I kept thinking of Smoltz's 200th win as the mirror image of Oliver Perez's 36th — he looked dominant for long stretches, acutely vulnerable at other times before wiggling out of trouble, and while he was clearly the star of the game, the outcome remained in doubt until the very end.

Yes, David Wright got fucked on that appeal with the bases loaded. No way was that a swing. But he also got erased later in the game on straight-as-a-string fastballs and a hanging slider from Rafael Soriano, a pitcher who looked in danger of falling asleep.

And oh, that ninth inning. Emily and I amused ourself to no end by making fun of Bob Wickman while hoping we would pound him into submission.

Her: Is his cheek full of chocolate?

Me: I think he's got a Cornish game hen in there.

Oh yes, we were laughing it up. And it looked like we might be laughing last: First Delgado's little poke, then karma finally swinging against Atlanta after eight innings of great infield defense. Can't argue for Gotay bunting the tying run into scoring position. Could argue with Julio Franco, whose considerable contributions to this team can't preclude noting that such contributions are increasingly intangible. Gary noted that Julio's got a lot of experience in this spot; I rather sourly noted that I could walk down to the VFW Hall and find guys with experience storming beaches, but that wouldn't make a repeat a good idea.

And then Jose Jose Jose Jose, our slumping superstar. Not a knock on our heart and soul, just a reflection that everybody slumps at some point in a long season, and it's his turn. With two strikes I noticed that the tying run was on third, Kelly Johnson was far enough out at second to chat with Jeff Francoeur, and Wickman's best chance at fielding a push bunt would be to have his own gravity drag the ball toward him. Could Jose make like Endy? A little push bunt to tie, a steal of second, a bloop by Endy….

Or he could pop out.

Oliver Perez could have saved us a great deal of trouble had he been born maybe 10 years earlier and signed by the Joe McIlvaine regime in time to blossom for the opening of Turner Field in 1997. 'Cause, man, he would have been handy to have had around for most of the last decade.

A Braves killer. An honest-to-goodness Braves killer. We have one. That's one against many. Finally, a fair fight. Imagine Oliver Perez, this Oliver Perez, firing strike three past one of the Joneses during the September '99 meltdown…or marching in from the bullpen a month later and effortlessly hanging up a scoreless eleventh…or outdueling the irksome castoff likes of John Burkett and Andy Ashby…or tagging out Michael Tucker so clearly that the name Angel Hernandez wouldn't elicit as much as a shrug from any of us.

Let us forget all that for now. Instead, let us remember that the curse of Turner Field blew away with the wind last season. Dead, dead, dead, I tell you. Let us also not forget, however, that the mark of any horrible sequel is depending on the audience's willingness to conveniently dismiss what it saw in the last 15 minutes of the original. Never mind that the Mets swept the Braves in Atlanta in July 2006 or that we dethroned the hell out of them from April to September. God forbid facts get in the way of Revenge of Those Bastards 2.

I turned on Wednesday night's game and I thought there was something wrong with my TV, like it was stuck in the past. Gary Cohen was going on about the terrible things that happen on 755 Hank Aaron Drive, how they reared their ugly head in the person of Kyle Davies the night before, how when the Braves score first in this ballpark the Mets are 3-108 or something like that.

Gary! Stop it!

Yes, we lost the opener of this series. And yes, we lost two annoying games there in April. And…that's all. Everything before 2006, from Braden Looper's patchworthy unraveling in September 2005 clear back to Bobby Jones' gripping problems in September 1997, is immaterial to the current state of the union. I'm willing to concede that the Mets '06 ATL-kicking isn't all that relevant save for that it wiped the historical slate clean. There's nothing black-magical about Turner Field anymore, just a good team in residence. So everybody, especially esteemed flagship broadcasters, please stop quivering in fear that Brian Jordan circa 2001 is lurking in the on-deck circle just because we lose one pathetic game. Somehow we came back and won an exhilarating game one night later.

The intramural season tally to date is Braves 5 Perez 3. To that you might say, oh dear, no Met except Perez has beaten the Braves. To that I say good thing we've got Perez.

Having won the first round of the basically meaningless Battle for New York, it was time to resume pursuit of the real prize — the National League East — and the foe that seems to have returned after a one-year sabbatical. So how'd it go against the Atlanta Braves?

