Great Timo's Ghost! After following Jason's suggestion and reading Jayson Stark, I just realized the Double Tag Double Play was the spiritual undoing of the last Game One the Mets were in. This time it was our outfielder and our infielder who executed beautifully, and this time it was the other team's baserunners who looked clueless, presumptuous and defeated.
The Kent-Drew Kamikaze also echoed the first regular-season game Paul Lo Duca caught as a Met, when everything turned on his WHOA! play at the plate. Then he knew exactly what he was doing. Here, he had no idea what was going on, yet the result was twice as great. May this first postseason game Paul Lo Duca caught as a Met set the same kind of tone he and his teammates set six months and a day earlier.
I had just settled down. Now I'm revved up again.

There is a tendency to overreact to the last thing seen. And ya know what? It's the best tendency in the world.
I was at Game One today and I had the most awesome time ever, it was the greatest game ever, the greatest win ever. The Mets are the most excellent team ever and the Dodgers suck like nobody else ever has.
Perspective.
Who needs it?
Let history steamroll and iron out the details. I just know that Shea Stadium was never as pumped for anything as it was for this mighty win. Except for the occasional ball one or strike two to the wrong batter, we were loud, we were proud, we were Mets. We didn't shut up. I like to make the case for silence between pitches to permit necessary contemplation and all that crap, but this is the playoffs. It was fun to keep up the noise for nine innings. It was vital.
Besides, if it weren't for crowd reaction, I might not have gleaned the turning point of the game and maybe all time, the eye-rubbing, throat-catching, you-gotta-be-kidding double tag at home plate in the second. I've seen replays since, but in person, here's how it went, at least in my head:
Shit, it's gonna fall in. It's at the wall. C'mon Green, get to it. Get it in. Kent's gonna score, but maybe we can get Drew. Somebody's in front of me, let me peek around. Did he tag him? He tagged him! He's out! Whoa, what's that roar? Ohmigod, he tagged somebody else! Wait! He got Kent in the first place? And THEN he got Drew? Holy crap! There's two outs and no runs on the scoreboard! HOLY FUCK! OHMIGOD!
It would have been so wrong to have not won after that and the Mets complied with all that was right. A brilliant day, a brilliant view from high atop beautiful Western Flushing. A fantastic crowd from the obligatory SUX! that followed every Dodger introduction (especially for hitting coach Eddie Murray but not for Marlon Anderson, though I imagine his goodwill has expired) to the spontaneous vocal accompaniment to Branford Marsalis's “Star Spangled Banner” to every Met motion toward the good, whether Maine's four innings, Carlos D's four hits, Wright's clutchrageous batting or every reliever providing relief. Billy Wagner gave up one run, but he wasn't gonna give up two. How did I know? 'Cause we wouldn't let him.
For those of you scoring at home I went with the New York Giants cap, using the logic I applied in May when I wore the California Angels hat to psych out the Yankees. That's right you Los Angeles fuckers, you're not safe playing New York's National League representatives on October 3 or October 4. Fifty-five years ago, it was a Shot. Today it was two tags. Go back to your crappy Ravine. Sure enough, I saw a guy in a Brooklyn cap on the train on the way in and I stared at him through three stops until he seemed unnerved.
I experienced a weird runup to first pitch. Around 12:30, I became very jumpy. Not “oh no John Maine is starting, Royce Ring is around, god only knows” nervous, just good old “it's October and the Mets are playing and nothing — nothing — is more important because geez, this is exactly what we hope and pray and play for all the days of our lives” nervous. It was really here. Picking the Giants cap was a big deal. Fixing two turkey sandwiches on whole wheat and wrapping them in foil (I've NEVER thought to do that, even when I was a kid) was a big deal. Parking in a local municipal lot halfway to my train was a new and potentially momentum-affecting thing. Theoretically I wanted to treat everything like it was just another game, but it wasn't. Shake things up. Lose that 9-13 record from the regular season. I'm 1-0 baby.
We all are.

