. Brandon Phillips has homered in the second — move over, Pat Burrell. A moment or two later, three fans arrive in our section of the loge. Two men, one boy. Their leader is a fellow in a white tank top, the kind of garment unfortunately nicknamed for one who would abuse one's spouse. He has many tattoos. He is very hip-hop in his bearing. He is, as the Offspring so memorably phrased it, pretty fly for white tank top guy. As he and his party take their seats one row behind us, I instantly hear his story in full with 30 seconds of his pulling out his cell:

“Yo! I'm in Queens! I'm at the Mets game! I'm here for my boy Norris Hopper! I know Norris from the 'hood! Norris was supposed to leave us tickets! I had to buy tickets! I'm sitting in the blue shit! Like 30 rows back! Norris was supposed to leave us tickets! He's supposed to sign a ball for my son! I wanna get a ball! I'm not even a Mets fan! I'm a Yankees fan! I don't even care though! I'm here for Norris Hopper! That's the only reason I'm here! Norris is my boy! I know him from the hood! He was supposed to leave us tickets! He's gonna leave us tickets tomorrow! He's gonna sign a ball for my son!”

Holy Wayne Krenchicki! A variation on the situation that I speculated, purely theoretically, could exist DID exist! Apparently, based on the white tank top in Row H's description, Cincinnati Red Norris Hopper — Joe's “nerd” — was a homeboy, a New York Red. He had friends here, friends who were all about Norris Hopper. What's more, he had friends in the “orange shit,” as the cell phone guy termed field level. One of the recipients of his many cellular transmissions was another hip to Hopper who in fact had been left seats, better seats, just two rows behind the third base ump by No. 30, playing center for Cincy.

“Do you hear this?” I asked Joe sotto voce. “This is like what I was talking about last night. So go easy on the Norris Hopper stuff, would you?”

Joe may appear oblivious, but he occasionally plants two feet in the real world.

“Why do you think I've shut my mouth about him?”

I was tempted to ask this guy one row behind us about Norris Hopper, where exactly he's from around here, how you know him, what kind of player is he, but…nah, didn't seem all that good an idea. I didn't really want to engage the white tank top. The thing about being a Yankees fan was a turnoff. More so was the thing about NOT SHUTTING UP about Norris Hopper from the second to the seventh inning. That summation he gave over the phone? He gave it over and over again. He gave it to everyone in his Your Five, in his Your Fifty. He told it to his similarly white-tank-topped 13-year-old son (a boy initially presented as proof of age to the beer vendor as in “I've got a 13-year-old son, that's my I.D.!”), a preteen (looked younger than 13) who seemed not impressed and not a little bored. He told it to his friend, some kind of D.J. it was implied. He told it to anybody within listening range. He told it to the air.

It is no exaggeration to say by midgame I had come to be a player-hater and that the player I hated was Norris Hopper. I wanted every Met to hit every ball at Norris Hopper and I wanted Norris Hopper to make every conceivable sort of error. I wanted Norris Hopper's nickname to become E-8. I could look past Brandon Phillips' one-man demolition job and Ken Griffey's eight-year-old refusal to accept a trade to us and Mike Stanton for being a Yankee when he was a Met and David Weathers for being a Met at all and Pete Rose for what he did to our Buddy and Joe Morgan for announcing so poorly and every transgression ever perpetrated by a Red, past or present, against our team because all I could wish was ill on Norris Hopper.

It wasn't just the yo!norris!myboy!fromthehood!getaballformyson! loop that was getting on my nerves nor the incessant, overdone Norris cheering for every Met fly ball to center that wasn't mishandled. This guy was simply bad news. He received his vended beer and then some. He grew louder. He told various members of Row H and Row G and Row F he didn't care for some stray characteristic of theirs. He thought it hilarious to have turned “Lastings Milledge” to “Lasting Mileage” (thus making Joe sound like a Nobel Laureate taunter by comparison). He divined his boy Norris must be good because he was batting second “just like Derek Jeter”. Somewhere along the way, he admitted he wasn't much of a baseball fan at all, that he preferred football, that after his boy Norris gets his last at-bat, yo we're outta here.

I'm a little fuzzy on what transpired next. I heard him telling his son over and over that “you're my son, you understand?” (I could imagine the kid wanting to forget that fact.) I saw him and his D.J. friend heading downstairs for more beer or something harder. I noticed their return. And then, out of nowhere, appeared about a half-dozen Shea security officers.

“You're leaving,” their supervisor told him.

There was lots of “huh?” and “wha'?” and “why me?” but the security force brooked no sass. “Your night is over,” the supervisor said. “Let's go.”

Wow, I thought. I didn't know being an annoying Yankees fan could get you thrown out of Shea Stadium.

As the merry trio was led away, a cloud lifted from over our section. Row H…Row G…Row F…all liberated from the idiot. We were confused as to why it happened, but we were elated that it did. Theories were pieced together, one centering on the guy putting his kid in too tight a headlock when giving him the “you're my son” spiel after the son acted up, leading somebody to alert the authorities; and another involving a fan not from our section who trailed the security guys up the steps — he may have run into some unpleasantness with the white tank top in the concourse that soared beyond obnoxious chatter and decided to do something about it. Whatever motivated their dismissal from the premises, the seventh-inning stretch, the XM Singalong and, especially, the bottom-of-the-eighth rally (capped by Lasting Mileage) were bristling with uncommon energy in Loge 15.

“Enter Sandman,” too. Our crowd was frenzied not just for a Mets win, but a Reds loss. Norris Hopper was due up fourth in the ninth. I of course wanted Billy to mow Cincy down one-two-three, but oh, is there any way Norris Hopper can make the last out? Didn't come to that. Had to settle for a 2-1 win and the white tank top's boy Norris left stranded in the on-deck circle.

Great night for Ralph. Great night for us. And a great night to stick it to Norris Hopper, who went straight to the top of my enemies list…until I got home.

I had to check. Where was Norris Hopper from in the New York area? What “hood” had yielded this blight of a friend of his for us to enjoy? And would this jerk be allowed back in Sunday now that Norris was leaving them tickets like he was supposed to, yo?

