You can to go a game in which the Mets are facing Greg Maddux and feel clean. You can watch a surefire Hall of Famer at the tail end of an honorable career and come away feeling good. You can say, hey, I saw a 300-game winner pitch, a guy who knows how to work fast and hit the corners and make another generation of hitters guess wrong.

This is not Roger Clemens. I’d have croup from screaming at him for hours on end. Roger Clemens is one of the best pitchers ever but you can’t look at him for a second without hoping a light stanchion falls on him. Maddux isn’t that. He was a bedeviling intradivisional opponent and it was always sweet to defeat him when we could and there was little shame (if a lot of frustration) in not getting to him. In a jumpy, antsy sports culture where we are quick to vilify anyone who wears the wrong uniform or throws to the wrong base in the right uniform, it’s reassuring to see a Greg Maddux take to the mound and give his best effort.

It’s even better when his manager pulls him after 72 pitches on a day when Maddux is doing fine. I don’t know if it was Maddux, rarely a hurler to extend himself beyond his limit, or Grady Little, still trying to figure out when and when not to yank immortals, but as glad as I was to see Greg Maddux pitch at Shea, I was way happier to see him removed. I’ll take my chances with Carlos Delgado and David Wright vs. Tim Hamulack and Brett Tomko.

And Orlando Hernandez, Aaron Heilman and Billy Wagner against everybody in a gray, nameless uniform.

Props to my friend of a decade Laurie for treating me to this treat of a pitchers’ duel. I admire Maddux. She deifies him. Her day was both soiled by Maddux’s loss and enhanced by the Mets’ win (whereas I took my fifth straight victory with no ambivalence). Beyond a general preference for Met success, there’s no formula to Laurie’s cheering impulses. They are lavished upon Cy Young stalwarts, but also directed toward long relievers teetering on the scrap heap. Laurie’s loyal to who Laurie’s loyal to. It’s like she’s running a fantasy team in a league of her own. I can’t figure out whether she’s tied for first or last.

As if whittling the magic number to 6 wasn’t fun enough Saturday afternoon.

6.01: I’m Almost Stumped. In honor of Laurie’s ability to love the Mets and Met opponents in comparable amounts, here, strictly off the top of my head, are 6 players I like who never played for the Mets presented in no order except that in which they are typed and not counting guys from history who played before I was paying attention…and also they had to have played against the Mets at some point in their careers: 1) Dale Murphy. 2) Chone Figgins. 3) Hank Aaron. 4) Tim Raines. 5) Vladimir Guerrero. 6) Albert Pujols, though that’s conditional through the first three weeks of this October.

6.02: The Worst Trade Nobody Brings Up. Wally Backman, the pre-eminent No. 6 in Mets history, for three nonentity Minnesota Twin minor leaguers in 1988. The idea was to clear out second base for Gregg Jefferies. The Mets stopped being the Mets without Wally, who hung around and contributed to a few more teams for a few more years and never stopped being Wally, though I don’t think it ever meant as much to him again. It was great to applaud him on Old Timers Night. Wally Backman’s the kind of player you wish you could see play tomorrow.

6.03: The Worst Trade Not Brought Up Nearly Enough. Melvin Mora, the best No. 6 since Backman, for Mike Bordick, the starchiest stiff who ever played short for a pennant-winner. Melvin was Timo with brains, Jose with experience, Joel Youngblood without minding his versatility. Bordick was Kurt Abbott with a rep.

6.04: Can’t Listen to It, Can’t Live Without It. In its 20th year, the 6 best things about WFAN, Sportsradio 66 (previously 1050): 1) The Mets are on it. 2) When Howie Rose hosted Mets Extra. 3) When Howie Rose did a 5-hour talk show every weeknight. 4) Steve Somers when he was Captain Midnight. 5) Joe Benigno when he did overnights. 6) Scores every 20 minutes.

6.05: Be Grateful We’re The Pitchers’ League. Imagine the Phillies with their No. 6, Ryan Howard, at first and Jim Thome still around to DH. You shudder to think what their magic number might be. Then again, they had them both and Abreu and Utley and Wagner and a cast of thousands in recent years and where did it get them?