Carpet bomb 'em. You understand? Chew 'em up. Spit 'em out. So we understand each other, right?
—Mayor Lucy Rodell (Dillon, Tex.)
As we and us prepare to watch our team encounter their/our first postseason in six years, keep this in mind:
Six innings.
If we can get six innings from John Maine or Joe Vermont or whoever is going to take the ball, we have a fine chance. That's not an appraisal limited to Maine. Six solid innings from any starter and we're relatively golden.
This team's foundation is its bullpen. There'll be lots of bullpen from which to choose, with Royce Ring shockingly tossed into the salad this morning. He's the 12th pitcher, presumably (so much for the brilliant three-catcher strategy as DiFelice is dropped and Chris Woodward is the emergency everything). Oliver Perez takes El Duque's place on the roster as the Game Four starter. Well, he take's Maine's spot and Maine is in for El Duque who is out for the series.
When it comes to Met starters, we are all our own grandpa.
The pen, though, has been a rock all year. Even without Duaner Sanchez, whose presence is missed, it has held steady to spectacular. Its hiccups are in its past. Wagner is tough. Heilman is hard. Mota is unbelievable. You have to trust Bradford to get out righties and Feliciano to get out lefties. Roberto Hernandez can overcome a threat. Oliver can pick up others' slack.
This is baseball in the 21st century, more pronounced but not altogether different from what it was six years ago when it was as much the combined work of Rusch, White, Cook, Wendell, Franco and (occasionally) Benitez that saw the Mets through to the World Series as it was several excellent outings from Al Leiter, Mike Hampton, Rick Reed and Bobby Jones. Certainly Met victories in the second and third games of that year's NLDS and Game Two of the NLCS owed to bullpen excellence.
Our last postseason rotation doesn't jump off the page as phenomenal, but they were pretty substantial. Pretty substantial or at least pretty good is what this team needs right now. Pretty good has described its starting pitching over the past four months, since Pedro's aches acted up and Glavine slipped out of sorts. It's been about relief pitching when we're on defense. Give us six solid innings and I'll take my chances.
Quick, how many World Series did the supposedly stifling rotation of Mulder, Zito and Hudson win for the A's? How often did Maddux, Glavine and Smoltz steamroll the postseason competition after 1995? Which victory parade included Kerry Wood, Mark Prior and Carlos Zambrano? I don't mean to denigrate great pitching. When you get it, you're close to unbeatable. But I've heard over the past decade repeatedly in advance of October baseball how some ace or set of aces was going to dictate the terms of engagement and proceed to carry their teams on their shoulders to nirvana.
It hardly ever happens that way. Yes, a Schilling and a Johnson in their primes were something to see. They had the reps and they lived up to them. Otherwise? Was anybody fearing the White Sox rotation last year — especially in comparison to Clemens, Pettitte and Oswalt — before it proved infallible for a couple of weeks? Did the Marlins of '03 strike terror into the opposition until after the fact? How about those highly offensive Angels in 2002?
On Tuesday, Johan Santana pitched a whale of a game. His team lost. Jake Peavy came in considered a top gun. He didn't do so well. Would I hand the ball to either of them again? Of course, but it just goes to show that there's no telling what will happen in a game, regardless of the month it takes place.
You don't want your starters to go three innings and out. But it's a myth that World Series — or even Division Series — are won because you're sporting three famously strong arms. There are too many variables in a baseball game. Fielding is a variable. Baserunning is a variable. Managers' decisions are a variable. The bullpen is a variable. And a stacked lineup, like that of the Mets, does occasionally supercede good starting pitching.
I'd rather go into this with the pitchers we anticipated a couple of weeks ago, even a couple of days ago. That doesn't seem to be happening. But we're still here, with our bedazzling leadoff hitter, our gamer catcher, our all-world centerfielder, our imposing cleanup man, our clutchrageous third baseman and their assorted superfriends. The Dodgers are good, but they don't have Reyes, Lo Duca, Beltran, Delgado, Wright, Green, Floyd and Valentin. They don't have Wagner, Heilman or Mota either. We have some positive difference makers and very few negative ones.
We're also still here with John Maine, who was a very valuable contributor to the Mets in the second half of the year. He was gonna pitch a Game Four? So he'll pitch a Game One. They're all baseball games. We know how to win those.
If it ain't over 'til it's over, then it's damn sure not over before it's begun.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go start yelling at us. I'll let you know how that turns out.
And oh yeah…buy a shirt.

Calves are vulnerable body parts this time of year. To guard against absurdly common injuries, why not wrap your right calf in a FAITH AND FEAR t-shirt? In fact, best to swaddle your left calf in one too. That'll only leave your two arms vulnerable. Hmmm. Four shirts might be wise.
Ha ha! Gallows humor, wheeee!
Seriously, if you want a shirt, please email us with how many you want and what sizes. More details here. Sometime in the next day or two we'll get the order out to the t-shirt company and email everyone to confirm, ask for payment (exact amount TBD, but based on the number ordered so far, I'm betting they'll be about $15 delivered) and get mailing addresses.
Seven hours to go. Everybody hang in there. And remember, ya gotta believe.

Calves are vulnerable body parts this time of year. To guard against absurdly common injuries, why not wrap your right calf in a FAITH AND FEAR t-shirt? In fact, best to swaddle your left calf in one too. That'll only leave your two arms vulnerable. Hmmm. Four shirts might be wise.