Not so good. It was obvious pretty early that this would be one of those thorough ass-kickings, the kind of game that you keep watching because seeing your team play lousy, dispiriting baseball is a sliver better than not watching your team play baseball. What picture would you like to remember from this one? Jorge Sosa looking too amped up against the team that put him on waivers, overthrowing sliders so they flatten out and demonstrating no command of the strike zone? Carlos Delgado looking utterly lost at the plate? Beltran and Reyes slumping, the few line drives flying into gloves, opposing pitchers hitting balls over the center-field fence? Our one rally was short-circuited by Mark Carlson's ruling that Kelly Johnson had dropped a ball on the transfer instead of before a force out was recorded. Honestly, I thought it was the right call; even if it wasn't, well, when you're going horseshit they fuck you. I think Confucius said that. Or maybe it was Buddha. Regardless, it was somebody wise.

There are few things more aggravating than watching your baseball team play flat while the other guys are enjoying a laugher — while smothering in that kind of misery it's hard to believe you'll ever see a big inning again, let alone win a game. It's not true, of course — a team that looks dead and buried one night can blast the ball all over the park the next night. Or so I seem to remember. Let's hope so, at least.

A discussion within a discussion within the enjoyably endless thread that accompanies the post that precedes this one (got that?) hit on the idea of former Blue Jays not working out as Mets, vis-à-vis Carlos Delgado's slump.

Brings to mind one of my favorite mental exercises, name the Met you think of when you think of a Met who was also a member of another specific team.

Rules: No player can be mentioned twice and if you can, go on instinct.

GO!

Met and…

NL East

Brave: Greg McMichael

Phillie: Tug McGraw

Marlin: Al Leiter

National: Marlon Anderson

Expo: Gary Carter

NL Central

Astro: Nolan Ryan

Red: Tom Seaver

Cub: Cliff Floyd

Cardinal: Keith Hernandez

Brewer: Jeromy Burnitz

Pirate: Bobby Bonilla

NL West

Giant: Willie Mays

Dodger: Jeff Kent

Padre: Mike Piazza

Rockie: Kaz Matsui

Diamondback: Shawn Green

AL East

Yankee: David Cone

Red Sock: Bobby Ojeda

Oriole: Joe Orsulak

Blue Jay: John Olerud

Devil Ray: Ty Wigginton

AL Central

Indian: Robbie Alomar

Tiger: Tom Veryzer

Royal: Ed Hearn

Twin: Matt Lawton

White Sock: Cleon Jones

AL West

Mariner: Lee Guetterman

Angel: Jim Fregosi

Ranger: Victor Diaz

A: Jay Payton

Those were the ones that leapt to mind for all 30 opponents (counting the Nationals and Expos as different species and acknowledging that Tom Veryzer is a strange choice). If you are so inclined, can you, without looking any up, contribute 30 other Mets who also played for the 30 franchises in question?

Pitcher of last month Johnny Maine isn't necessarily Johnny May. Jose Reyes doesn't hit 14-year-olds particularly well. And 'em all we can't win.

Still, what a homestand. Two of three from the once-hot Brewers, three of four from the once-trendy Cubs and two of three from the once-relevant Yankees, all while the Braves were losing six of ten. David Wright found himself, Jorge Sosa remained resurrected and all five games that were close went our way. Even Scott Schoeneweis managed a scoreless inning Sunday night.

Life isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn good. Atlanta awaits…

There was not, to invoke a scenario that others have used to promote their policies in the service of weightier matters, a surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship, but maybe there should have been something like it.

Maybe the principals should have been gathered on a 7 train idling for just this occasion. Better yet, maybe a table should have been rolled out to home plate moments after Josh Phelps struck out from the right side of that sacred and storied battleground. Papers could have been produced for the signature of one Joseph Paul Torre, certifying that the City of New York and its Metropolitan environs now belong lock, stock and baseball to the New York Mets. Dr. Willie Larry Randolph could have notarized the documents and we could all get on with our lives.

Right after total strangers gathered in Times Square to express their glee and their thanks in an appropriate manner, that is.

It's V-Y Day.

It's V-Y Weekend.