6.06: Movin’ On Up. There was a Jeffersons in which a therapist asked George to play free association. You know, “black…white; rich…poor”. The doctor said “sex” and George said “seven”. The doctor was shocked. George asked, “Didn’t you say ‘6’?”

And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there’s no obligations now
Maybe I’ve a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland
—Queens’ own Paul Simon

Jose Reyes bounces on his belly across home plate with no throw on him, calls himself safe and he’s fine.

Jose Reyes allows a pop fly to bounce off his glove, Matt Kemp doesn’t advance to second and the crowd applauds the shortstop from the inside-the-park job the inning before.

Tom Glavine leaves the game, is congratulated during the seventh inning by Chris Cotter on his 288th win and he gets it within half-an-hour of that particular protocol breach.

Ladies and gentlemen, your 2006 New York Mets are so good they go out for shooters with the baseball gods after trampling opponents. They reside on that high a plane right now.

We don’t bring home every runner in scoring position. We get thrown out at third for the first out. We hold up unnecessarily to see if balls are going to be caught. We parade in short men with large leads. Yet we win 7-0 against decent competition. All those things that should anger The Higher Powers merely tickle Them. It’s September, and the Mets, instead of watching their step, leap and bound from one plateau to the next.

First-place Dodgers in town? They’re not in first place in this place. Here, let us validate your parking so you can go back to wherever you came from. Next time use mass transit (you obviously don’t live in these parts anymore). We dispatched a passel of Padres and a cocoon of Cardinals last month. A dollop of Dodgers doesn’t scare us. Any one of ya, come back in October. We’ll respect you and then we’ll beat your brains in, just like we do everybody’s.

I’ve been at this thing long enough to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em, know when to shut the eff up. This isn’t then. This is now. This is September 2006. We are as many as 35 games over .500 for the first time since October 2, 1988. We have a magic number of 7 for clinching our division and it would be less except the two teams that were tied for second place when the night started played each other and they couldn’t both lose.

Unless they were playing the Mets.

7.01: Watch That ‘yes Car Go. Holy Leon Brown, I’ve never seen anybody in a Mets uniform run as fast as No. 7 Jose Reyes did when he approached second and realized, “Home run? OK!”

7.02: ‘Scuse Me While I Quote Myself. This season I’ve had the privilege of writing a feature called Profile in Orange and Blue for the SNY show Mets Weekly, which you should all be watching weekly because, never mind me, it truly is a show by Mets fans for Mets fans. The first profile I wrote was of my favorite player (talk about a dream job!) Jose Reyes. And this, in part, is what it said: In 2003, a new version of the 7 rolled off the line and roared into Shea. It was sleek. It was smooth. It came and went in a blur. This model of the 7 wasn’t without its kinks. It had to go into the shop more than once for repairs. But once it was fixed, it ran like a dream…like the train whose number he wears on his back, Jose Reyes always runs on an elevated track.

7.03: Just Spell My Number Right. And John Rocker thought he was giving the 7 train a bad name? What was before his foot-in-mouth interview a mere conveyance became a cause in 2000. One night that year, DiamondVision was urging patrons they could get to Shea any number of ways that didn’t include driving. And when Roger Luce mentioned “the 7 train,” it drew a huge ovation.

7.04: I Didn’t Know He Had an Aunt in Long Island City. My most memorable 7 experience came at the Queensboro Plaza stop in 2001 when a craggy woman hurled every imaginable ethnic slur at virtually every passenger who attempted to board or exit the train. She had particularly unkind things to say about those who enjoy eating rice, which could describe most of the world’s population. About a quarter of the crowd told her what a schmuck she was, nearly three-quarters moved far away and Leo Mazzone told her to save it for the game.

