The Mets are in the NLCS!
Really they are.
I know I heard it somewhere.
I think I did.
It does feel like a month of Mondays since we last played, when in fact it's been only five days. It's way long, but it's not unprecedented. This matches the interval between the day we clinched the division in 1973 (24 hours after the season was supposed to end, it always bears repeating) and the day the NLCS began. We lost Game One to the Reds but won the ensuing series. In 1999, there was virtually no time between the night we clinched the Wild Card (more than 24 hours after the season was supposed to end, it always bears repeating) and the night the NLDS began. We won Game One over the Diamondbacks and the series that ensued.
The last time the Mets had a wait of more than five days between games and won both was March 31, 1998 when the Mets beat the Phillies 1-0 on Opening Day. It had been 184 days since the Mets beat the Braves 8-2 on Closing Day, September 28, 1997.
Makes five days seem like five minutes.
What does it mean for what lies ahead? I have no idea…though I'm a little amazed to realize it's been nine years and counting since the Mets ended one season/postseason with a victory and started the next the same way.
Juan Encarnacion — dangerous guy I forgot to mention yesterday, so I'm making up for it today — and the Cardinals have waited four days, which is long enough. That was the stretch we had from the Sunday before the All-Star break to the Friday afterwards. We won both of those games, too. I sense that's fairly irrelevant, but when you're winding down your fifth Mets-free day, you tend to vamp.
If this reminds me of anything for real, it was the decision in April to send Victor Diaz (remember him?) to Norfolk about a minute before neither Cliff nor Carlos B could play and we were strapped for outfielders because we didn't DL either of our starters. We muddled through and it all proved highly irrelevant in the scheme of things. Right now, the scheme of things is quite concentrated, so I don't know if the decision to lop off a pitcher (Ring) and add an infielder (Hernandez) will impact us in a tangible way. Much is being made of playing five consecutive days, though I'm pretty sure that's what baseball teams do consistently through the year. The difference is doing it with four starters instead of five. Of course our starters don't exactly exhaust themselves with complete games, so perhaps there's not a ton to worry about there.
Chris Carpenter might get moved up? So did Bruce Hurst. It's twenty years apart, they're different pitchers and these are different circumstances, but the Hurst thing was supposed to scare us back to the Scott age. We got by.
No fear — not even of these interminable delays.

On Monday night, June 30, 1997, after having finagled a business trip so I wouldn't have to pay for too much of the privilege, Stephanie and I were in Detroit. Tiger Stadium. For someone whose long-term goal was to see every ballpark, this was a medium-sized dream come true. Tiger Stadium was beautiful. Maybe because I had seen relatively so little of it on television, I was far more taken with it than I was Fenway or Wrigley, its only surviving demographic brethren. It was almost an afterthought that on the night I'd finally get to see one of the two oldest ballparks in the Major Leagues that the opponent would be the Mets.
We made sure to get there early to take lots of pictures. I'm not the photographer in the family, but Stephanie handed me the camera and told me to go have fun. The Tigers weren't any good and the Mets weren't any draw, so I had the run of the place. Walked all over the field level, snapping away. Snapped retired Tiger numbers and the legendary overhang and every angle I could find.
Down on the field while I was moseying about in the seats in right, was a little nearby commotion. Bobby Jones, newly minted All-Star pitcher Bobby Jones, was making his way to the Met dugout and was recognizable enough to draw a crowd. He was signing autographs for visiting Mets fans and curious Tigers fans. I closed in to get a picture. It wasn't a very good one.
I looked beyond the small Jones knot and there was another Met. No commotion surrounding him. Nobody recognized him. I imagine I wouldn't have recognized him without the blue warmup jersey that said NEW YORK and the No. 11 on its front and back. Although I always liked to think I was too cool for this sort of thing, on this night — Tiger Stadium, Mets' first game here, my first game here — I wasn't.
I closed in again.
“Cory! Cory! Can I get a picture?”
Cory Lidle shrugged. Looked like he could have done without it, but he stopped and stood in place. I wouldn't say he posed. I snapped.
