Tonight didn't matter. This string of flat, lifeless baseball games doesn't matter. Unless it does, of course.
It shouldn't. This is a well-rounded club with the right mix of wily, experienced vets, happy-go-lucky kids and hungry guys in between, led by an experienced coaching staff and an even-keeled manager whom guys respect and play hard for. One might expect the Mets to be resting up and not getting hurt, and a charitable person might say that's all they're doing right now. One would also expect that when the bunting's unfurled and the band's assembled and the blimp's aloft, they'll flip the switch and administer a licking to whatever team is unlucky enough to arrive at Shea for October baseball. An optimistic person would say it's a guarantee.
And yet. The long season can turn short awfully fast, and in a five-game series there is definitely such a thing as waking up too late. This team needs to play well to avoid its first sub-.500 month, which would be another one of those things that doesn't mean anything unless it means everything. And then it needs to play well lest this charmed season be revealed as a cruel illusion.
One of my baseball cliches is that I've grown old enough to realize my team can't go to the playoffs every year. All you can ask is to get to play games that mean something during the last week of the season. (OK, it's different if you're a Yankee fan. But then you have to deal with having a howling vacuum where the rest of us have a soul.)
2006 is the loophole in the rule: These games don't mean anything. Or rather, they better not mean anything.
Emily came home shortly before 10, as the lackluster baseball was nearing its dreary conclusion. At 10, TiVo inserted itself into the conversation, saying that it had something to record and asking to change the channel. Emily volunteered to cancel whatever it was, but I waved her off. I don't need to see the rest of this, I said. By the time we were settled downstairs it was over, and we wound up watching the Saints' triumphant return to New Orleans, the city where we met. (Officially met, anyway.) Come eat and spend some money, Harry Connick Jr. entreated us and everybody else watching. Hmmm. Next year the New Orleans Zephyrs will be a Met affiliate, and we discussed that we should go, see the parts of the city that seem much as they were and also see the parts that will never be as they were again.
Everybody knows the Mets wanted no part of New Orleans — at a time when the fashion is to group the minor-league affiliates more closely together, ours somehow got farther away. And despite the Crescent City's putting on its best face for ESPN (which did a good job balancing sports and the rest of life, I thought), in recent days the Zephyrs-turned-Nats have expressed relief at not being there any longer. I doubt the Mets will stay long, but here's hoping we aren't indifferent tenants. Here's hoping some of that post-9/11, Shea parking-lot spirit can be summoned for a city that desperately needs it. Here's hoping Ron Swoboda has some happy tales to tell.
But that's for next year. For now, another lousy game, import of which TBD.
Sigh. This weird logic, this conditional defeatism, has had me chasing my tail for days, not sure what to think but tired of thinking it. The Mets left Shea for the last time in the regular season playing lousy ball. When they return, it'll be to standing ovations. Normally I savor the merest inning of the most-meaningless game, but I'm having a hard time with that right now. Would anyone mind if we just fast-forwarded a bit? Let the good times roll already.

Tonight didn't matter. This string of flat, lifeless baseball games doesn't matter. Unless it does, of course.

It shouldn't. This is a well-rounded club with the right mix of wily, experienced vets, happy-go-lucky kids and hungry guys in between, led by an experienced coaching staff and an even-keeled manager whom guys respect and play hard for. One might expect the Mets to be resting up and not getting hurt, and a charitable person might say that's all they're doing right now. One would also expect that when the bunting's unfurled and the band's assembled and the blimp's aloft, they'll flip the switch and administer a licking to whatever team is unlucky enough to arrive at Shea for October baseball. An optimistic person would say it's a guarantee.

And yet. The long season can turn short awfully fast, and in a five-game series there is definitely such a thing as waking up too late. This team needs to play well to avoid its first sub-.500 month, which would be another one of those things that doesn't mean anything unless it means everything. And then it needs to play well lest this charmed season be revealed as a cruel illusion.

One of my baseball cliches is that I've grown old enough to realize my team can't go to the playoffs every year. All you can ask is to get to play games that mean something during the last week of the season. (OK, it's different if you're a Yankee fan. But then you have to deal with having a howling vacuum where the rest of us have a soul.)

2006 is the loophole in the rule: These games don't mean anything. Or rather, they better not mean anything.