7.05: With All Those Letters, Who Had Time to Catch Their Train? Last fall, I had cause to look up some information about the 7 train and began to wonder when it started being called the 7 train. After all, you always see those faded signs for the IRT and the IND and the BMT, alphabet soup that was still in fairly common use when I was a kid. I came across The Joe Koerner, a roaring repository of subway info maintained by Joseph Korman. Joe kindly told me this about the only New York City subway line that stops at Shea Stadium: The IRT never used numbers or letters until the R-12 cars were delivered in 1948. When the IRT opened and expanded, the branches were called by their names. The earliest name given to the Flushing line was Corona, since the line terminated at 103rd St. It was extended one stop at a time between 1917 and 1928 to Main St. Remember that until 1948, the IRT operated to Astoria also. As the post-WWII cars were introduced to the IRT, the 1-7 (plus the original 8 and 9) were displayed on the ends of the cars, but not on the sides, maps and station signs. After 1959, the R-27 and later BMT cars were delivered with letters replacing the BMT numbers…with J replacing the BMT #15. It wasn’t until 1966, just before the BMT and IND completely merged, that numbers were used for the IRT and the BMT Coney Island lines got letters. In 1967, the Chrystie St. map formally added letters to the combined BMT/IND lines and numbers to the IRT. Along with the maps and cars, a new standard in station graphics was introduced to try to identify each line consistently. This was met with varied success. I know some visitors refer to the IRT 7th Ave. as the red line, etc. I hope that will never catch on for native New Yorkers.

7.06: Speaking of Native New Yorkers. Jose Reyes will forever be No. 7 to Mets fans who came along after the franchise turned 40, but No. 7 will otherwise always be reserved for Ed Kranepool from James Monroe High School. He didn’t hit a home run to win a playoff, he didn’t play 7 positions for a team that would go onto win the World Series and he doesn’t still hold the team record for longest hitting streak after 22 years, but with proper deference to Todd Pratt, Kevin Mitchell and Hubie Brooks, they weren’t Steady Eddie Kranepool. No shame in that — only one man can be.

7.07: Steady and Spectacular. Even with those two injury-riddled seasons that slowed his departure, Jose Reyes has already surpassed 500 career hits at the age of 23. I think this No. 7 will catch the reigning No. 7’s Met career standard of 1,418 hits in the time it takes the rest of us to schlep up the steps across Roosevelt Avenue and fight our way home.

Every few hours, I like to check and see if our magic number has decreased…

…it has.

All day it’s been like this. We keep reducing our number every 3 hours and we have 8 left, therefore, at this rate, we’ll clinch by this time tomorrow.

Not really.

An alert to our affiliates along the Faith and Fear network: We cannot clinch this weekend. Repeat, we cannot clinch this weekend. Even an optimal quartet with the Dodgers, by no means a given, combined with a Phillies’ 4-game drop on top of what they lost tonight wouldn’t do it because, while you were flinging rocks and garbage at the Braves’ team bus, the Marlins were winning and pulling into a tie for second.

Boy were they ever.

8.01: Halfway There. In Miami, Anibal Sanchez threw the 4th no-hitter in Marlins’ history. He joins Al Leiter, Kevin Brown and A.J. Burnett in having turned the trick in the past decade and change. Keep it up and they’ll have 8 no-hitters by early 2017. And of course we’ll never have any.

8.02: Why Couldn’t Have McCovey Just Hit the Ball Two Feet Lower? On October 8, 2000, a line-drive double off the bat of Jeff Kent eluded Robin Ventura’s leap. Bobby Jones had to settle for a 1-hitter to clinch the National League Division Series for the Mets. Not a bad little consolation prize.

8.03: Do You Have a Nephew Named Anthony? On July 8, 1969, Cub centerfielder Don Young misplayed two balls at Shea, turning a 3-1 Chicago lead into a 4-3 Met win on the afternoon many point to as the day the home team became a legitimate contender. If it wasn’t that day, it was the next night when Tom Seaver no-hit Young’s teammates but not his replacement, Jimmy Qualls.

8.04: Eric Byrnes Looked Safe to Me. NBC chose to televise the Mets-Cubs game of September 7, 1984 and Doc Gooden did not disappoint. He no-hit the Cubs, with his biggest scare coming when Ray Knight couldn’t handle a fairly routine ball off the bat of Keith Moreland. What? They ruled that a HIT? YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS! The next day, September 8, Flushing Meadow hosted a dramatic day and night of U.S. Open action, none of which mattered to me except that I called the Copper Top pub on Fowler Avenue and asked if they were showing the big Mets-Cubs game via satellite. “No,” the woman who answered the phone told me. “We’re watching tennis.” So was Walt Terrell: Rick Sutcliffe beat him 6-love and the Mets dropped 7 back. The next day, the Mets took the rubber game and native Chicagoan Brent Musberger smirkily played “Cubsbusters” during The NFL Today, because all our win got us was 6 back with 3 weeks to go.