Guess what — Norris Hopper is from Shelby, North Carolina.

He was born there. He graduated from high school there. He was drafted by the Kansas City Royals from there. He'd been knocking around the minor leagues for seven years before making the Reds last year. I checked the Reds' media guide, I checked every source I could think of. There is no evidence that Norris Hopper has ever lived in New York. If it exists, it is most certainly well-hidden.

Furthermore, there was nothing to suggest the slightest southern charm about the guy in the white tank top. That is, I don't believe the “hood” that gentleman spoke of is or was in North Carolina. What I do believe, therefore, is that, duh, this dope DOES NOT KNOW NORRIS HOPPER!

I'm also thinking there was nobody on the other end of any of those phone calls.

I have absolutely no idea why a person would pretend to know a person he or she does not. OK, let me rephrase that lest you think me sadly naïve: I know there are dishonest and/or delusional people in this world, particularly those who have things about celebrities. Sports seems to create these faux-relationships by the bushel.

I have heard tell of at least one young lady in the Metropolitan Area who claims against all overwhelming evidence to the contrary that she is the steady girlfriend of a certain third baseman we all love but probably don't actually know.

I know of two separate women who claim thoroughly unlikely relationships with a shortstop of whom we aren't particularly fond.

There is a lady who was legendary in certain circles of Shea Stadium for insisting she was the niece of the owner of a rival team.

And to make sure this isn't just a knock on crazy women fans, I once read of a man, a Philadelphia Eagles fan, who bragged to some fellow golfers that he was mighty tight with then-head coach Rich Kotite — only to have Rich Kotite himself wander into the 19th hole (and be kind enough not to blow the liar's cover when he figured out how thin the truth was being stretched).

But Norris Hopper?

Somebody in New York would fabricate a friendship with Norris Hopper who is from North Carolina and plays for Cincinnati? Somebody who needed his buddy and his son to help him divine where to find the score on the scoreboard would enter Shea and then spend his entire abbreviated stay dropping the name Norris Hopper whose entire Major League playing career is 82 games long?

You can make all the excuses and explanations you care to — he wanted to be a hero to his son; he wanted to choose somebody so obscure that nobody could challenge him; he is preternaturally pathological and was pretty damn drunk — but Norris Hopper?

You mean I chose Norris Hopper as my own personal Rocker because some nitwit in a tank top bragged he and Norris were from the same neighborhood when, in fact, they appear to be barely from the same time zone?

Yo! I'm sorry, Norris. You're not a nerd and you're not a lowlife with a lowlife pass list. You're just some random Red. Based on that alone, I can't say you're a bad guy. In fact, based on that alone, I can't say much of anything about you. But beware, Mr. Hopper, there are actually people who would.

And for what it's worth, I think Norris is a fine first name.

Not for Tom Glavine, who thoroughly earned No. 298 by baffling every Red who wasn't named Brandon Phillips. Glavine gets claps until my hands are sore. Same for the Mets' defense — the back-to-back sparklers from Gotay and Reyes will get the highlights, but David Wright had another quietly impressive game in the field. (Though given all that he's been through, Lastings Milledge should really, really make sure he knows how many outs there are.) Oh, and Ralph Kiner gets applause on his night, of course. I'll leave the word picture of the night at Shea to Greg, who was there.

But the offense gets nothing but a frosty stare. You want applause, fellas? Sorry. You made Matt Belisle look like Tom Seaver, somehow converted 11 hits into two runs, and a bloop double and a bounder single were all that kept Glavine's superhuman performance from going down as a monumentally frustrating 1-0 loss against the second-worst team in the major leagues.

Perhaps Lesson #1 from Howard Johnson can be about working a count, particularly with runners on. (Let Rickey pitch in — that man worked a count better than any hitter in the history of the game.) The Mets started out fairly well in this regard — in the first, Beltran, Wright and Delgado saw 20 pitches between them in that situation. But things went downhill from there, until the Mets were playing like they had a one-run lead three outs from an official game and the rain was tumbling from the sky. Green hit a weak pop-up to the shortstop in the fourth with Lo Duca on first; Delgado flied out to left in the sixth with Wright on first; Reyes flied out to center in the seventh with Glavine on first. Three lead-off runners left exactly where they were a pitch before. Yes, I know Milledge won the game on a first-pitch single, but a lot of times that's a comebacker to the pitcher and more boos. You can fall out of a window into a giant pile of unclaimed money, but that doesn't make swan dives from apartments a good idea. As for the booing, I don't think the fans were booing specific players (the Carloses sure heard it, but so did Wright) as much as they were booing the lack of an apparent game plan from the hitters. And I don't blame them — I was sure booing from the comfort of my couch.

Maybe this is an ungrateful reaction and I should be jumping up and down over what could be called a taut 2-1 win. But this team's not playing well enough to earn that — we've all seen too many such wins followed by torpid performances or blowouts. (As my blog brother chronicled so ably and chillingly one post back.) So, sorry — I'll hold my applause pending further evidence of actual decent baseball.

Would Daffy Duck or Yosemite Sam or any not-quite-doomed cartoon character who runs off a cliff stay aloft if his nemesis didn't point out he was no longer on solid ground but in fact trying to maintain his footing amid thin air? You don't want to think about the answer for too long because before you know it, the laws of physics will send you plunging.

In the cartoons, you take a mighty fall yet return good as new in the next scene. In baseball, you simply fall. And for a team that's supposed to outrun all nemeses, the Mets sure do get blown out a lot.

Technically, an 8-4 final like Friday night's doesn't scream blowout. My own rule of thumb is a seven-run margin equals a blowout, probably because seven sounds like a lot more than six (don't call me unexacting in my measurements). But when you trail by four runs after four batters and seven runs after six innings, the game, my friend, is blowin' in the wind.

I can remember two or three instances in 1986 of the Mets being out of games early. I can remember scores going very much the wrong way fast and/or late against the 2006 Mets once in a while. It happens to the best of them and these two editions were most assuredly pillars of that group. But it's happened a little too often in 2007 to write it off as just one of those things that happens to the best of them. As the Mets have definitely proved since early June, they are not even close to being among the best of them.