Emily came home shortly before 10, as the lackluster baseball was nearing its dreary conclusion. At 10, TiVo inserted itself into the conversation, saying that it had something to record and asking to change the channel. Emily volunteered to cancel whatever it was, but I waved her off. I don't need to see the rest of this, I said. By the time we were settled downstairs it was over, and we wound up watching the Saints' triumphant return to New Orleans, the city where we met. (Officially met, anyway.) Come eat and spend some money, Harry Connick Jr. entreated us and everybody else watching. Hmmm. Next year the New Orleans Zephyrs will be a Met affiliate, and we discussed that we should go, see the parts of the city that seem much as they were and also see the parts that will never be as they were again.

Everybody knows the Mets wanted no part of New Orleans — at a time when the fashion is to group the minor-league affiliates more closely together, ours somehow got farther away. And despite the Crescent City's putting on its best face for ESPN (which did a good job balancing sports and the rest of life, I thought), in recent days the Zephyrs-turned-Nats have expressed relief at not being there any longer. I doubt the Mets will stay long, but here's hoping we aren't indifferent tenants. Here's hoping some of that post-9/11, Shea parking-lot spirit can be summoned for a city that desperately needs it. Here's hoping Ron Swoboda has some happy tales to tell.

But that's for next year. For now, another lousy game, import of which TBD.

Sigh. This weird logic, this conditional defeatism, has had me chasing my tail for days, not sure what to think but tired of thinking it. The Mets left Shea for the last time in the regular season playing lousy ball. When they return, it'll be to standing ovations. Normally I savor the merest inning of the most-meaningless game, but I'm having a hard time with that right now. Would anyone mind if we just fast-forwarded a bit? Let the good times roll already.

Steve Trachsel is a hard Met to love. He showed up here as an afterthought, introduced himself with incompetence and has done his best work under suspect circumstances. Even when he has succeeded, he has engendered little to no loyalty. There are no T Tallies to record each of his pop outs. There is no section of Steven's Stevedores, loading and unloading baseballs in his honor. Fans don't clap when he gets two strikes on a hitter. They look at their watches and wonder when he'll attempt to throw strike three. The lack of feeling is mutual. The next commercial in which the pitcher invites fans to “come out and get on the winning Trach with me!” will be the first.
There was never a Steve Trachsel bobblehead day per se. Instead, the Mets gave out his nodding likeness to a random row of patrons during his home starts. I think it was in his contract.
The Steve Trachsel oeuvre has been pretty well summed up in his past three Shea starts, all of which I've witnessed first-hand. On September 10, he didn't make it out of the third inning and was mostly booed. On September 18, he shut out the Marlins into the seventh en route to the Mets' clinching their division and was given a standing ovation. Yesterday, he plodded his way into the sixth before he was removed, trailing 3-1. He was mostly grumbled at.
In all three cases — pitching terribly, pitching brilliantly, pitching OK — Trachsel left the mound quietly and without acknowledging what was going on around him. Even when positioning himself as the first star of the game on the night the Mets became N.L. East champions, he kept his head down and kept walking.
That's Steve. Whether it's because he's ridden the rollercoaster of “who have you struck out for me lately?” far too many times or because he hadn't forgotten being unloved eight days before being showered in adulation or because he's steady as he goes, you're not going to get a lot that is warm or fuzzy out of Trachsel.
Check out this picture, the one appropriately entitled Joy. Carlos Beltran has just launched a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7. At one point, the Mets were down 7-1. In what was then considered a National League Championship Series preview, the Mets had gotten the best of their most serious opponent. There was no stoppin' us now.
Beltran, not the most animated centerfielder on the block, is enraptured. His teammates are rushing home plate to embrace him. Dave Williams, a Met all of five minutes at that point, is joining in. And on the outskirts, lightly applauding as one might at the opera? It's Steve Trachsel, the longest tenured Met. Steve was pitching the next night. Maybe he didn't want to risk injury in a dogpile. Or maybe that's just Steve, a man who hasn't lasted as long he has in one place by getting too high or getting too low.
If you catch a replay of Mets Weekly this week, there's a ton of neat footage of the clinching celebration, lots of tape of the players frolicking on the field after they sprayed themselves silly in the clubhouse, lots of champagne bottles being swigged from. And there's Steve Trachsel standing off to the side, small smile creasing his face, holding a champagne flute. Ever the dedicated oenophile, Steve — the first Mets pitcher to win a division-clincher since Ron Darling — wasn't going to drink his sparkling wine in any way but the correct one.
Again, he was just being Steve Trachsel. The way he carries himself, the way he acts and doesn't react, the way he takes his time with runners on base, the way he gets little support when pitching exceptionally well, the way he gets loads of support when pitching a little too typically poorly…that's Steve Trachsel. There may not seem to be a lot of there there, but there he is: here.
When the Mets won in 1969, Ed Kranepool had seen it all, going back to the Polo Grounds. When the Mets won in 1986, Jesse Orosco could tell you what it was like in the last, dark days of the de Roulet administration and Mookie Wilson could add a few sentences on how far the team had come since the crowds barely equaled quorums. When the Mets made it back to the playoffs in 1999, all eyes turned to John Franco and the longevity he symbolized through a slew of bad and embarrassing seasons. In 2006, the Met who's been around longest is Steve Trachsel with six seasons of service. Yet there's nothing about him that suggests legendary perseverance or smacks of “this one's for Steve!” He signed a series of contracts starting in December 2000 and the latest one is still in effect. Result? Longest Met tenure. Save your tears for someone else.
He's pitched well over the years. Rarely great. Occasionally awful. He began about as badly as one could. In his first 7 starts, his ERA topped 8. He accepted a demotion to Norfolk and, in layman's terms, got his shit together and pitched like a professional for the rest of 2001. He was better in 2002 and 2003, but the Mets got worse. When his team turned a corner in 2005, they did so without him. By the time he was recovered from surgery, he was an afterthought. He was back for 2006 because his option was a relative bargain. He has taken every start this year because he's been healthy, the only starter from the original rotation of Martinez, Glavine, Zambrano, Bannister and Trachsel who's been able to say that.
Trachsel has the second-highest amount of wins, 15, among National League pitchers right now, one behind Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano and Brad Penny. His ERA, 4.97, is 34th among 39 qualifiers for the N.L. title. He has struck out 79. He has walked 78. This season, he has passed Bobby Ojeda, Craig Swan and Rick Reed on the Mets all-time victory chart. Steve Trachsel is now No. 10 among all Mets pitchers ever in wins. Bobby Ojeda was a World Series hero, Craig Swan won an ERA title, Rick Reed a two-time All-Star.
Steve Trachsel is Steve Trachsel, y'know? It's not even a matter of Good Trachsel and Bad Trachsel. There's just Trachsel. Sometimes what he's throwing works, sometimes it doesn't. He'll have one more start in the regular season and will probably be handed the ball at some critical juncture in the postseason. He will pitch and we will hope he succeeds not because he is Steve Trachsel but because he is on the Mets. However he accounts for himself next month, whether he produces a stifling conquest of the other team's batting order or an utter implosion that gets the bullpen cranking immediately, it will probably be the last we see of him. His contract is up, his manager doesn't seem terribly attached to him, his potential successors in the organization and on the open market are already looming.
And that will be that.

