Fifteen teams are sending just one representative to San Francisco for the All-Star Game: the Braves (Brian McCann), Marlins (Miguel Cabrera), Nationals (Dmitri Young), Cardinals (Albert Pujols), Pirates (Freddy Sanchez), Reds (Ken Griffey Jr.), Giants (Barry Bonds), Rockies (Matt Holliday), Blue Jays (Alex Rios), Orioles (Brian Roberts), Devil Rays (Carl Crawford), Royals (Gil Meche), White Sox (Bobby Jenks), A's (Dan Haren) and Rangers (Michael Young).

Some of those guys are superstars (Pujols, Griffey, Bonds), while others are rising stars (Cabrera, McCann, Holliday, Crawford). But some of the others fairly shout obligation. Do Michael Young's underwhelming numbers shout “midsummer classic” to you? Gil Meche has five wins — should he go to San Francisco for that? Does a punchless singles hitter like Freddy Sanchez really deserve an All-Star berth?

Yes, yes and yes. And I won't hear otherwise.

Why? Because of John Stearns. And Pat Zachry. And Joel Youngblood. And Lee Mazzilli.

I remember those players from my first plunge into Met fandom, which started when I was seven and was as all-encompassing and life-changing as anything you love to distraction when you're seven. Except having traded Tom Seaver away, the Mets were terrible. Embarrassingly terrible. Avert-your-eyes, bag-over-your-head terrible. A few thousand at Shea terrible. And growing up on the North Shore of Long Island as a Met fan, not surprisingly, was terrible too.

In the late 1970s, I made many, many bus rides to and from school and many, many circuits around the cul-de-sac where the kids of my neighborhood rode bikes. And from March through October, many of those bus rides and bike circuits were spent taking heaping portions of abuse for being a diehard fan of an irrelevant team. Most of my neighbors were Yankee fans, an allegiance they'd either come by honestly (if being soulless and evil can ever be arrived at honestly) or taken up because it was the easy thing to do. Up and down Miller Place I'd go, hearing the catcalls of sneering, braying junior Yankee fans. Mets suck. The Mets are so gay. How are the gay sucky Mets doing this year? Back and forth to school I'd go on the bus, tormented by the Steinbrenner Youth singing the version of “Meet the Mets” that was better known in our town than the real thing.

Beat the Mets, beat the Mets

To beat the M-E-T-S Mets of New York town!

I wasn't stupid. I knew the Yankees spent money and had a good chance of winning their division every year. I knew the Mets were embarrassingly cheap and had no chance. I knew they and I would be disrespected for it from spring training to the fall, that nobody wanted Met cards, that Herman's Sporting Goods barely bothered stocking Mets caps, that everybody in Little League wanted to be on the Yankees and groaned when they had to be on the Mets. (I was a Dodger.) This was my lot in life, and I gloomily accepted it while reading about 1969 and 1973 and dreaming about years yet to come, when things would somehow be different.

I had one thing, once the hope of spring training faded and the reality of another dismal regular season set in: the All-Star Game. No matter how good the Yankees were, or how bad the Mets were, a Met would go to the All-Star Game. Unfortunately, when I was a kid the Met who usually went was John Stearns. Stearns would be the backup catcher, the just-in-case guy who never got to play. The Bad Dude went in '77 (Tom Seaver wore the colors of the Reds), '79 and '80. Between those three All-Star appearances he got one at-bat. And so it was for the Mets: Pat Zachry got tapped in '78 and didn't pitch. Joel Youngblood went in '81, after the strike, and went 0 for 1.

But that was OK. Because what mattered to me was all the silly stuff I now usually miss. Just hearing “from the New York Mets” and seeing John Stearns come out of the dugout to the tepid applause of some far-off place was enough. Why, he'd slap hands with Pete Rose and Johnny Bench and Dave Parker, then look up at the crowd and tug on the bill of his cap. He was a New York Met All-Star, one of the elect, on national TV like all the rest of them. It didn't matter that he was usually alone in orange and blue, or that Sparky Anderson or Tom Lasorda wouldn't find a place for him. By lining up with the rest of the National League's best he was proof that we mattered after all, no matter what the kids on Miller Place said.

And then there was 1979. Stearns went to the Kingdome and didn't play. But that year we somehow had two All-Stars. Lee Mazzilli, he of the basket catches and Italian good looks and Brooklyn roots, went too. And Maz did get to play. He led off the top of the eighth, pinch-hitting for Gary Matthews, whom the Mets had famously tried to recruit as a free agent by sending him a lowball offer via telegram. Facing Jim Kern, Maz cracked a home run to tie the game at 6-6. Then, in the top of the ninth, Mazzilli batted again. With the bases loaded. And on the mound was Ron Guidry … of the New York Yankees.