Here's the first batch of evidence.

April 25: Down 11-0 after six, lose 11-5 to Rockies.

April 30: Down 8-1 after six, lose 9-6 to Marlins.

May 7: Down 9-1 after five, lose 9-4 to Giants.

May 12: Down 4-0 after four, lose 12-3 to Brewers.

May 15: Down 9-1 after six, lose 10-1 to Cubs.

After that last game — on the last night the Mets didn't get to the close of business in first place — I began to get suspicious that five losses in which the Mets trailed by at least seven runs at some point was characteristic of something horribly awry. In the first two, they made late charges that made me believe our boys never quit (I half expected rousing comebacks). The third was a little fluky if you remember San Francisco. The fourth got out of hand late. The fifth was essentially Scott Schoeneweis at his Scott Schoeneweisiest. Plus, the last three losses in this quintet were followed up by what one would have to call resilient wins. So maybe on five occasions in their first 38 contests the Mets were just having one of those days.

But five occasions of essentially being noncompetitive in the span of 19 contests…it troubled me a bit. Teams that are supposed to greet the October moon don't give up that many games. Again, these weren't just losses. These were beatings. It's one thing to get nipped or edged. It's another to be semi-regularly stomped.

The Mets got through May on something of a roll, concocting enough crazy wins in the second half of the month to make me forget the string of blowout losses. When June began to disintegrate, it wasn't really a matter of getting whacked as described above. The losses were listless yet not impossible (the Shea Phillies series excepted, choking away late-inning leads hasn't really happened this year — knock wood, not Wagner).

Then the blowing out recommenced.

June 10: Down 10-3 after five, lose 15-7 to Tigers.

June 13: Down 6-1 after six, lose 9-1 to Dodgers.

June 17: Down 6-0 after five, lose 8-2 to Yankees.

June 19: Down 9-0 after five, lose 9-0 to Twins.

Four ugly losses, all trailed by seven at some point (including the 8-2 loss to the Yankees in which it was 8-1 after eight), in a span of just nine games. This doesn't count two slugfest defeats (8-7 to the Tigers, 11-8 to the Yankees) that nearly got completely away. The Mets were playing all kinds of bad for three weeks in June. We know that. But they weren't just crappy 3-0 bad. In the above four games, played within close proximity of each other, they were, on average, 10-2 bad.

As the 2007 Mets tend to do, they got their act together just long enough to make us look past the unpleasant fact that not a single position player is having a career year or an impactful year or a year anything on a par with last year. They won seven of eight and the inclination was to say they've solved whatever was bothering them. They're gonna get going.

Then they made the mistake of going west.

July 3: Down 11-3 after five, lose 11-3 to Rockies.

July 4: Down 12-4 after five, lose 17-7 to Rockies.

July 8: Down 8-0 after four, lose 8-3 to Astros.

This doesn't even include the Rockies opener in which the Mets fell behind 6-0 (final 6-2) in the third and the Friday night game in Houston that was so lost at 4-0 in the eighth that the team's most dynamic and exciting player had to be benched for the ninth because even he had lost interest in the affair.

Now throw in…

July 13: Down 8-1 in the sixth, lose 8-4 to the Reds.

Friday night made it four of the last eight games that turned into anti-Met blowouts. One of them took place after an exhilarating 17-inning win built on the kind of resolve that should inspire a team the next day, not flatten them. Another, last night's to a last-place club, came on the heels of an uplifting start to the second half of the season. Two nights in, it's like they never revived or refreshed themselves whatsoever.

Since April 25 (which was also after one of the most brilliant wins of the season), a stretch that covers 70 games, the Mets have trailed by seven or more runs in 13 separate contests. That means the Mets have been in the process of being blown out at some point almost once every five games. They are 0-13 in those games, which figures since only twice in their entire 46-year history have the Mets overcome deficits as large as seven runs.

It's happened against good teams, bad teams, hot teams and cold teams. It's happened to good pitchers, bad pitchers, hot pitchers and cold pitchers. It's happened quite a bit.

I'm fond of referring to the old adage that you're going to lose a third of your games no matter what just as you're going to win a third of your games no matter what — and that it's the other third that decides your season. Fair enough. But there's nothing in the pithy statistical sayings of baseball that implies you're going to get blown out in a quarter of those unwinnable losses (assuming they're not the losses you collect in the decisive third of your season), especially by mid-July. And there is no logic whatsoever in a team that's blown out 13 separate times in its last 70 games spending, as we speak, 60 consecutive days in first place.

“Getting blown out a lot” is a symptom of what's wrong with the Mets, not the disease itself. If there were a pill that would prevent a team from falling behind by seven runs, from simultaneously not hitting, pitching, fielding and thinking well, I'm sure 25 of them would be distributed in the clubhouse at once. This pill does not exist and neither, I have begun to conclude, does the Mets' intestinal fortitude to remain elevated in their lofty National League East position. It's fine to oust Rick Down and designate Julio Franco and wait for Moises Alou and Endy Chavez and Pedro Martinez to heal. But something tells me something bigger is necessary before none of it matters.

If he promises to remove Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Maine, Perez (coming back Sunday) and Wagner to a holding pen for safe keeping, Omar can deal anybody he likes or anybody he can on the active roster with my blessing. All this season I've thought I've been watching a division champion, a first-place squad and a team capable of going all the way. I now mostly see a bunch of underachievers who have allowed themselves to be blown out 13 separate times in their last 70 games. There are guys I'd just as soon hold onto for the short term or nurture for the long term or keep on hand simply because I dig them, but the 2007 Mets are destined to fall out of first, to not repeat as champs of the East, to not even make the playoffs with this whole lot of uninspired, uninspiring fellows. So I'm no longer clinging to most of these Mets.

Therefore…

If you could somehow divine a way to replace the gritty incumbent catcher who rarely drives runners home, go ahead.

If you could upgrade over the accomplished first baseman who has shown zero consistency and less mobility than that, please do.

If you can find a rightfielder with an eensy bit of pop as opposed to what we're extracting from a stone, bring that person in.