Steve Trachsel is a hard Met to love. He showed up here as an afterthought, introduced himself with incompetence and has done his best work under suspect circumstances. Even when he has succeeded, he has engendered little to no loyalty. There are no T Tallies to record each of his pop outs. There is no section of Steven's Stevedores, loading and unloading baseballs in his honor. Fans don't clap when he gets two strikes on a hitter. They look at their watches and wonder when he'll attempt to throw strike three. The lack of feeling is mutual. The next commercial in which the pitcher invites fans to “come out and get on the winning Trach with me!” will be the first.

There was never a Steve Trachsel bobblehead day per se. Instead, the Mets gave out his nodding likeness to a random row of patrons during his home starts. I think it was in his contract.

The Steve Trachsel oeuvre has been pretty well summed up in his past three Shea starts, all of which I've witnessed first-hand. On September 10, he didn't make it out of the third inning and was mostly booed. On September 18, he shut out the Marlins into the seventh en route to the Mets' clinching their division and was given a standing ovation. Yesterday, he plodded his way into the sixth before he was removed, trailing 3-1. He was mostly grumbled at.

In all three cases — pitching terribly, pitching brilliantly, pitching OK — Trachsel left the mound quietly and without acknowledging what was going on around him. Even when positioning himself as the first star of the game on the night the Mets became N.L. East champions, he kept his head down and kept walking.

That's Steve. Whether it's because he's ridden the rollercoaster of “who have you struck out for me lately?” far too many times or because he hadn't forgotten being unloved eight days before being showered in adulation or because he's steady as he goes, you're not going to get a lot that is warm or fuzzy out of Trachsel.