Ron Guidry. Louisiana Lightning. The year before, he'd won 25 games and the Cy Young Award. And for all that he seemed overshadowed by the Yankees' other stars, by Reggie and Thurman and Nettles and Randolph and Piniella and Gossage. We didn't face the Yankees, unless you counted the farcical Mayor's Trophy Game, which nobody did. But now we were. Tie game, bases loaded, the entire nation watching. It didn't count, but it sure as heck mattered.

And Maz, the New York Met, coaxed ball four from Guidry! He walked! In came what would prove to be the decisive run in a National League victory. I lay awake that night thinking happily of how tomorrow I'd get to see if the Yankee fans wanted to talk about how Ron Guidry had lost the All-Star Game to the young star of the Mets. I'd get to argue, perfectly plausibly, that Mazzilli should have been the MVP instead of Dave Parker. It wasn't a home run or a liner up the gap or even a clean single, but it had done the job. Guidry had thrown a complete game two days earlier and tired himself out warming up several times, but that was excuse-making. It wasn't winning the World Series, but I knew we weren't going to do that. Maz had beaten Guidry, and that was enough.

And so every time I hear that it's an anachronism for every team to be represented in the All-Star Game, I remember those summers and that night, and the only day I ever got to strut through the halls of my elementary school because I was a fan of the New York Mets. And I think, for once utterly without irony, “Won't someone please think of the children?”

There are young fans of the Nationals, Pirates, Royals, Orioles, Devil Rays and other downtrodden clubs who'll stay up to watch the All-Star Game tomorrow night. They're fans every bit as rabid as me and Greg and all of you reading. They pass the time memorizing stats and collecting cards and asking for replica jerseys for their birthdays. And mostly they spend their time dreaming — fantasizing about an impossible time when their love will be requited and their loyalty repaid. When their fandom won't hurt. When they won't feel their shoulders slump at the first brush of disdain and pity from those who root for winners.

Does John Maine deserve to go to the All-Star Game? Undoubtedly. Would I trade Freddy Sanchez's spot to right this wrong? No way. Because I have no doubt that a generation ago there were players who deserved an All-Star berth more than Stearns or Zachry or Youngblood or Mazzilli, and that the Sporting News or Baseball Digest or Dick Young said so. Not getting to see John Stearns tip his cap might have derailed me from the tough business of fandom, and I know there's a kid in Pittsburgh who feels the same way today. He reads about the We Are Family Pirates and wonders how the heck Sid Bream could have been safe and mourns how Barry Bonds got away. He daydreams about Jason Bay hitting the home run that secures the win for Ian Snell in Game 7 of some future World Series. And he's waiting — far too excited for his own good — for the Giants' PA announcer to introduce Freddy Sanchez, to see him in the Pirates' colors, to revel in the fact that for a few seconds he'll be standing by his lonesome at the center of the baseball world. Take that little ritual away, and you just might steal that moment that keeps him faithful amid all the middle-of-the-night fears that the game is rigged and his hopes are for nothing.

I needed that moment, and I got it. He deserves no less.

1) Keith Hernandez has highly selective recall of his own career. Last night he invoked the infamous Terry Pendleton game, framing it as a crushing loss (no argument), coming as it did in the second game of a series (it was the first), after a game the Mets beat the Cardinals (again, a nonexistent game) and before the finale, which the Mets came back and won (the Mets were blown out of the game right after the Pendleton game but won the day after that). Today he placed himself in the 1988 All-Star Game (it was the '86 game) at the Astrodome (the '88 game was in Riverfront; '86 was indeed in Houston). Dates and places aren't everybody's forte, I understand, but Keith had a hammy problem in '88 he's referenced several times before and even if the years do tend to run together after a while, 1986 was, y'know, 1986. I guess the important thing is that Keith's career was, in fact, Keith's career and the rest of us can file away the particulars.

2) Scott Schoeneweis pitched the seventh and eighth. David Newhan remained in left. Shawn Green continued to patrol right. It took 87 games, but finally my mini-vigil paid off as the first three Jewish Mets to be on the same Mets team were in the same Mets game in the same Mets inning. This would be a greater source of pride if a) Schoeneweis, Newhan and Green had led a remarkable Met comeback; b) Schoeneweis and Newhan weren't Schoeneweis and Newhan; and c) I just came off the boat at Ellis Island 80 years ago and had to convince mama and papa that it was all right to take time from studying the Talmud to throw a ball around. It's not really that big a deal to me, but with only nine Mets Jewish out of 814 to date, I tend to notice these things.

3) Sandy Alomar, Jr. became the 814th Met. Nice gesture to give him a start before he's either dispatched to New Orleans/retirement or, in that way things happen with this team and 41-year-old reserves, gets 200 at-bats in the second half. Alomar was kept at the expense of Ricky Ledee, who was designated for assignment even after his clutch leftfield defense in the seventeenth inning made Saturday night his best game as a Met. All of Ricky Ledee's other games as a Met are tied for second.