If you can somehow find a second baseman or a leftfielder at all, that would be novel.

If one of the promising youngsters currently healthy has to go, have him go.

If the one or two spare parts with some value can be packaged and exchanged for something of greater worth, make the exchange.

If veterans on the cusp of grand milestones could bring us something, say goodbye to them and send them a Tiffany's bag when they reach their personal goal.

I'd sooner expect Shea Stadium to stand past 2008 than I would wholesale changes be made to our Major League personnel during the remainder of this season. But make no mistake about what we've been witnessing. The 2007 Mets are on top on borrowed time. Their lease of first place is close to expiring. They have almost no legitimate claim to the great position which they now barely grasp. They may be the first team in baseball history that will aim to make a run at respectability while leading the pack.

I'm concerned about the Braves and Phillies but I'm more worried about us. The Mets' give-up-and-get-out style of play, which has routed them 13 times, is their stiffest competition. And they're dangerously close to losing everything to it.

The Mets are in first place and the ship is not listing. But what ails this team is something that is sensed more than it’s been seen. Something is out of kilter — perhaps an approach to hitting, an approach to competing, an approach to winning.

That was Bill Rhoden in this morning's Times, and it was well-said. Not being able to put your finger on exactly what is wrong with this team doesn't mean you don't know something's amiss. And tonight was an example. Taken piece by piece, the loss doesn't seem so dire. Brandon Phillips had a career night. Maine hadn't pitched in forever. Lo Duca's hitting in lousy luck. Gotay hit in lousy luck. Hey, Harang's their ace. Milledge looked good again. Mota and Schoeneweis and Heilman all had decent outings. And did you see that play Wright made?

Finding all the positives, you might miss the pesky little negative: That we lost, 8-4, and are now a bad weekend away from second place. Which is our last line of defense — take away first place and you might indeed start saying, “Hey, cap'n, this ship seems to be riding a little lower to starboard than it is to port.”

Over the last week I repeatedly stopped and started a post grappling with the question Rhoden alludes to. My premise was that what's wrong with the 2007 Mets is really nothing more than the fact that they're not the 2006 Mets, that that season's runaway success sprinkled pixie dust in our eyes and made us fail to appreciate this season, in which a first-place team will be reinforced with a brace of important players returning from the DL, among them one Pedro J. Martinez.

I think I know why I never finished that post: On some level I knew it wasn't true. As a wise man once said, you could look it up. On June 2 the Mets were 34-18, 16 games over .500. Today they're 49-40. In between, the record is a putrid 15-22. Thirty-seven games is nearly a quarter of a season — time enough to say that yes, something is wrong. We can argue about what that something is, but it's pretty clear it's more than just an absence of pixie dust.

Go somewhere.

Hit traffic.

Run late.

Sit in car.

Turn on game.

Reyes homers.

Gotay homers.

History made.

Traffic eases.

Get there.

Do thing.

Get back in car.

Wagner closes.

Mets win.

Save for crawling on the Cross Bronx and missing the middle seven innings, may the rest of the second half be that simple.

Tonight the Mets will kick off the remaining 75/162th of the season at Shea, against the Cincinnati Reds. Bronson Arroyo will face Orlando Hernandez. Lastings Milledge may be patrolling left.

If I close my eyes I can imagine what Lastings' face will look like between his cap and the top of his jersey — a little bit of bravado, a little bit of uncertainty. I can easily picture El Duque's chin tucked against his shoulder as his knee scrapes the sky. Whatever role he's in, I can picture Rickey Henderson laughing in the dugout, still looking like he can play. (And telling anyone passing by the same.) I can see Jose regarding the pitcher with his mouth slightly open as his bat moves lazily back and forth. I can conjure up Wright rubbing his nose in his jersey and giving his head a little shake as he regards his bat. It's easy to think of Lo Duca squinting out at the pitcher, already vaguely annoyed about something. I can visualize Delgado's smooth, deceptively placid practice swings. Give me a minute and … yep, I've got Beltran looking still and imperturbable at bat. I can smile at how Shawn Green's always all elbows and knees. I can shake my head predicting that Jose Valentin's batting helmet will fold down the top of his ear. (Doesn't that hurt?)

I can see all these little quirks that you pick up over weeks and months and years of watching the players on your team through innumerable at-bats and defensive positionings and moments collecting themselves outside the batter's box. But there's one thing I can't see with any kind of accuracy, no matter how hard I try.

I have no idea what the Mets will be wearing tonight.

Black unis? White uniforms? Pinstripes? Black caps? Black and blue hats? The all-blues?

Kind of scrambles those mental images a bit, doesn't it?

It's been a long time since the Mets added a bushel of new variations to the uniform that had been good enough, names on the back and numbers on the front and racing stripes and a tail and drop shadows and an orange button notwithstanding, to wear since 1962. I'm not against change — if anything, I err on the side of rushing it in before it's quite ready. By now I'm used to the black uniforms, added in 1998, and the white ones, introduced the year before. (Though not to that wretched black cap with the blue bill, which needs to join the ice-cream cap and the METS with a tail in the dustbin of sartorial Met history.) What I am against is the sheer randomness of the Mets' uniforms, the way they take the field wearing this one or that one or the other one without apparent rhyme or reason. (See here for a history of Mets uniforms from Ultimate Mets Database.)

Howie Rose paints the word picture ably, just as Bob Murphy did, or Gary Cohen before SNY came calling. But no matter how good Howie is, there's a moment early on in his broadcast when I'm thrown out of the whole proceedings. And that's when Howie (or Tom McCarthy) describes “the Mets wearing their [insert one of many uniforms here].” In baseball, painting the word picture is about one-third keen observation and two-thirds summoning up, through time-honored shorthand, what the listener is already picturing in his or her head. When Howie has to stop and tell me what uniform my favorite team is wearing, the whole facade teeters for a moment. My recalibrating my mental images to show the correct uniform is the like being at the theater and noticing the backdrop's just painted and you can see hands tugging on cables in the rafters, and then having to yank your attention back to the story.