8.05: Of Course He Would Debut in Spring. Preternaturally sunny Gary Carter, our greatest No. 8, was born on April 8, 1954. He would grow up to catch no no-hitters for the Mets.

8.06: Daddy, What’s an Expo? Montreal joined the league of Major cities on April 8, 1969, defeating the Mets in New York 11-10. The Montreal Expos would gain their 1st no-hitter a mere 8 games later when Bill Stoneman tossed one at Connie Mack Stadium. Their 2nd no-hitter came against the Mets on October 2, 1972 at Parc Jarry, also Stoneman’s. The Expos, Connie Mack Stadium and Parc Jarry no longer exist. But the defunct franchise has 2 additional no-hitters to tits credit, by Charlie Lea in 1981 (caught by Gary Carter) and Dennis Martinez (a perfecto against L.A. in which 5 past or future Mets — none of them then-Dodger Carter — accounted for 15 outs) in 1991. The Expos and Marlins, connected mainly by hellbound Jeffrey Loria, have combined for 8 no-hitters.

8.07: An Exclusive Club. When Sanchez retired Byrnes, the entire Marlins’ dugout emptied to congratulate him. So did the Dolphin Stadium stands. My bad — the Dolphin Stadium stands were empty. Paid attendance for the 4th no-hitter in Florida Marlin history on a night when the team was fiercely and miraculously competing for a playoff spot: 8. Check the highlights; I’m exaggerating only slightly.

8.08: It’s Complete. Growing up, I saw Yogi Berra wear No. 8 for the Mets. I saw him coach for the Mets. I saw him manage the Mets. I saw him withstand a torrent of criticism as he guided the Mets in the last-place summer of 1973. And I read all his allegedly nonsensical statements about when it’s over and when it’s not after he made them, as a Met in prelude to the magnificent pennant-winning autumn of 1973. Imagine my surprise to learn we were just a detour for him and that the most famous thing he ever did was jump into Don Larsen’s arms on October 8, 1956, wearing somebody else’s No. 8. No Met catcher embraced any Met pitcher for any similar reason during Yogi’s 11-season rest stop with us.

So, what did you do today?

Oh, beat the Braves twice. Pretty much buried their fading Wild Card hopes. Stuck two tomahawks in their figurative head.

Anything else?

Lowered our magic number a couple of times. It’s 9 now. Got another huge game out of Shawn Green. Saw Beltran come back and look fine.

That it?

Pretty much…oh yeah, Oliver Perez. He threw a shutout rather handily.

You don’t seem that excited.

No, it’s all good…

But?

But it was only the Braves.

9.01: Also, They Sparkled. Catch the rising stars. Catch the rising stars. Mets, a part of you and me. Mets, for all the world to see. Watch them shine on Channel 9.

9.02: 21 Hours of Otherwise Dead Air. WOR-TV showed its respect to Lindsey, Ralph, Bob, Gil, Yogi and everybody else by putting absolutely nothing else worth watching on the Very High Frequency of 9. Joe Franklin? The Million Dollar Movie? Bowling For Dollars? Well, that was pretty good when Murph was hosting. Howie tells a great story which I’m sure I’ll screw up. Murph welcomes a contestant named Joe. Joe says something like, “Hi Bob. I’m Joe Bowl and I’m a mechanic from Paterson, New Jersey.” Bob replies, “Joe, why don’tcha tell us what you do and where you’re from?”

9.03: Will Lara Cohen Acknowledge Carlos Beltran’s 42nd Homer? Todd Hundley hit home runs at such a prodigious rate in 1996 and 1997 that No. 9 rated his own fan club. Tim McCarver and Gary Thorne interviewed the president, a 12-year-old girl who proclaimed that Todd was “more than just a handsome face.”

9.04: He’s On First? Todd Zeile played 1,498 games at third base in his career, but none when he wore No. 9 for the Mets.