It's V-Y Year.

Our season has indeed come, at least in these parts.

Let's not pretend any longer that the Mets playing the Yankees is a battle for bragging rights. If I want to brag, I'll brag that we lead the Braves by 2-1/2 games, that we have the best record in the National League, that we've won 13 of 17 despite two starting position players and two starting pitchers missing significant time of late. I'll brag that we have David Wright and Endy Chavez and Tom Glavine and Aaron Heilman, especially after each of them came through in his own special way Saturday. I'll brag on the Mets because they make me happy and they make me proud to be among their legion of customers and chroniclers.

I'll not do more than duly note that we are the best team in New York. By a lot. By a frigging lot. Yet it hardly seems worth a boast anymore.

The New York Yankees feature some talented hitters and a couple of decorated veterans whom I'd prefer not to face with a game on the line. But so do any number of teams in the National League. The Cubs had some fierce bats and we beat them three of four. The Brewers sport an imposing lineup and good pitching and we beat them two of three. The Giants can be scary and we took two of three from them the week before last.

The Yankees aren't as good as the Cubs or the Brewers or the Giants. Or the Diamondbacks or the Marlins who we played before them. As we speak, only the Cardinals, Nationals and Rockies, among the eleven teams we've played in 2007, have a record worse than that of the Yankees. Only those three teams, along with the Devil Rays, Royals, Rangers and Reds, have performed at a lesser clip than the Yankees through a quarter of the schedule.

So I ask you, except for purposes of proximity, what's the big deal about our having beaten the Yankees these last two games?

It is no big deal. Except for purposes of proximity. Because of geography and the advent of Interleague play a decade ago, we are compelled to consider the Yankees to an extent few of us otherwise consider American League teams. We have been made intensely aware of what they've accomplished and what they've failed to accomplish these last dozen or so seasons. Because they're nearby. Because we play them six times annually.

From that perspective, what we do against them is a big deal. It's a big enough deal that, based on what I've lived through as a Mets fan in New York since 1996 and what I experienced Saturday afternoon and evening at Shea Stadium, I'm prepared to declare victory. Not “mission accomplished,” mind you, because our mission is to take things one game at a time. But in that other competition, the one that's implied, the one that for too bloody long has run terribly off track, the one that theoretically determines “who owns New York,” we have won.

Look around, Mets fans. Survey our kingdom. This is our town. This is Mets country until further notice. And I don't expect further notice to arrive for quite a while.

So we won a game. And we've clinched a series. And we're 9-1/2 games better than our crosstown rivals. I was about to say there's more to it than that, but come to think of it, is there? The Mets are a very good team as measured by pitching, hitting, running, fielding and managing. The Yankees, you may have noticed, are not. They are desperately short of everything these days, except maybe cash, and that they'll be doling out in record amounts to a semi-retired 44-year-old head case shortly.

Good luck with that.

The Mets have won games from the Yankees before. They've won series before. They even swept a Subway Series once. Those were all wondrous occasions, moments I celebrated for days on end, moments I still and will always treasure. But winning Friday and winning Saturday…it was different. For several reasons.

1) Beating the Yankees is no longer an urgent task except that they're on the schedule and you don't like to lose to your neighbors. But there are no bragging rights at stake when you beat a team that's under .500, is going nowhere in their league and hasn't won a world championship in what would have to be termed recent memory. Beating the Yankees an individual game or two in the Bobby Valentine era or finagling three of three one glorious weekend under Art Howe was special. It was showing them. This May, it's what the Mets are supposed to do. It is, in fact, what the Mets do.

2) Beating the Yankees as we have these last two games rings (no pun intended) very familiar. The Friday night duel between Oliver Perez and Andy Pettitte felt very much like a Friday night duel in 2000 between Orlando Hernandez and Al Leiter. The two pitchers exchanged zeroes and one big play made all the difference. Except we lost then and we won now. Saturday, the way the Mets held a commanding lead only to see the Yankees roar back and then fall just short, reminded me of another Saturday, the makeup night-half of a relatively obscure two-stadium doubleheader in 2003. Except we lost then and we won now. See what I'm getting at? We have become the team that finds ways to win every kind of game. Whereas they could be saved by Paul O'Neill robbing Derek Bell seven years ago, we are currently pushed over the top by Endy Chavez homering rather than bunting. And whereas all our comeback gumption could be undone by Raul Gonzalez's unskilled baserunning four years ago, they can not get past a parade of their own relievers and miscues now. When they play well, we play better. When we play sloppy, they play worse.