4) Sandy Alomar, Jr. also automatically became the most likable Alomar brother to ever play for the Mets.

5) The last player to debut as a Met before today was Ben Johnson. His birthday is June 18. Sandy Alomar, Jr.'s birthday is June 18. Alomar is 15 years older than Johnson, yet Sandy's the one who goes by “junior”.

6) We promote the 41-year-old while the 26-year-old stays at Triple-A. But nobody ever said anything about the Mets and a youth movement.

7) Aaron Sele went two solid weeks without pitching between June 19 and July 3. He's now pitched in four of the past six games. He seems to pitch better when he's used a lot than when he's not used at all. When he's not used at all, he does absolutely nothing. (Of course that's the case for most of us.)

8) I was delighted when Saturday night's game reached a seventeenth inning because it meant Gary Cohen would reference the Mets' last seventeen-inning game, a 1-0 win over the Cardinals at Shea at the end of 1993. The winning pitcher for the Mets that night was Kenny Greer, a one-game wonder whom I gently jibed in this space in April 2005 for his most fleeting Mets tenure. Well, the Internet being the Internet, Kenny Greer just got around to weighing in a few weeks ago on why he got to enjoy only one game in blue and orange. Read the exchange here. Always nice to hear from Mets, especially the fleeting kind.

9) Imagine Willie had thrown down the gauntlet to Reyes about not running to first (remember that anymore?) by not only benching him for one inning Friday but by announcing that to learn his lesson there's no way he's playing Saturday. And then Saturday goes 17 innings and Willie either sticks to his guns and/or throws out the baby with the bathwater by not playing him, thus risking losing OR Willie adapts to the situation and/or gives in too easily by playing him, thus risking severe criticism in some quarters. Either way, good for Jose for owning up to his momentary lapse of hustle. He didn't really deserve the example-making business, but his actions did.

10) Jose Reyes ran his ass off all day Sunday, but ran it off wisely. He would have been thrown out in the first had he challenged Hunter Pence. But if he had made it and the Mets took an early lead, would it have altered Roy Oswalt's approach the rest of the day? Would have Dave Williams, lead in hand, calmed down and not thrown breaking pitches that didn't do as they were commanded? Those are technically unanswerable questions. But the answer to both is no. Some games, unless it's 1988…I mean 1986, you're just going to lose. This was one of them. After an epic triumph crowned by a once-in-a-lifetime catch Saturday night — and an emergency starter rolling the dice this afternoon in advance of three days off with four (oughta be five) first-place Met All-Stars tipping their caps in San Francisco, you just have to look past it and find other things to notice.

But we don't take off. Stay with Faith and Fear to feed your baseball reading habit throughout the break. Before you know it, it will be Thursday night and you won't feel the least bit at a loss.

A man built a park

A man built a field

A man said quirky!

Is what I'll yield

I'll make one wall close

Make one wall far

I'll make another wall stand

Behind something bizarre

Gonna have a hill

Gonna put it where?

Puttin' it in center

Way the hell out there

Nobody digs it

Everyone complains

But at least there's a roof

In the event it rains

Two teams played a game

Two teams played forever

What time would they finish?

The teams said “whenever”

Cut to the chase

Get to the point

Arrive in the fourteenth

A victor to anoint

Lamb on first

Burke on third

Joe Smith on the mound

Now isn't this absurd?

Houston had Scott

I've heard that before

They once had a Scott

From the hardware store

Not that Scott

It wasn't Mike

But with first and third

What was there to like?

One out was needed

To keep things tied

When Luke Scott connected

We nearly died

His ball is long

That Houston creep

Wait just a minute!

Wait just a sec!

His ball is headed

To that pain in the neck

It's heading for the hill

It's heading there now

It's gonna take a miracle

Scott can take a bow

The hill is quirky

The hill is high

I suspect the same

Of the architect guy

It's a Crosley tribute?

Unique incline?

The rest of us think

It's just asinine

Nobody could catch up

Nobody could hope

Unless Carlos Beltran

Was workin' his lope

Carlos ran long

Carlos ran deep

Carlos kept climbing

Carlos went steep

He lunged and he grabbed

He secured it and soon

He fell and held on

Like he was Al Toon

The Astros were stopped

At the one-foot line

Wanna play some more?

The Mets said “fine”

Minute Maid Park

Is truly the pits

I mean can you believe

Where that silly hill sits?

But hitting it to Beltran

Is your mistake

Boo him all you want

Go jump in the lake

He drove in the winner

The 'pen did the rest

Tal's Hill is the worst

That catch was the best!