It's a uniform, for Pete's sake. The very word means it's supposed to be the same. Or at least predictable. What the Mets have now is a … there isn't really a word for it. A cacophon? A cluster … oh, let's just say it's a mess is what it is.

It doesn't have to be this way. Allow me, if you will, a modest proposal. And it is truly modest — it doesn't excise uniform variations (well, except for those stupid black and blue hats) or demand things be the same as they were in 1965 or 1986. It shouldn't endanger the slightest percentage of revenue from merchandising. It merely seeks to restore a certain sanity to what should never have become so complicated in the first place.

Here they are, the proposed uniform rules for your New York Mets:

Home night games: Pinstripes and blue caps.

Home day games: White uniforms and blue caps.

Weekend night games and holiday games: Black home uniforms and black caps.

Road night games: Gray uniforms and blue caps. (Or black. Monochromatic on the road works for me. But pick one.)

Road day games and holidays: Black road uniforms and black caps.

It may not be perfect. But it restores the traditional uniforms to what I see as their rightful role. They'd once again be the norm, while allowing plenty of chances to cash in on the current mania for variations that's infected clubs with lineages far older than ours. (Those red Braves uniforms, my God.)

Exceptions would be allowed. If the team wins five in a row and the players aren't inclined to mess with a winning streak, every fan would understand. If Pedro's convinced the black unis will end a five-game skid, listen to the man. And building on this foundation would let unique days feel actually unique, instead of just like an additional throw of the equipment-manager dice. Negro League uniforms are always cool. Wearing the various agencies' caps on September 11th makes for a quietly moving tribute. Break out the '86 unis every September 17th. And why stop there? Stars-and-stripes uniforms for the Fourth of July (the Binghamton Mets did it), camo togs for Memorial Day, pink unis instead of just bats for Mother's Day — I could live with all of that, if only the rest of the year were predictable. What If? nights with the Mets wearing concept designs for the Meadowlarks, Burros, Continentals, Skyliners and what-not. Heck, have “The Natural” night with the Mets in the yellow-and-white uniforms of the New York Knights — I just made that one up. I could even hoot cheerfully at the return of the Mercury Mets, as long as the leadoff hitter isn't given a third eye.

On second thought, that last one's too much.

Of course Rick Down had to go. Dude got a whole lot dumber once Moises Alou got hurt.

Funny how little we hear of hitting coaches when the hitters are hitting. They’re a hundred times less visible than their pitching counterparts. We don’t even notice how regularly they wear their jackets. As one of our sharpest blolleagues, JAMMQ at The Mets Are Better Than Sex, asked during a recent teamwide offensive torpor:

Why is it only pitching coaches are allowed to go out to the mound? Why aren’t hitting coaches allowed to do the same thing for batters? Since 1954, when the Supreme Court established that “separate but equal is inherently unequal,” we believe a grave injustice is still on-going in that hitting coaches and managers aren’t able to run out to the batter’s box and settle down a hitter in much the same way a pitching coach is allowed to go to the mound and settle down a rattled pitcher.

Great question. I haven’t the foggiest as to the answer.

It occurred to me sometime last summer that Down must have been doing an aces-high job given how little his name seeped into our consciousness. After all those midseasons of the air thickening with calls for the ouster of Tom Robson or Dave Engle or Don Baylor, it was both refreshing not to see fingers pointing and discouraging to realize the guy nominally responsible for a teamwide offensive bonanza wasn’t reaping substantial public credit. Mind you, I have no idea how much credit Down was legitimately due, but if everybody’s going to jump ugly on the hitting coach when ohfers abound, it seems only right to say he was The Man when the lineup was clicking.

First word Wednesday night (issued as I fell asleep from watching HBO’s anesthetic of a two-hour documentary on the Dodgers — Larry King grew up in Brooklyn you say?) indicated the job will fall to Rickey Henderson, though a later report said Henderson’s definitely en route but Howard Johnson may become hitting coach. HoJo has been talked up as David Wright’s guru while Jose Reyes’ upswings have been traced to Rickey’s tutelage (Jose apparently works well with No. 24s).

Hmmm…maybe Down was too closely identified with Ricky Ledee.

If it is Henderson — even if it’s not Henderson and he’s here to coach first — it’s remarkable to realize what a winding road (albeit via the same Minaya shortcut that keeps Julio Franco off the coaching staff and on the active roster) Rickey took to get back here. He was disgraced within the organization when he was released in May of 2000. That was one of Steve Phillips’ decisions — signed off on by Bobby Valentine — that I was in complete alignment with. On a Friday night against the Marlins, Rickey launched a ball to the base of the leftfield wall and Rickey wound up on first. For someone whose entire career was predicated on running…Rickey wasn’t. And it wasn’t the first occasion since the previous August ln which Rickey’s dance card eschewed the hustle. The next day, in a rare show of Met front office resolve, he was sent packing; he’d be the only 2000 Met, counting even cameo men like Ryan McGuire and Jim Mann, begrudged an N.L. championship ring by the general manager.

Seven years later, Rickey is far more welcome in Flushing than Steve Phillips. Who’d have figured?

The one thing everybody seems to remember ruefully from Henderson’s Met tenure was the card-playing during Game Six in Atlanta. I have to admit I didn’t get riled up about that (other than being disappointed someone would choose to hang with Bobby Bo). Though I imagine ESPN could do a nice job of dramatizing it should they ever turn the ’99 Mets into a stilted miniseries, Rickey (like Bobby) was out of the game by then. Something tells me if Rickey wasn’t Rickey but still shuffled the deck while his team was battling for its life, he’d be held up as a charming example of old school superstition. It’s the durndest thing, I tell ya. Henderson was dealing hearts while the Mets were tying the Braves. What a character! But you could also argue if Rickey wasn’t Rickey…ah, y’know what? Rickey did pretty well being Rickey. Let’s hope he can teach the good parts. He is, when all is said and documented, a card-carrying legend.

The most infamous coach-sacking in Mets history was the triple-execution of June 6, 1999 when Bob Apodaca, Randy Niemann and Tom Robson took three for the team. Tom Verducci recaptured Henderson’s priceless take on the situation and perhaps the value of hitting coaches four years later when the ageless wonder was hanging on with the Newark Bears:

Henderson saw reporters scurrying around the clubhouse and asked a teammate, “What happened?”