3) Beating the Yankees no longer blows the proverbial roof off Shea. Rain may have had something to do with it, but where I sat with Jim in the left field mezzanine, we were plenty covered by the upper deck. There weren't that many Yankees fans on hand to begin with and a noticeable percentage abandoned ship at 8-2. When 8-2 turned to 8-6 (Scott Schoeneweis determined to reincarnate himself as a latter-day Mel Rojas), of course we tensed. But the Yankee rabble wasn't that strong. If this were 1998 or even 2005, I'd be certain we were staring into the abyss of humiliation. You don't want to be in those seats when the Yankees pass the Mets. But even after Rodriguez homered and Posada homered and balls were not properly flagged down, there was not that same strain of the wrong Let's Go chant I grew sickeningly used to when the Subway Series was a novelty. I braced, but it never came. And to be honest, I didn't brace that hard.

I remember it being said after the first night the Yankees invaded Shea Stadium for Interleague that they had employed their worst lineup of that season and they won anyway. That's what Saturday felt like in reverse. Not that our lineup was bereft, but we couldn't have looked less certain of what we were doing at times. Glavine wasn't sharp early. Damion Easley seemed to be out of position all day. Infield throws were hit and miss. Green and Lo Duca did nothing at the plate. Tack-on, put-away runs grew extinct in the middle of the game. The bullpen, save for Heilman's clutch stanch in the eighth, was pretty useless. And Billy Wagner needs an appointment with Tom Emanski.

But so what? We beat the Yankees. We weren't at our best and we beat the Yankees. It got a bit melodramatic toward the end because Mets-Yankees games are almost uniformly melodramatic, but we beat the Yankees. And we didn't require an unlikely hero as we have so often in the past. Glavine righted himself. Wright was right from the start. Endy endured. There is nothing unlikely about the baseball heroics the Mets produce in 2007. Winning is what we do. Why wouldn't we do it against the Yankees?

TV ratings and back pages and radio yak and sports anchor leads and caps on the street will take a little time. There's still that Chernobyl residue hanging over New York from 1996 to 2000, the contamination that infected those prone to front-running and bullying. Also, there's still the eerie fascination attached to observing a trainwreck. You don't watch what glides along smoothly with nearly the interest that you do a toxic chemical spill, which is precisely what the 2007 Yankees have become. We'll still have to hear about them for a bit, but we have better things with which to concern ourselves. We have games to try to win. One more against them Sunday night, then it's on to Atlanta for a series of far greater significance. It's fun to beat the Yankees. It's key to beat the Braves.

I wish this had come sooner. I wish this had happened when Valentine was managing and Piazza was slugging and Alfonzo and Leiter and Ventura and the rest of that cast was in full bloom. I never rationally understood, as we contended legitimately for the playoffs across five consecutive Septembers and played heartstopping postseason baseball over two straight Octobers, why we were treated as an afterthought in our city, as if we were a warmup act or a visiting team. I will forever smolder with resentment at the way those New York Mets were widely dismissed in the shadow of the Yankees. But that's history now, history as ancient as the last time the Yankees prevailed in a World Series, the last time they rated an ounce of aura or a scintilla of mystique. Right now, they're just a lousy team with a fat payroll.

Right now, we own New York.

And The Dugout owns the well-deserved mention they seek.

Make no mistake: Last night was fun.

There was Endy, gunning down Johnny Damon and turning our groans into cheers. There was Endy again, walloping an Andy Pettitte offering over the fence. There was Perez, whose game was in some ways more impressive than his Mother's Day throttling of the Brewers. He had everything working then; last night he had to do some improvising, and do so with his emotions threatening to boil over. That was a truer test of him as a student of the Jacket than blitzing the Brewers, and he got an A. So did Joe Smith, summoned into the game to face Derek Jeter, with his jeweler's eye for the strike zone and the scary ability to rise to any occasion. (Damn him.) Smith stayed cool through a nine-pitch battle and then cut perhaps the thinnest sliver off the black to sit Jeter down. And how about an A for Billy Wagner, quietly having a remarkable season?