Check out this picture, the one appropriately entitled Joy. Carlos Beltran has just launched a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to defeat the St. Louis Cardinals 8-7. At one point, the Mets were down 7-1. In what was then considered a National League Championship Series preview, the Mets had gotten the best of their most serious opponent. There was no stoppin' us now.

Beltran, not the most animated centerfielder on the block, is enraptured. His teammates are rushing home plate to embrace him. Dave Williams, a Met all of five minutes at that point, is joining in. And on the outskirts, lightly applauding as one might at the opera? It's Steve Trachsel, the longest tenured Met. Steve was pitching the next night. Maybe he didn't want to risk injury in a dogpile. Or maybe that's just Steve, a man who hasn't lasted as long he has in one place by getting too high or getting too low.

If you catch a replay of Mets Weekly this week, there's a ton of neat footage of the clinching celebration, lots of tape of the players frolicking on the field after they sprayed themselves silly in the clubhouse, lots of champagne bottles being swigged from. And there's Steve Trachsel standing off to the side, small smile creasing his face, holding a champagne flute. Ever the dedicated oenophile, Steve — the first Mets pitcher to win a division-clincher since Ron Darling — wasn't going to drink his sparkling wine in any way but the correct one.

Again, he was just being Steve Trachsel. The way he carries himself, the way he acts and doesn't react, the way he takes his time with runners on base, the way he gets little support when pitching exceptionally well, the way he gets loads of support when pitching a little too typically poorly…that's Steve Trachsel. There may not seem to be a lot of there there, but there he is: here.

When the Mets won in 1969, Ed Kranepool had seen it all, going back to the Polo Grounds. When the Mets won in 1986, Jesse Orosco could tell you what it was like in the last, dark days of the de Roulet administration and Mookie Wilson could add a few sentences on how far the team had come since the crowds barely equaled quorums. When the Mets made it back to the playoffs in 1999, all eyes turned to John Franco and the longevity he symbolized through a slew of bad and embarrassing seasons. In 2006, the Met who's been around longest is Steve Trachsel with six seasons of service. Yet there's nothing about him that suggests legendary perseverance or smacks of “this one's for Steve!” He signed a series of contracts starting in December 2000 and the latest one is still in effect. Result? Longest Met tenure. Save your tears for someone else.

He's pitched well over the years. Rarely great. Occasionally awful. He began about as badly as one could. In his first 7 starts, his ERA topped 8. He accepted a demotion to Norfolk and, in layman's terms, got his shit together and pitched like a professional for the rest of 2001. He was better in 2002 and 2003, but the Mets got worse. When his team turned a corner in 2005, they did so without him. By the time he was recovered from surgery, he was an afterthought. He was back for 2006 because his option was a relative bargain. He has taken every start this year because he's been healthy, the only starter from the original rotation of Martinez, Glavine, Zambrano, Bannister and Trachsel who's been able to say that.

Trachsel has the second-highest amount of wins, 15, among National League pitchers right now, one behind Brandon Webb, Carlos Zambrano and Brad Penny. His ERA, 4.97, is 34th among 39 qualifiers for the N.L. title. He has struck out 79. He has walked 78. This season, he has passed Bobby Ojeda, Craig Swan and Rick Reed on the Mets all-time victory chart. Steve Trachsel is now No. 10 among all Mets pitchers ever in wins. Bobby Ojeda was a World Series hero, Craig Swan won an ERA title, Rick Reed a two-time All-Star.

Steve Trachsel is Steve Trachsel, y'know? It's not even a matter of Good Trachsel and Bad Trachsel. There's just Trachsel. Sometimes what he's throwing works, sometimes it doesn't. He'll have one more start in the regular season and will probably be handed the ball at some critical juncture in the postseason. He will pitch and we will hope he succeeds not because he is Steve Trachsel but because he is on the Mets. However he accounts for himself next month, whether he produces a stifling conquest of the other team's batting order or an utter implosion that gets the bullpen cranking immediately, it will probably be the last we see of him. His contract is up, his manager doesn't seem terribly attached to him, his potential successors in the organization and on the open market are already looming.

And that will be that.