“They fired Robson,” was the reply.

“Robson?” Henderson said. “Who’s he?”

Rickey’s Enriched Learning Center for Gifted Children is in session…discover your desks, people. See, Rickey isn’t old school. Rickey’s a magnet school. Rickey’s what they called, when I was in third grade, open school. In Dr. Rickey’s progressive classroom, if he is indeed named head of the batting department at P.S. .268 (P.S. .252 with runners in scoring position), I doubt we’ll have trouble remembering the identity of the hitting instructor for very long.

Didn't love the All-Star result, but I'm always happy to see Phone Company Park. Not that we haven't seen it, but it's a call worth placing any time. Baseball has done the right thing two straight Julys, bringing its showpiece first to Pittsburgh then San Fran. For sheer attractiveness, I think those are the two most beautiful settings in the sport.

Well, those and Shea.

As you probably know, the next All-Star Game will be in New York, but on the wrong side of town. The only way I can imagine slogging through that sycophantic media tonguefest will be to have National League manager Willie Randolph guide a squad led by Reyes, Wright, Beltran, Maine and five or six more Mets to a rousing victory. The Mets and their N.L. colleagues will celebrate, but our contingent will tell you it's nothing compared to winning the World Series last fall.

Anyway…we don't get a second All-Star Game at Shea the way things stand now. We got one when we opened and we've had to stay satisfied with that. It's been reported, however, the Mets will host an ASG in 2011, more likely in 2013, at Citi Field.

I have a better idea. The Mets should host the All-Star blowout at Citi Field in whichever year MLB gives it to us. And they should host it at Shea Stadium. Game and home run contest at Citi. Celebrity softball and some sort of pitching-based skills competition at fair and symmetrical Shea.

For that to happen, you'd need both ballparks. To which I say, but of course!

This is about more than an All-Star Game, though. It's about saving a precious piece of our heritage. It's about a simple enough proposal that I've been mulling for months, one that won't happen but, honestly, maybe ought to.

Let's build Citi Field. Let's keep Shea Stadium.

Imagine that. Imagine the Mets as the only ballclub in the entire realm of baseball to claim not one but two home fields. Talk about a home field advantage!

I'm not crazy.

OK, I might be crazy but it made perfect sense to me in April when the notion first hit me where else but at Shea when I was in the upper deck with my friend Laurie. We were enjoying not just the Mets beating the Rockies but the drop-dead gorgeous view of Queens-glorious-Queens from Section 1, Row H. Damn, I said, this is just too perfect to destroy.

I believe — and my focus group (Laurie) agreed — this two-ballpark plan will satisfy any number of constituencies. It speaks to issues of heart and practicality. If executed well, CitiShea could be a revolutionary revenue-generator for club management. Since they rightly have an interest in making money, how could they not love it?

Build Citi Field to completion but keep Shea Stadium.

There. Done.

Why not? Parking? Who needs adequate parking? Seriously. The Mets are drawing, on average, 44,320 per date in 2007. Remember when it was a big deal for the Mets to draw 40,000 to a given game? When it was a good sign that the Mets could get 25,000 on a weeknight? That's not a problem anymore. Give the people a good team and they will show up in record numbers. They will countenance whatever hassles you put in front of them, including a lack of parking.

Mets fans as a people have already adapted to the lack of automotive accommodation. It's become a badge of honor for chronic drivers that they know just when to leave home, how early to arrive and where their secret route or nook and cranny nobody else knows about is. For the rest of us, throw on a couple more trains, fix the Willets Point station and it will be barely remembered that we used to have a zillion more spaces. (Besides, Ebbets Field didn't have much parking.)

The site where Shea Stadium sits is due to become a parking lot by Opening Day 2009. Can you think of anything sadder, the ballpark where you fell in love with your team not only not existing any longer but giving way to a constant reminder that it doesn't exist? Mark it all you want, it doesn't help. There's a simple, tasteful home plate diagrammed in the parking lot of U.S. Cellular Field marking where the real one stood. It says, if I recall correctly, COMISKEY PARK 1910-1990. Lines extend out from where the plate was, as if bordering an infield constructed of asphalt and eternity.

I saw this on my last visit to the South Side of Chicago and I nearly cried literally on the spot. I have to admit that though I'm not a White Sox fan I did love old Comiskey, so it's little wonder I felt that way. But I had no love for Veterans Stadium, yet a couple of weeks ago when I saw the parking lot it had become, my baseball heart ached more than I would have thought. Thirty-seven years ago Philadelphia set out to honor those who fought and died for their country by naming its new sports facility in their memory. Now that honor has been reduced to a plaque.

A plaque and a parking lot…what do you think Joni Mitchell was trying to tell us anyway?

So let's not to do that to ourselves. Let's not pave over our 1964 paradise. But let's not be dead-enders either and deprive ourselves of a potential PNC or Phone Company. Let's be flexible about this.

Let's have our Field and Shea it, too. Both, baby. Both.

Your next question may be whatever for? Why are we building this state-of-the-art blahblahtorium if we're gonna keep Ol' Leaky around?

Glad you asked. I've got a multipoint plan:

1) The Mets move their operations to Citi Field.

2) The Mets play at Citi Field 75 dates a year.

3) The Mets play at Shea Stadium six dates a year.

Of course you use Citi Field has your primary home park. You just went to the trouble of building it, you're not going to pot plants in it. But what's the one overriding complaint you've heard about Citi Field from everybody who's read the fine print? That it will have not enough seats.

All that great attendance we were touting earlier will go by the wayside as of 2009. Crowds of more than 45,000 (seated crowds of more than 42,000) will be a thing of the past. Never mind how it looks in the agate. It will look like nothing to thousands of Mets fans every day because they will have no look whatsoever inside Citi Field. The noble concept may be to promote Ebbetsy intimacy, the bottom line goal may be to juice demand, but whatever the intentions, the truth is there will be games for which each of us (who isn't a full season ticketholder) has made it into at Shea that we stand a far lesser chance of seeing at Citi.