“Thanks! Thanks! Great pitching, man! Great pitching!”
“Thanks.” He seemed slightly but sincerely appreciative.
And with that, Cory Lidle kept walking.
I wasn't buttering him up. In May and June of 1997, Cory Lidle was what we baseball fans like to call a pleasant surprise. I had never heard of him before he was recalled in May in Houston. He had come in a trade in an earlier offseason for a spare part, Kelly Stinnett (weirdly a 2006 Met). His first inning in the Astrodome, an afternoon I wouldn't have ordinarily been watching except I had been covering a conference that day and was able to come directly home, was all right. For a bulllpen that was rebuilding from moment to moment — Toby Borland, Ricardo Jordan, Barry Manuel, Yorkis Perez, Rick Trlicek, Takashi Kashiwada, Joe Crawford, Greg McMichael — Lidle wasn't too bad. Wasn't too bad at all. The weekend before we arrived in Detroit, Chuck and I went to a Met-Pirate slugfest when the Mets were short a starter. So Bobby Valentine started Cory Lidle. He wasn't particularly effective and didn't last terribly long, but the Mets won on a Carl Everett home run. All told, in my estimation, he had given us great pitching.
Though Lidle stayed all year, I don't have any sharp recollection of him from later in the season, a wondrous season if you lived through it. The Mets remained a pleasant surprise even if Lidle proved to be like the bullpen as a whole, a shaky proposition. He was chosen by Arizona in the next expansion draft. His one season as a Met, like that Mets season to a lot of minds that don't retain everything that ever happened, has been forgotten by many. Obviously when the news came down about him crashing his plane into a building on the Upper East Side, him and another losing their lives, I found myself remembering him instantly, remembering my moment with him in Detroit as if it happened yesterday. Oddly, I relived the story with Stephanie this past Saturday, the day he pitched against the Tigers, the day the team he last played with was eliminated. Didn't expect I'd feel compelled to tell the story again any time soon.
Somewhere along the way, Cory Lidle ceased being a Met or an ex-Met when his name was mentioned. He was either an opponent of ours or a pitcher for somebody else. But on a day like this, you think about the guy wearing your colors, the guy whom you exhorted by first name from your couch across a summer, the guy in whose hands your fleeting happiness was entrusted for pitches at a time. The guy you asked to stop for a picture and he agreed and you don't even need to open the photo album to see that picture.

We can kick the Cardinals' ass. But they can kick ours.
And that, mis amigos, is the essence of faith and fear as regards what might happen next in Flushing, St. Louis and potentially Flushing again. In 20 months on the beat, I've never had the opportunity to apply our signature concept in such stark, significant terms.
A potential pennant would seem to require it.
FAITH These are our Mets, winners of 100 games to date, rampagers of the East, sweepers of the Dodgers. Our team, our time, our et al.
FEAR Those are the Cardinals, perennial contender, loaded with experience and gamers.
FAITH We were a platinum-level contributor to the Cardinal collapse that sent them reeling practically out of sight in the last six weeks of the regular season.
FEAR The team we swept in late August isn't quite the team we'll face. Ineffective Isringhausen and Mulder are gone. Edmonds is back as much as he can be.
FAITH Delgado, Lo Duca and Wright did some mighty fine hitting in the Dodger series. The odds figure Reyes and Beltran will join them.
FEAR Who's to say that even if the guys who got only a few hits or a lot of walks “step up” that the guys who ruled the LDS won't slump? Beltran doesn't seem to be 100% healthy and didn't Reyes take a shoulder in the knee from Furcal?
FAITH We have a great bullpen. It's the bedrock of our success.
FEAR Our starting pitching is our starting pitching. Can Glavine be as good as he was in Game Two of the last round, which was very darn good? Can Maine be stretched? Can Trachsel now give one of those “see, he can be effective” efforts? Oliver Perez? And will the gate fall off the bullpen from overuse and if so, will it be a metaphor for Guillermo Mota's right arm?
FAITH Willie has made almost all the right moves. He's a smart manager and his calm is reassuring.