9.05: Can’t Say He Didn’t Warn Us. Jose Vizcaino, who drove in the winning run in the same 2000 World Series game in which Todd Zeile blasted a double that resulted in an out, managed 9 hits in 9 consecutive at-bats as a Met, April 23-25, 1996.

9.06: But I’ll Miss Roger Grimsby! When I was in 1st grade, we had a health professional of some sort come talk to our class. She wanted to know what each of our bedtimes was. “Bedtime?” I thought. “You mean they really have those?” She started announcing bedtimes. “6:30.” Kids raised hands. “7:00” Kids raised hands. It went on like this to the health professional’s approval; those were healthy bedtimes. Uh-oh, I better come up with something plausible, something that doesn’t reveal that, in fact, I stay up for Tex Antoine’s weather and Johnny Carson’s monologue, something that won’t make me stand out like a freak. So when she got to “9:00,” I raised my hand. And she says, “Now that’s too late.” Right then, I knew I was screwed for the rest of my life.

9.07: It Didn’t Run Westbound. Does anybody miss the 9 train? Wasn’t it essentially a pretentious version of the 1?

9.08: How Splendid Could a Shutout Be If Alay Soler Has One? Oliver Perez throwing 9 scoreless innings against Atlanta was wonderful. It could make the trade that brought him here a smashing success on the order of the Dave Williams heist. But if the postseason ends with Chris Woodward or Julio Franco striking out, expect lots of moaning about Xavier Nady.

9.09: At Least. This cats-have-9-lives jazz is understating the case. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen my kitties get smacked in the head and just keep going. They are more resilient than the Atlanta Braves of 1991-2005.

Nothing like eating the Braves’ lunch for lunch. Dave Williams continues to make a compelling case for the postseason (I hope somebody’s paying attention). Carlos D went L Ong. Shawn Green stopped pressing and started hitting. Guillermo Mota has always been a great Met.

But most of all, winning the opener of the doubleheader means the magic is back.

10.01: Endless Love. The case has been made here for Carlos Beltran, but Endy Chavez has played like a most valuable player’s most valuable player. No. 10 has done everything right and nothing wrong since he returned from slugging in the World Baseball Classic. Maybe the WBC was a good idea after all.

10.02: Endless Rust. Chavez may change its image, but when I see No. 10, I think of Rusty Staub and that enormous billboard of a back of his. He could have been a 3-digit player.

10.03: It Felt Like He Was Here a Century. Rusty was the quintessential Met pinch-hitter, but the all-time leader in that category fell 10 short of 100 pinch-hits. Steady Eddie Kranepool’s first pinch-hitting appearance was for Jay Hook on April 27, 1963, his last for John Pacella on September 30, 1979. He grounded out to short the first time, doubled the last for his 90th hit in a pinch, proving Krane was nothing if not a learner.

10.04: A Saddened America Needed a Distraction. Less than a week after Eddie collected the last of his 1,418 Met hits, Bo Derek notched her 1st. Blake Edwards’ “10” opened October 5, 1979.

10.05: Cornrows Were No Excuse. For the last home opener Ed Kranepool would ever play, on April 10, 1979, 10,406 showed up at Shea.

10.06: Some Golden Boy. In 1980, when the Bo Derek hairstyle was so popular that its ubiquity rated a story in the Long Beach High School Tide, Mark Bomback led all Mets’ pitchers in victories with 10. Boom-Boom won his 9th game on August 10 and his 10th game on October 4. By then, I preferred Susan Anton over both Bo and Bomback.

10.07: Two Lousy Feet. Deepest centerfield in Pay Stadium will be 408 feet from home plate. I don’t know how I’ll adjust to staring out there and not seeing a big, white 410 on the fence. It’s the perfect Met distance: 41 times 10.

10.08: I’m Your Handyman. If he’s still with the organization in 2009 and something isn’t working in the new ballpark, ya think Rick Peterson will offer to fix it in 10 minutes?

10.09: Pow! Hawaiian Benny Agbayani punched 10 home runs in his first 73 at-bats of 1999. He socked 4 in his next 203.

10.10: What Else Would I Think Of Whenever I Buy Beer? Schaefer may have been the 1 beer to have when you were having more than 1, but Rheingold featured the 10-minute head. Advantage Rheingold.