Ha ha! Gallows humor, wheeee!

Seriously, if you want a shirt, please email us with how many you want and what sizes. More details here. Sometime in the next day or two we'll get the order out to the t-shirt company and email everyone to confirm, ask for payment (exact amount TBD, but based on the number ordered so far, I'm betting they'll be about $15 delivered) and get mailing addresses.

Seven hours to go. Everybody hang in there. And remember, ya gotta believe.

We're a little too into sports in this country, I think we gotta throttle back. Know what I mean? People come home from these games, “We won! We won!” No, they won — you watched. — Jerry Seinfeld
It's one of the rules of being an adult: You realize that you're not, in fact, a member of your favorite team. You will never throw a perfect inning, line a double off the wall or even stand in the batter's box quivering while three barely glimpsed fastballs roar across the plate. You watch the team, you root for the team, you analyze the team's strengths and weaknesses, but you know you are a fan, not a player. And so, above all else, you do not say “we.” You say “they.” Or you invite ridicule.
Well, you know what?
Fuck that.
There are two kinds of people who don't say “we” — people who are passionate fans of a given team and people who aren't. There are billions of people in the latter group. Many of them are decent, intelligent folk. I've got dozens of friends who fit into that category. I love some of them dearly. But I don't give a good goddamn what they think about this issue, or anything else related to sports.
That leaves the first group — passionate fans who nonetheless turn up their nose at “we.” And they're the ones I don't understand.
I wonder, fantasize, exult and worry about the fortunes of the New York Mets 365 days a year — 366 every four years. And for six months of the year they are the focus of, at minimum, approximately a quarter of the hours I'm awake. My co-blogger is no different. (In fact, double those numbers for him.) Nor are many of the folks who comment here.
While I'm the same me year after year, shifts in hair and waistline notwithstanding, the New York Mets barely hold still. They come and go in a blur: So far, there have been 799 of them to 1 of me. They come up young and leave old, are revealed as heroes and heels, succeed and fail and do OK, get drafted and signed and called up and hurt and benched and traded and released and reacquired, the names above the numbers changing as the seasons tick by faster and faster. The team has been and will be managed by different men, coached by different men, put together by different men (and even a few women), even owned by different men and women. The only true constant? It's us. People who look up from some chore in the middle of the winter and realize they've spent the last hour fuming about why Timo wasn't running, or why Yogi didn't start George Stone, or what in hell Kenny Rogers was doing. Who ride the subway to work fantasizing about the World Series ending on a David Wright walk-off, or an above-the-fence grab by Carlos Gomez, or a no-hitter for Philip Humber. Who find themselves walking down the street grinning like a fool at the memory of the Grand Slam single, or Pratt hitting it over the fence, or Ray Knight grabbing his helmet in disbelief as home plate looms.
We go to the games. We spend the money. We wear the gear. We read the articles, the books and even a crazy, wordy blog or two. We cheer and boo and do mock Tomahawk chops and call the FAN and sing “Jose Jose Jose Jose.” We don't play or make out the starting lineup or acquire players, that's true. But so what? We do everything else. We are the custodians of tradition and the tellers of tales, the ones whose job it is to explain to children and new arrivals and casual fans and interested bystanders what the Mets are like and what Met fans are like. We'll never be in the Baseball Encyclopedia. But who's meant more to the New York Mets? One of us — or, say, Dave Liddell? (We are the ones who remember Dave Liddell.)
And above all else, we give a big chunk of our hearts to a ever-shifting assemblage of rich young men to do with as they will. The cruel irony of sports is that we let our happiness and perhaps even our sanity depend on the outcome of an activity that we are, realistically, powerless to affect. Perhaps that's why some fans insist on this symbolic display of standing apart — perhaps that's their refuge from letting their days and nights be wrecked by something as ultimately small as a “tough loss,” or as cosmically inconsequential as calf pain for a Cuban man of undetermined age.
But if you've come this far, stop kidding yourself. It's a big thing, giving a piece of yourself over to something larger than yourself. It's an even bigger thing to give that loyalty to something that's out of your control, that you can only be witness to. But if you're reading this and aren't a casual passer-by, you've already done that, right? In the eyes of casual fans and non-fans, you're already a lunatic. It's too late to change now, even if you could.
On this blog we use that forbidden pronoun. And we use it proudly. Tomorrow, “we” will describe thousands upon thousands baying in the stands and watching in terror and joy on their couches and standing with the radio pressed to an ear and muttering about calves and rotator cuffs and MRIs — and it will also describe the 25 guys in orange and blue at the center of all that attention. “They”? That doesn't describe David Wright and Jose Reyes and John Maine. It describes everybody else.
I'm sure glad we're not them.