FEAR Will he adapt when La Russa pulls a squeeze? Will Willie ever try something like that with players like Reyes and Chavez? Will that characteristic Randolph stubborn streak seem less like patience and more like being caught napping?
FAITH Reyes is the difference-maker on the Mets. Eckstein may be a pest, but Jose can run all day.
FEAR But on Yadier Molina? Remember how Mike Matheny cut his hand on the eve of the 2000 NLCS? He had a great arm and I broke one of my own commandments and was thrilled to hear he was out before I realized that was bad form and that we didn't run much anyway. Is Somebody getting even for my taking pleasure in another's injury?
FAITH If Cliff can move, he can play. We saw what he could do in the Division Series and it was almost like having our 2005 Monsta out of the cage.
FEAR If Cliff can move, will he fool Willie/Omar into putting him on the roster only to go down? It's a hypothetical to say we could have beaten L.A. without him. Maybe we could have, but the truth is we didn't. He was a part of it all. I love Endy, but Floyd's bat was hot at just the right moment. I guess we'll know more later this morning. Damn I hope he's well enough to play, but I also hope he's not just well enough to make the roster and then an early exit. (And I hope his spot, if it's not his, isn't occupied by Ledee or Milledge or Hernandez or DiFelice, which is tough since those are essentially the only options I can fathom.)
FAITH Where Albert Pujols is concerned, the only faith I have is that as good as he is, particularly against us, that we have overstated the case for him because, well, he doesn't hit 1.000 against us — it only seems like it.
FEAR Cripes. Pujols. We haven't gotten him out his entire career, though his numbers this year were mostly from one game…which means he's due.
FAITH There's only one Pujols on that club.
FEAR Scott Spiezio, Preston Wilson, an 80% Scott Rolen, that wannabe thug Ronnie “I'm Not Rafael” Belliard, lucky Gary Bennett…every one of them gives me night sweats (it's night and I'm sweating). You don't have to be Albert Pujols get a big hit against the Mets.
FAITH Jose Vizcaino wasn't on their NLDS roster.
FEAR Jose Vizcaino continues to breathe.
FAITH No lefties in the Cardinal rotation.
FEAR They all laughed at Christopher Columbus, but not as much as at Kenny Rogers, who recently proved the skeptics wrong. Jeff Weaver is Kenny Rogers' spiritual nephew and there will be a tendency to write him off. Don't. He can pitch.
FAITH By the time we see Chris Carpenter, we could be up 2-0.
FEAR We could be down 0-2 when we see Chris Carpenter.
FAITH We haven't waited this long to not last longer than this.
FEAR Each team remaining in the playoffs has waited since the 1980s to win another World Series. Somebody will be throwing off the shackles of a veritable eternity. We're no more inherently “owed” this than the Cardinals, Tigers or Athletics.
FAITH I've watched these New York Mets virtually every day since April 3 and they've provided a brand of rethrilliency unmatched in team history. They hit better than any team we've ever had. They pitch better than they should. They close like nothing we've ever had. We have star players, role players, special players. We have a T-E-A-M that has earned our love and respect, as evidenced by the Great Wall of Emily. As a bonus, we saw them muddle through a couple of leaden weeks and bust right out again — and we saw them blow a lead in their last playoff game and storm right back to win it. If they play like they can, which they usually do, nobody can beat them. That is why they will win the National League pennant in between four and seven games.
No fear.

Even though it's an off day, there a ton to report regarding the Mets.
• Willie Randolph is still the manager.
• Fred Wilpon has made no announcements on or off the record regarding Willie Randolph's status.
• Third baseman David Wright figures to be batting in his usual spot in the order when the Mets play the Cardinals in the first game of the National League Championship Series.
• Shortstop Jose Reyes gets along with him.
• First baseman Carlos Delgado will be at first base.
• Jose Reyes gets along with him, too.
• The NLCS starts Wednesday evening in New York City.
• Home of the Mets.
• Who are managed by Willie Randolph.
• Still.