There were a lot of indelible images, from the vulture stare of Pettitte and Brian Cashman looking stricken to Oliver's valedictory high jump over the line, Smith's quietly skeptical look in at the plate and Carlos Gomez's face caving in after his (harmless) dropped foul pop. But what struck me was how calm I was. Sure, Emily and I let out some whoops and used every private incantation we had to coax Smith and Wagner through their confrontations with Jeter and Jason Giambi. But we weren't white-knuckling it — there wasn't that feeling of previous Subway Series (Serieses?) like your heart had swollen until it was mashed up against your ribs and every Yankee hit pushed some more air out of your lungs.

It was curious, this relative detachment. And then I realized where it came from. It came from 2006.

The Atlanta Braves look much improved. I think we all sense that this year isn't going to be a leisurely stroll to the division title — the Braves are going to be trading blows with us all year. But I'm not afraid of them anymore. Turner Field is no longer haunted, the chop is just an irritating noise, and Andruw's smirk and Chipper's Joker sneer are no longer portents of doom. Beltran's march to the sea to finish July ended that era. Now the Braves are just another team — one I respect and fret about, but one stripped of its ability to terrify. 2006 did that.

And then there are the Yankees. The Subway Series has been billed as a chance for the Mets to make a statement on the New York baseball stage since Dave Mlicki and Andy Pettitte kicked it off 10 years ago. A lot of that statement stuff was bullshit to sell papers, of course — but no matter how fervently we denied it, part of it was true. In 1997 the Yankees were World Champions. They didn't win that year, but in 1998 they won a title as the Braves kept us out of the playoffs, in 1999 they won a title as the Braves kept us out of the World Series, and in 2000 they won a title by beating … us. (Sometimes I think about that and am honestly surprised I lived through it.) Happily, they haven't won since, but they were playing in October in the early 2000s while we were enduring the likes of Jason Phillips and Art Howe. In situations like that, in a town where baseball isn't really a zero-sum game but sure feels like one when discussed in bars and cubicles and newspapers, of course we wanted to make a statement. It wasn't the stuff of the apocalypse, but it was true.

But last night there was this weird sense of calm. Maybe, I thought, it reflected the fact that the Yankees are in disarray right now and we're rolling along rather nicely. But we've had previous meetings where we felt like we were in the high on the Gotham baseball teeter-totter, and back then I was reliably a pathetic mess by first pitch. So what was it?

And then I found it, something so simple and obvious that it was strange I'd missed it. It was last year. We won 97 games, same as them. We were playing for a pennant after their season was over. We lost two starting pitchers and came within a little blooper of the World Series while they tried to decide whether or not to fire their manager. All that happened in 2006, and now we're looking to build on it. We may not have 26 rings (baby), but we're not obsessed with itemizing our jewelry over here. (And besides, they haven't added to their collection in a while.)

The Subway Series will always be special. The Yankees will never be just another team. Beating them will always make us stand a little taller, and losing to them will always hurt a little more. But after 2006, there are no statements that need to be made.

I don't have any idea how the story of 2007 will end. And the story of 2006 is over. But I don't think I truly appreciated 2006 until I realized how it's shaped 2007. Because of 2006, being 2-4 against the Braves is hardly the stuff of panic, and taking the first game from the Yankees is sweet but not like winning the baseball lottery. After years of looking up at the Braves and the Yankees, 2006 showed us they're not so big. It's 2007, and we're looking them right in the eye — in fact, I daresay we might be a little taller. And we're pretty sure they'll blink first.

That's all the statement we need.

Did I just watch a Met-Yankee game that lasted only 138 minutes? No wonder the Yankees lost. That's the fourth inning in the American League.

Oliver Perez may be demonstrative to the edge of flamboyant, but he doesn't screw around. Ollie proved the slightly more substantial 46 versus National League veteran Andy Pettitte. Pettitte was good. Perez was better. Endy was awesome. Smith and Wagner were tidy.

And that's basically all that happened. What, you expected more from a Subway Series showdown at Shea?

This is all I needed.