Before anyone goes blaming the prevailing doofusdom I encountered in my section of the mezzanine this afternoon on beer and front runners, understand that I witnessed no overpriced suds consumed and no clueless interlopers. I was surrounded by what appeared to be sober, loyal Mets fans. Doesn't mean they couldn't be moronic.
Behind me was a family or two — whatever their relationship, they were enmeshed — whose matriarch was a raspy yeller in a Wright shirt. Reminded me of a neighbor we had when I was growing up, one who'd threaten to call the cops if somebody parked in front of her house. She just figured out that Trachsel works slowly and informed her children of this…over and over and over again. She took great delight in the Devil Rays' pounding of the Yankees and chanted “Let's Go Rays!”…over and over and over again. When Trachsel or the parade of relievers that followed him managed two strikes on a National, she led her brood in “Strike Him OUT!”…over and over and over again. Oh, and when a brief shower sent those sitting to our south scurrying for shelter, she started a “Who's got the cover? We do!” call and response that fortunately fizzled as fast as the rain.
Her or whoever's kids they were specialized in kicking seats. A kicked seat doesn't have to be yours for the kicking to be irritating as psoriasis. For those of you don't have it, psoriasis is extremely irritating.
A couple of rows in front of me was a Jets fan. I suppose there were lots of Jets fans at Shea. That's fine. I'm a Jets fan in my spare time. But this Jets fan — COLES 87 jersey, Mets cap — wanted to be Fireman Ed east. He listened intently to their game with the Bills on a transistor radio and whenever the Jets scored, he turned around and raised his arms to signal a touchdown. The raspy lady, after protesting that the Bills are the only “real New York team” (I'd never heard that!), got caught up in this, too, and intermittent J-E-T-S spelling was added to her repertoire.
While all I did with the kicking kids was turn around and tell them to STOP IT!, I found myself strangely emboldened to heckle the Jets guy. It wasn't so much the updates from another sport infiltrating our national pastime that got me (though a harumph of “baseball gentlemen, baseball” never seemed more in order). It was the solemnity with which he carried out his dispatches that struck me as inappropriate. The hands over the head for a few beats too long elicited a “WHAT ARE YOU, TOUCHDOWN JESUS?” from me. And when the Shea scoreboard offered the final from Orchard Park before he could — about an eighth of the crowd was already applauding — he started to tell us that hey, the Jets won. “WE KNOW,” I said, “BUT THANK YOU FOR DOING SUCH A DUTIFUL JOB OF KEEPING US INFORMED ALL DAY!”
Forgive me for telling the story with me as the de facto hero, but I got a very positive response from at least a couple of Mets fans who came to the Mets game to watch the Mets game.
So I was not crazy about those behind me or in front of me. Next to me? Joe. As in my pal Joe with whom I've gone to five games this year and with whom I am now Joe and five. Not much to say here about Joe and me at Shea today except we sure do wish we could have seen the Mets win a game together in 2006.
Except for this:
While I was settling in to my seat, with the raspy lady and the Jet correspondent making themselves evident early, Joe was completing the triangulation of my day by harassing Ryan Zimmerman. With Reyes up in the first, Joe shouted, “HEY ZIMMERMAN! YOU'RE NOT PLAYING IN ON THE GRASS…YOU FOOL!” over and over and over again. Reyes singled, which meant Joe was going to scream at the Nats' third baseman during every single Met at-bat for the rest of the day, several times per at-bat — or until it was proven that it wasn't working. Took a couple of futile innings, but he got off it, though not until the raspy lady wanted in. “What about the grass? Why are you saying that?” Joe didn't acknowledge her. Good man.
All that was missing from this discomfiting 5-1 loss was some idiot in a Yankees cap. As if on cue, one appeared, a guy in his teens in the company of his similarly aged Mets fan friends. The sight of the vertical swastika raised everybody's ire into a good, old-fashioned “YANKEES SUCK!” Natch, the kid did the thing where he points at the vertical swastika with pride. “TAKE HIS HAT! TAKE HIS HAT!” swelled in response.
The Nikon Camera Player of the Day was clearly the kid's buddy, a dude who actually did take that crappy Yankees cap and actually did fling it logeward. A huge cheer ensued.
So really, a good time was had by all.

Before anyone goes blaming the prevailing doofusdom I encountered in my section of the mezzanine this afternoon on beer and front runners, understand that I witnessed no overpriced suds consumed and no clueless interlopers. I was surrounded by what appeared to be sober, loyal Mets fans. Doesn't mean they couldn't be moronic.