The Cubs have been the Mets' fiercest foes at various intervals in our history. And the Braves have been our enemies and obstacles for what was, until a couple of months ago, a very frustrating decade. But our only true sustained rivalry was the one we dug in for against the St. Louis Cardinals.
It doesn't exist as a meaningful going concern anymore, but from 1985 to 1988, Mets-Cardinals games had extra juice, thanks primarily to the Cardinals' success in the odd years. We'd take our revenge in '86 and '88, blowing them out of the Mississippi early and often, but '85 and '87 were duels to the divisional death. And we died both times.
Find a Mets fan who was sentient in the middle to late '80s and you'll find a Mets fan who has never quite gotten over those two N.L. East races that didn't go our way. Never mind that 1986 built on 1985 and gave us, as the video says, a year to remember. Never mind that the Mets recovered quite nicely from their failure to repeat in 1987 by lapping the field in 1988. For those who remember it — and those who never forgot it — the Cardinals occupy a psychic space as wide as the hole on the left side of the infield during a Carlos Delgado at-bat.
It was a long time ago. A very long time ago. I didn't see Willie McGee patrolling center against the Padres Sunday night or Todd Worrell challenging Mike Piazza in the eighth or Jack Clark handling the final out that sent St. Louis back into our world starting Wednesday night. The Cardinals who made us miserable in two out of three seasons when we were at our franchise best no longer exist. No Whitey Herzog checking bats or juggling relievers. No Tommy Herr stunning us with unprecedented power. No Vince Coleman stealing unabated on Gary Carter. No John Tudor grimly striking out Darryl Strawberry. No Cesar Cedeño or Dan Driessen emerging from the scrap heap to stab us in the heart with the final shards of their expiring careers.
No Terry Pendleton.
It was a long time ago. And it doesn't matter. But c'mon…you thought about it. The first words that came to mind after the Cardinals advanced — at least after Pujols…sheeeeyit — probably involved some aspect of the two years whose shortfalls prevented us from touching genuine dynasty status.
I spoke to a friend after we beat L.A. Saturday night, one who pointed out the possible trifecta of revenge looming. By defeating the Dodgers, he said, we got even for 1988. Now, if St. Louis advanced to the LCS, we could get even for 1985 and 1987 and then, if it's us and Oakland in the World Series, there's a chance to make up for 1973. Um, yeah, I said, but we already did that in 2000, didn't we? We won the pennant over the Cardinals six years ago. I know we did. I was there. My friend supposed so.
But still.
I understood. We came within a total of four games — two against them in '85, two against them in '87 — of winning four consecutive division titles back when that sort of thing was nearly impossible. McDowell gets his sinker down; Jim Kaat doesn't tip off the White Rat that Cedeño could still hit; John Mitchell keeps it together for one more inning on Monday Night Baseball; Kid gets around on Jeff Lahti…take your pick. That area above the rightfield wall could be very crowded had just a few more things gone right.
Yeah, it was close in '85 and '87, but the only Garcia y Vegas in sight were the ones given away on Channel 9. It was tough enough hearing our salt-of-the-earth heroes labeled Pond Scum by the allegedly civilized Midwestern masses, the same ones who booed Keith Hernandez (nice trade, pretty boys) and dumped beer on Lenny Dykstra. It was much worse being the Pond Scum that didn't rise to the top. With due respect to years when we missed the playoffs at the hands of the Cubs, the Braves, the Pirates, even the Marlins, missing the playoffs those two times because of the Cardinals remain the craw-stickingest misses of them all.
Mind you, that hole in our history is indisputably irrelevant as we attempt to accomplish ever greater feats in the here and now. The Busch Stadium we'll enter this weekend isn't that Busch Stadium anymore. Realignment has made us strangers on a train, with us visiting them and them visiting us just once per annum. And the revenge fantasy should have been sufficiently quenched in the five games that won us a flag in 2000.
Yet, it's the Mets and Cardinals playing for the biggest prize immediately available. We hated them. They hated us. I imagine everybody who watched then can figure out how to do that now. And aren't we, at least the fans, the sums of all the seasons that have come before?
So welcome back, Arch rivals. Here we Scum again.