I'm willing to accept a little “oh well, that's life” here. The newer parks I think are so neat, PNC and Phone Company, do not hold 56,000 seats. I get the idea that being (or at least feeling) closer comes with a price, and not just whatever the market will bear. Bigger seats, closer seats…fewer seats. It's not ideal. It's not at all ideal unless you're inside. Fewer of us will be on every given day.

So let's promote a little feelgood expansion, shall we? Let's keep Shea around to host six games annually, one per month. Let's open the season at Citi, a guaranteed sellout, but let's revive Opening Day II and hold it at Shea. Make a big deal out of it like the Mets did in the mid-'80s with Rodney Dangerfield. Bring in Kevin James or some other regular-bloke entertainer to do self-effacing shtick. Manufacture some more magnetic schedules. What's the harm? You just made 11,000 or so Mets fans happy who would have otherwise been put out and put off.

That's April. In May or June, you bring one of the Subway Series games back to its roots and hold it at Shea. Figure out a way to make the 56,000 seats available to 56,000 Mets fans (I know they haven't done that yet, but assign a task force). Imagine how cool it would be to face down the Yankees with two ballparks. Imagine the cred we'd have all over America. Gee, I thought the Yankees were the big deal in New York, but the Mets have TWO stadiums. They must be the balls in that town! With Yankee Stadium, even restructured the-Bronx-is-boring 1976 Yankee Stadium, out of the picture, we'll have aesthetics, critical mass and tradition working for us. Whereas they'll just have Not Really Yankee Stadium, we'll have all kinds of options.

In June (or May, depending on the Subway schedule) you hold one of your concert-type nights at Shea. Merengue Night. Irish Night with green caps and Black 47. Doesn't have to be geared to any one international theme either. Bring in a panoply of Mets-loving performers. Bring in Yo La Tengo. Bring back the Baha Men. Make it a 4 o'clock start and sell it as a doubleheader of baseball and music. The place will rock, honoring the heritage of both the Mets and the Beatles.

July? Fireworks night. You can have two. One at Citi, one at Shea. People love fireworks. I don't much care about them, but many do.

August? How about a day-night, two-ballpark doubleheader? I mean two ballparks we can stand to be in on the same day. And make it a festival. Reinstate Banner Day and turn it into a joyous parade that exits Citi Field and enters Shea Stadium to herald the night portion of our twinbill. (Separate admissions will be required — this is a dream, not a fantasy.)

Come September, save one divisional date against that year's prospective rival of rivals and make them extremely uncomfortable. Imagine jarring them from the plush clubhouses and modern amenities of Citi Field in the middle of a series and sending them back to the jungle that is Shea. If the Mets are in a race, fathom the fervor of the fans who have been locked out of Citi finally getting a shot at the Braves or Phillies or Marlins or Nats just like in the old days. “God,” you can just hear Larry Jones saying, “I thought we were done with that place. It completely threw us off our stride. It's horrible. I can't hit there once a year. That's it. I'm retiring.”

There. Six games. That wasn't so hard, was it? Maybe you charge 10% less than what you charge at Citi. Or, what the hell, charge 10% more. Think about the cachet this half-dozen will have. “The Shea Games” will be must-see. The Mets can construct a whole new six-pack to sell — the Tradition Pack. Other than the Yankees and the September rival, you can serve up any old opponent and it will be a bona fide event. What longtime Mets fan would pass up that rare opportunity to take in a game at Shea? To show a son or daughter where Jose and David got their start? To point to the precise location of where a magic ball went through a first baseman's legs and to confirm that it really happened and that it wasn't a bedtime story Daddy made up? To remember the good old days while experiencing some great new days? (We could do that just by sticking with Shea alone, but that's a whole other moot point.)

One team, two parks is both a new idea and a proven oldie/goodie. I can think of two examples. One comes from Cleveland. Remember Municipal Stadium a.k.a. Cleveland Stadium a.k.a. the Mistake by the Lake? It was built in a fit of civic pride, perhaps in anticipation of the 1932 Summer Olympics coming to America's North Coast. That didn't happen. But there was this big ol' 80,000-seat stadium just sitting and waiting. In came the Indians to attempt to fill it…most of the time. See, the Tribe had long before set up its wigwam at smaller League Park in a different part of town. So for a dozen-some years, the Indians split their time. Municipal Stadium got the big gates, some night games, all the holidays and so forth. Day games, run-of-the-mill games, other what-have-you games were at League Park.

The Indians didn't win a blessed thing while this was going on, but they did use two parks as a matter of course. It has happened.

How about a better, closer-to-home — physically and spiritually speaking — example? How about those Boys of Summer certain modern-day owners obsess over enough to build them a permanent shrine? Yes, the Brooklyn Dodgers of Fred Wilpon's youth did not play all their games at sainted Ebbets Field even when Ebbets Field was their home. In 1956 and 1957, Dem Bums played one game per N.L. opponent, seven a year, at Roosevelt Stadium in Jersey City. It was essentially a scheme by Walter O'Malley designed to get New York's attention and show hey, you wanna see us play more games west of the Hudson? You ain't seen nothin' yet.

Roosevelt Stadium was part of a shakedown which, depending on your view, either didn't work for O'Malley (because the Dodgers wound up in Los Angeles) or worked like a charm for O'Malley (because the Dodgers wound up in Los Angeles). Either way, it was one team with two stadiums. And we already know, because we're reminded constantly, that the Brooklyn Dodgers were the balls in this town.

CitiShea isn't nearly as nefarious as EbbetsVelt. It's got all the Dodger dust with none of the posturing. The Mets aren't leaving town. If anything, they'd be putting down the most solid roots you can imagine in Flushing Meadows. They'd have two homes on the same block. Now that's big love.

I should get back to the multipoint plan, because you might be wondering if we're going to keep Shea around for a grand total of six games (the Tradition Pack…can't you just hear the ads?), what about the rest of the time? That's a lot of space being taken by an edifice that isn't doing all that much and a lot of upkeep for something not generating more than six dates' worth of action.