Yes, Jose Reyes should run out all ground balls, all fly balls, all fair balls, all foul balls. Yes, Willie Randolph should slap even his superstars on the wrist and nail their buttocks to the bench when they fail to put one foot in front of the other. Good character-building exercise there in the eighth. Randolph was firm afterwards and Reyes — steaming and snorting in the dugout to the point where I was worrying for his (and our) future — was genuinely contrite.

If we are to assume that Reyes will hustle, take nothing for granted and live up to his manager's work ethic…and if we are to continue to assume that if Jose Reyes can take a one-inning benching, his teammates can receive the same message, then we can ultimately assume our Mets will conduct themselves like professionals.

'Cause they're sure playing like a bunch of goddamn amateurs lately.

All hail Wandy Rodriguez and take nothing away from his Friday night, but wow have the Mets forgotten how to do everything again. Mike Pelfrey's progress is absolutely snailish and painful to sit through. In another era he'd be just now reaching Binghamton since this is only his second professional season. Come to think of it, why is he pitching in the bigs already? Oh. Right. Everybody's injured.

This was Pelf's best start of the season and it was still a grim scene, baby. Young Michael has almost never shown any proclivity for escaping a jam unscathed, certainly not more than one in any game. Maybe Rodriguez wasn't going to be bested, but you gotta hang tougher than Pelfrey does. I'm trying to remember he's a child, he's a neophyte, he has talent. But my patience a thin commodity this week.

As for the Mets' offense, Reyes' barely fair tapper (even Mike Lamb seemed surprised it wasn't called foul, practically walking the ball to first as if he thought Larry Vanover might want it back) was one of the better hit balls of the night. Maybe Jose didn't run because he didn't believe the magic Wandy would give up even a 45-footer to anybody in a NEW YORK uniform. One double, three singles, one walk, all registered in different innings was the extent of our production. Easley's slide to break up a DP was the best thing I saw all evening.

Just as well Jose lollygagged. If he had taken off for first in the eighth, there'd be nothing to remember from this game at all.

Here's wishing a helluva lot more luck to our friend Dan Ziegler, Lone Star Met himself, who's going to be taking in the final two games of this series up close and personal. His guide to watching the Mets at Minute Maid Park is a must-read. We can only hope what he's driving east from the Metroplex to witness is must-see.

Does the hamate bone exist for any reason except to sideline baseball players? Holy Benny Agbayani — how many outfielders can one playoff contender lose and still stay upright? With Carlos Gomez lost until September, I had to remind myself not to look askance at Ricky Ledee. Because if not him, who? The Mets were obviously thinking the same thing, hastily bringing back David Newhan and dispatching Lastings Milledge to play anywhere — Binghamton, Cooperstown, a rap studio, an argyle-sweater factory — where he could get some quick at-bats. With Moises Alou still trapped in the Quad Zone, perhaps Lastings will get the extended audition fate denied him repeatedly after all. If the Mets' line of outfield succession was like that of the presidency, Lastings would be the Secretary of Labor. But looks like he'll make the Oval Office — I mean, left field — anyway.

This week I keep missing the beginning of games, which means I've been missing the only part one would want to see. It's strange to see your team is up 2-0 and mutter obscenities. Fortunately, neither Reyes nor Delgado nor Castro nor Beltran nor the reluctantly accepted Ledee were done. Neither was John Maine, who pitched like he was hurling a gauntlet down before Roy Oswalt. I can strike people out too, All-Star. I've got 10 wins, All-Star. What are you going to do, All-Star? (By the way, with Smoltz 86'ed the Braves somehow have just one All-Star.)

Oliver on the shelf. Sosa on the shelf. Alou still on the shelf. Gomez on the shelf. Lastings trying to get off the shelf. The reconstructed, glued-back-together Pedro not yet ready for picking up from the shelf. Yes sirree, we live in interesting times.

I'm beginning to think we're the worst good team in baseball. Maybe we're the best bad team, but no, we're still in first by a breathable margin (thanks Astros, thanks Dodgers). However it's framed, someone's Juneing all over our July.

As on Monday, Tuesday night I learned I've gotta keep at least one eye on these bastards. I ran an 8 o'clock errand which caused me to miss the Mets' two-run first. But OK, they scored without me, I guess it's safe to pick up a bit of other business away from the TV for just a little while. Uh-uh. Literally the next game-thing I knew, it was 6-2 Rockies. Just like it was 6-0 Rockies the night before when I dared to blink. I thought this was the Fourth of July, not the Second of February.

In case you were wondering, Aaron Sele lives, Kaz Matsui is Paul Molitor and Joe Smith remains very, very young.

Aw hell, if we can be nice to Julio Franco, we can think good thoughts in broader terms. Happy Independence Day to the greatest country on earth, no matter how “excessive” some of its foibles can be. Happy Endypendence Day, too, while we're at it. Gads, I miss him.