Behind me was a family or two — whatever their relationship, they were enmeshed — whose matriarch was a raspy yeller in a Wright shirt. Reminded me of a neighbor we had when I was growing up, one who'd threaten to call the cops if somebody parked in front of her house. She just figured out that Trachsel works slowly and informed her children of this…over and over and over again. She took great delight in the Devil Rays' pounding of the Yankees and chanted “Let's Go Rays!”…over and over and over again. When Trachsel or the parade of relievers that followed him managed two strikes on a National, she led her brood in “Strike Him OUT!”…over and over and over again. Oh, and when a brief shower sent those sitting to our south scurrying for shelter, she started a “Who's got the cover? We do!” call and response that fortunately fizzled as fast as the rain.

Her or whoever's kids they were specialized in kicking seats. A kicked seat doesn't have to be yours for the kicking to be irritating as psoriasis. For those of you don't have it, psoriasis is extremely irritating.

A couple of rows in front of me was a Jets fan. I suppose there were lots of Jets fans at Shea. That's fine. I'm a Jets fan in my spare time. But this Jets fan — COLES 87 jersey, Mets cap — wanted to be Fireman Ed east. He listened intently to their game with the Bills on a transistor radio and whenever the Jets scored, he turned around and raised his arms to signal a touchdown. The raspy lady, after protesting that the Bills are the only “real New York team” (I'd never heard that!), got caught up in this, too, and intermittent J-E-T-S spelling was added to her repertoire.

While all I did with the kicking kids was turn around and tell them to STOP IT!, I found myself strangely emboldened to heckle the Jets guy. It wasn't so much the updates from another sport infiltrating our national pastime that got me (though a harumph of “baseball gentlemen, baseball” never seemed more in order). It was the solemnity with which he carried out his dispatches that struck me as inappropriate. The hands over the head for a few beats too long elicited a “WHAT ARE YOU, TOUCHDOWN JESUS?” from me. And when the Shea scoreboard offered the final from Orchard Park before he could — about an eighth of the crowd was already applauding — he started to tell us that hey, the Jets won. “WE KNOW,” I said, “BUT THANK YOU FOR DOING SUCH A DUTIFUL JOB OF KEEPING US INFORMED ALL DAY!”

Forgive me for telling the story with me as the de facto hero, but I got a very positive response from at least a couple of Mets fans who came to the Mets game to watch the Mets game.

So I was not crazy about those behind me or in front of me. Next to me? Joe. As in my pal Joe with whom I've gone to five games this year and with whom I am now Joe and five. Not much to say here about Joe and me at Shea today except we sure do wish we could have seen the Mets win a game together in 2006.

Except for this:

While I was settling in to my seat, with the raspy lady and the Jet correspondent making themselves evident early, Joe was completing the triangulation of my day by harassing Ryan Zimmerman. With Reyes up in the first, Joe shouted, “HEY ZIMMERMAN! YOU'RE NOT PLAYING IN ON THE GRASS…YOU FOOL!” over and over and over again. Reyes singled, which meant Joe was going to scream at the Nats' third baseman during every single Met at-bat for the rest of the day, several times per at-bat — or until it was proven that it wasn't working. Took a couple of futile innings, but he got off it, though not until the raspy lady wanted in. “What about the grass? Why are you saying that?” Joe didn't acknowledge her. Good man.

All that was missing from this discomfiting 5-1 loss was some idiot in a Yankees cap. As if on cue, one appeared, a guy in his teens in the company of his similarly aged Mets fan friends. The sight of the vertical swastika raised everybody's ire into a good, old-fashioned “YANKEES SUCK!” Natch, the kid did the thing where he points at the vertical swastika with pride. “TAKE HIS HAT! TAKE HIS HAT!” swelled in response.

The Nikon Camera Player of the Day was clearly the kid's buddy, a dude who actually did take that crappy Yankees cap and actually did fling it logeward. A huge cheer ensued.

So really, a good time was had by all.

The Mets finally hit a lot while they pitched enough. That part Saturday was swell; the end of the world — nigh after a three-game losing streak by our division champs — has once again been postponed.
Mostly, I hope Nick Johnson of the Nationals is up on his feet soon and attempting to torment 14 other National League teams in 2007. As horrified veterans of collisions from Hahn & Theodore to Cameron & Beltran, all we can do is hope the human being in the other uniform with the broken right leg recovers soon.
What a bad break toward the end of a season for a guy who was hustling all the way for a last-place team. Him and Kearns, the guy he got tangled up in. In a perverse way, it makes me laugh at those who think highly compensated ballplayers don't really care about the game.