4) The Mets open Shea Stadium's upper deck during certain home games at Citi Field.

Remember what I said earlier about the view? It really is too good a view to let go to waste. Seriously, when I sat up there in late April, warm night, beginning to stay light for a few innings, there was no better place to be. You didn't even need the game that much. But you need it a little.

So here's the next phase. On select nights when you're fairly certain the weather will hold out and you know there will be a sellout with overflow interest in what's going on next door, take advantage. Sell seats in the portions of Shea's upper deck that provide a great view of DiamondVision for, say, five bucks. Instead of having crappy seats to watch the field, you'll have awesome seats to watch the screen. You'll get all the baseball from next door plus a wonderful sense of closed-circuit community and camaraderie. (For all we know, you'll be able to peek into Citi with a good pair of binoculars.)

The key is limiting the seat sales. You don't want to put too much of a strain on Shea. If Shea could handle the strain (or had been better maintained for four-and-a-half decades), management might not have felt the need to move. So don't strain Shea. Close off everything but the upper deck and cordon off the terrible upper deck seats. That way you concentrate on making the escalators run and the bathrooms up there work. You sell a limited supply of food and drink, maybe just packaged stuff that doesn't need to be cooked (or warmed). Have staff around for emergencies and to empty the wastebaskets, but otherwise you can go with a skeleton crew.

Picture it. You want to see the Mets. You're dying to see the Mets. But Citi Field's all sold out…again. Well, let's go next door. Let's go to Shea. Let's go upstairs. We'll have a great look at the big screen and the out-of-town scoreboard (gotta keep that), we'll bring a picnic, we'll yell LET'S GO METS! It will beat sitting in a bar or at home.

5) For a handful of dates, allow fans on the field at Shea Stadium to picnic and watch the games from next door on DiamondVision.

Same principle as stated for the upper deck. You do this a few times during the summer, preferably weeks before the monthly Mets game that will take place on the Shea field. Charge ten bucks a head. Cordon off the infield, but let families enjoy the outfield (it's a city park, after all). Keep it policed, remind everybody that the Mets will be needing this grass in a couple of weeks, you don't want to ruin their chances. Otherwise, bring your own blanket, bring your own refreshments, bring your radios tuned to WFAN and enjoy a Major League game from a Major League field. Who else's fans will be able to say they can do that?

As in the upper deck scenario, you won't just be tracking a game on television. It will be like you're there because you're so close to it. You'll be a part of a like-minded crowd. The visiting team will feel like its wandered into an echo chamber.

It can be fun. It can be raucous. It should be raucous. New ballparks, with their inherent hoity-toityness, are notorious for their unintended tamp on enthusiasm. You've just moved in, it's hard to feel at home. Keeping Shea around bridges the hellraising gap. When the Citi slickers hear the noise coming back at them from Shea, they won't feel compelled to hold back either. There will be good vibrations this way and that.

6) The Diamond View level at Shea will be converted to house the long-awaited, long-needed William A. Shea New York Mets Hall of Fame and National League Museum.

No longer stuffed in a closet, the Mets' Hall of Fame comes alive. An entire level of the stadium celebrates Mets' history. The Diamond View suites each host a different permanent or rotating exhibit. The Diamond Club becomes the museum cafeteria (sandwiches and such catered by nearby restaurants, again saving the strain on Shea's delicate infrastructure). Spotlight the Mets' history where most of it occurred. Once the luxury boxes, the restaurants and the paeans to the Dodgers are erected at Citi, there won't be much room for that sort of Mets thing anyway.

Seriously though, every effort should be made to connect the various pasts and the present and the future. The two parks are so close, maybe there's a stylish bridge, an actual bridge, that could be built. Part brick, part neon or one that pays homage to the Triborough or Whitestone. Linking Citi and Shea tells everybody this is OUR history, the entire scope of it. Here's the new park that looks like somebody else's old park because that old park that belonged to somebody else laid a foundation for our team, and here's OUR old park, the one our franchise grew up in. One is a park in the traditional sense or what we think of as traditional. The other is a stadium that was OUR tradition. This is what baseball looked like in ZIP Code 11368 for 45 years. We don't have to show you pictures. It's here. Revel in it a little.

The rest of the time, give Shea back to the people. Bring in more high school ballgames, area soccer leagues. You're not going to want Citi Field to be trampled on for such lowbrow activity anyway. So keep Shea around and let it be used and loved a while longer. It's the sundry stuff that's been killing Shea. So eliminate the sundry stuff. Don't make it handle 45,000 people a night. Don't challenge the plumbing. Don't plug too many appliances in at once.

But scale it back gently. Staring into a parking lot and thinking there used to be a ballpark here…it's sad enough to know there are apartment complexes where the Polo Grounds and Ebbets Field stood. At least we don't walk by them, except perhaps in the mind's eye, when we go to Mets games. When I was at Citizens Bank, I bought a DVD heavy on Connie Mack Stadium footage. I never went to Connie Mack Stadium, it was in what was no longer a desirable neighborhood and I don't like the Phillies, but seeing the plot of land where a baseball cathedral once stood now being used for something else…that was sad, too.

Now I'm leaning on sentimentality, which isn't nearly as theoretically practical as what I've suggested, but why else would anybody float a pipe dream to preserve a place like Shea Stadium if not for sentimentality? A couple of months ago in the Times, Jeff Wilpon dismissed Shea as “a dull, dingy place”. Oh sure, now he tells us.

Funny, I don't remember anything dull or dingy about it last October.

Tell you what. Let's try the two-park plan for a year. Let's see how it works in 2009. If nobody wants anything to do with Shea in any capacity, then forget it, pull Big Blue apart and pull that SUV into that space right over there where Ron Hunt and Ken Boswell and Felix Millan and Doug Flynn and Wally Backman and Edgardo Alfonzo and Jose Valentin each flagged down ground balls in his respective day. I think it was one of the bases. Maybe. I dunno.

Park there enough and maybe you'll forget anything ever happened on this side of the Citi Field wall.

(I have another scenario in which the entirety of Shea is converted to condos — easy access to mass transit and Mets games! — but that's a fallback position.)