The Mets finally hit a lot while they pitched enough. That part Saturday was swell; the end of the world — nigh after a three-game losing streak by our division champs — has once again been postponed.

Mostly, I hope Nick Johnson of the Nationals is up on his feet soon and attempting to torment 14 other National League teams in 2007. As horrified veterans of collisions from Hahn & Theodore to Cameron & Beltran, all we can do is hope the human being in the other uniform with the broken right leg recovers soon.

What a bad break toward the end of a season for a guy who was hustling all the way for a last-place team. Him and Kearns, the guy he got tangled up in. In a perverse way, it makes me laugh at those who think highly compensated ballplayers don't really care about the game.

Sure was nice of us to not clinch in front of Pedro Astacio.
Oh wait, we already clinched. We've clinched all there is to clinch. There is no pressing reason to win baseball games so, apparently, we have chosen not to.
Uh, not to be ungrateful in this new and exciting era of having that little “x” next to our name in the standings, but shouldn't these games come with a rebate? If the Mets aren't trying to win — and they're not exactly going out of their way to emerge victorious — can we get like 10% of our ticket price returned to us? Don't worry, I'll put it right back into the kitty. The $25 DIVISION CHAMPIONS shirt I'm wearing as I type is indicative of how willing I am to spend in the name of this team's success. If Fred was willing to invest in great players, I'm fine with throwing down currency for overpriced merchandise full of happy logos.
Surely I would have taken this deal in February, the paying for meaningless games in exchange for why they're meaningless. They're marvelously meaningless. I look above the right field corner and I see the first version of what I hope will be a very special banner. I look behind home plate and I see the Mets insignia has been enhanced by a descriptor of what they've been since Monday night. Success hasn't spoiled this Rock Hunter.
But going to this game and Wednesday's game, both enveloped in offensive torpor, is tough stuff. It's a fleeting quirk of circumstance, I understand, but it puts into question the concept of the Mets as a destination for the entertainment dollar. There was little entertaining about watching the Mets losing to the last-place Nationals, especially losing to alumnus Astacio, a guy I'm guessing most fans without a fantasy roster had no idea was still pitching.
Oddly, if this had been a crummy loss at the tail end of a crummy season, I'd probably be penning paeans to the beauty of baseball, even futilely fought baseball, noting that autumn is at hand and the icy grip of winter is limbering up and…hey, screw that. Still, on the heels of a couple of lame losses that do not really matter, I find myself growing snippy and impatient after schlepping to Shea for another subpar game.
New York Mets fans, welcome to the big time.

Sure was nice of us to not clinch in front of Pedro Astacio.

Oh wait, we already clinched. We've clinched all there is to clinch. There is no pressing reason to win baseball games so, apparently, we have chosen not to.

Uh, not to be ungrateful in this new and exciting era of having that little “x” next to our name in the standings, but shouldn't these games come with a rebate? If the Mets aren't trying to win — and they're not exactly going out of their way to emerge victorious — can we get like 10% of our ticket price returned to us? Don't worry, I'll put it right back into the kitty. The $25 DIVISION CHAMPIONS shirt I'm wearing as I type is indicative of how willing I am to spend in the name of this team's success. If Fred was willing to invest in great players, I'm fine with throwing down currency for overpriced merchandise full of happy logos.

Surely I would have taken this deal in February, the paying for meaningless games in exchange for why they're meaningless. They're marvelously meaningless. I look above the right field corner and I see the first version of what I hope will be a very special banner. I look behind home plate and I see the Mets insignia has been enhanced by a descriptor of what they've been since Monday night. Success hasn't spoiled this Rock Hunter.

But going to this game and Wednesday's game, both enveloped in offensive torpor, is tough stuff. It's a fleeting quirk of circumstance, I understand, but it puts into question the concept of the Mets as a destination for the entertainment dollar. There was little entertaining about watching the Mets losing to the last-place Nationals, especially losing to alumnus Astacio, a guy I'm guessing most fans without a fantasy roster had no idea was still pitching.

Oddly, if this had been a crummy loss at the tail end of a crummy season, I'd probably be penning paeans to the beauty of baseball, even futilely fought baseball, noting that autumn is at hand and the icy grip of winter is limbering up and…hey, screw that. Still, on the heels of a couple of lame losses that do not really matter, I find myself growing snippy and impatient after schlepping to Shea for another subpar game.

New York Mets fans, welcome to the big time.