I don't know another place like Shea Stadium in 2006.

I don't know anywhere else where I get to inject myself into my favorite pastime as it gets better and better.

I don't know anywhere else where most everybody else wants to happen what I want to happen…and it usually happens.

I don't know anywhere else where I can sit with one great friend for hours and discuss the thing we like most, then excuse myself for a bit to find some other great friends for quick chats on what we like most.

Me and my friends, wherever they're sitting, are into the same thing. And that thing is going very well of late.

I enter Shea Stadium in 2006 excited and I leave it ecstatic.

My team is there and my friends are there and neither of them ever seem to let me down.

You just wait to be in this zone and now that I'm firmly entrenched in it, it's every bit as special as you might imagine it would be.

Someday, sooner than we can fathom, they will pave William A. Shea Municipal Stadium and put up a parking lot.

So do me this favor:

Don't let it be forgot that once there was a spot for one brief shining moment that was known as…

…Camelot?

Yes, right there at the corner of 126th and Roosevelt.

Shea what you will about the often absurd edifice that is mandated to disappear in the blink of an eye. With the team that bats last winning every night, with a quarter of a million fans floating through its gates in the course of a week and with a pure energy rising relentlessly higher than the flags above the upper deck, I gotta believe that our green, green grass of home is the most beautiful sight these eyes will ever see.

Shea Stadium in 2006. It is Camelot, I swear it is.

I'm happy. I'm having a ball.

Watching my team win frequently on TV is pretty awesome, but being inside those three blue walls to bear witness to it is something else altogether. The only thing missing from this sensational season for me until the beginning of this month was the synchronization of my presence and the Mets' success. When they lost eight of the first eleven games I attended, I really began to wonder whether they were allergic to me.

I've stopped thinking in those terms. I've been to four of the last ten Mets games at Shea Stadium, including last night's, and the Mets have won all four. They've won the other six, too. Perhaps I'm incidental — mere garnish to their main course.

If that's the case, that's fine. I'm just happy to be 1/45,000th of the parsley on the plate.

So, in summary, this is what I do at every opportunity in 2006:

I go to Shea Stadium.

I see my friends there.

I see the Mets win there.

I come home.

I write about it.

My life is good.

Your co-bloggers, they had a long time to talk tonight.

First there was the game, which was a delight. Welcome to New York, Shawn Green! We believe we see light at the end of the tunnel, David Wright! Nicely done, Dave Williams! We're glad you're on our side, Jose Reyes and Carlos Delgado! Following that, there was an ill-fated right turn out of Gate A, which let us into the parking lot and a near-circumnavigation of the construction fence behind which New Shea will soon rise. You'd think you could slip through the test drillings or whatever it is they're doing back there, but nope — a right turn out of Gate A leaves you ultimately playing some demented blue and orange version of Frogger with the crush of SUVs trying to exit onto Chop Shop Lane. Trying to exit through a lake. Evading the lake means a second trip through the vaguely lined-up SUVs. Fun. After that, the tender mercies of the 7 train.

Anyway, between our various navigational mishaps and the long rumble into Manhattan, we had a long while to discuss our baseball team. And we remarked on something: the utter lack of fear we have about what's to come, the strange sensation of six weeks of baseball that aren't weighed down by anxiety and superstition.

Ah, superstition. It's a time-honored tenet of responsible fandom that you don't ask the baseball gods to script things just so: Don't say you hope they lose a few on the road so you can see them wrap it up at home, on your anniversary, or whatever date would make you even happier. Don't hope that Hated Team X hangs around long enough for your team to administer the coup de grace. Don't look past Team Y, the baseball-fan equivalent of flipping ahead in the book to see if the killer's brought to justice. Don't say you want Potential Opponent Team Z because they seem beatable, or because you have a grudge, or whatever it is. Take what you're given.

Following this rule isn't like taking a vow of silence, though. It's OK to talk about scenarios that have particular appeal, as long as you do it at a respectable remove, and as long as not you're just pretending that you're asking for a certain script. (The baseball gods are not so easily tricked!) Digressionary example: I love the Earth Wind and Fire song “September,” one of the sunniest tunes ever written, and have long thought that A) it would be great to hear it played after September victories that mean something; and B) it would be great if something wonderful happened for the Mets on the 21st night of September, as mentioned in the lyrics. It's OK to talk about that wistfully. It's not OK to hope that the Mets slow down the magic-number pace so as not to clinch before 9/21. That's asking for trouble. (Digression within a digression: It doesn't matter anyway, because if we clinch at home the Mets will blast “The Best,” four minutes of Tina Turner hacking up a hairball as deservedly faceless sessioneers rawk out. Something tells me I'll still be a very happy man.)

The baseball gods don't frown at respectful talk. Nor do they require you to hunker down in superstitious dread until the last possible moment. Up 14.5 with a magic number of 22? Go ahead and discuss the playoffs — as my co-blogger noted some time ago, they're not gonna get us.

I'm not going to say we want the Cardinals or the Reds or the Dodgers or the Padres or some Central or West team that emerges from the ranks of those who are below .500 but in contention. I'm certainly not going to start scouting the NLCS or, God forbid, American League teams. We just covered that.

But we can say this: We just swept the Cardinals, generally considered the second-best team in the NL. We've seen all the teams on the list of possible first-round opponents, and none of them exactly make you gulp. This isn't to say we're guaranteed to beat them — anybody can beat anybody in a postseason series. It's not even really about them at all. It's about us. It's about a balanced lineup that can beat you with speed, power and patience. It's about smothering defense. It's about a bullpen that's rounding into form after a scare. And about a starting rotation that…um, well, there's time to get everybody healthy, and in the meantime how about those fill-ins! (Tonight we had a good laugh over this scenario: Back in March we peer into the Faith and Fear crystal ball and see an August stretch in which our pitchers could be Dave Williams, Brian Bannister, Oliver Perez/Darren Oliver, John Maine and Steve Trachsel — and yet for some reason the late-summer Greg and Jace don't look worried. In fact, they look…happy?)

That's part of the point. This year there isn't an Atlanta Braves lurking out there between us and a pennant — a team that's in our heads, that haunts our dreams, that we've good reason to fear. Sure, there are lots of things that can go wrong even in this Braveless New World. We could go cold at the absolute worst time. Whatever team we draw in the first round could get obscenely hot. We could be undone by injuries. We could come out on the short end of some plain old-fashioned bad luck. If you want to be anxious about any or all of that, go ahead — it's only sensible. But this year that anxiety isn't attached to any of our potential NL opponents. Wanna see the 2006 National League Bogeyman? Look in the mirror, because the team that makes managers mutter and scouts toss and turn at night is us.

That's not a guarantee of anything, except this: The only thing we have to fear is baseball itself.

There haven't been that many really good games we've lost this year, but one of them was a contest in St. Louis between the two best teams in the National League. It was just over three months ago, a classic pitchers' duel between Mark Mulder and Steve Trachsel. We got beat 1-0 when Scott Rolen lifted a seemingly impossible pitch off the ground and drove it for the deciding run. It was the kind of night that made you tip your cap and order another round because at a brisk 2:32, there were plenty of hours to closing time and lots of season to go.

It's just over three months later and almost everything's changed.

THEN: The Mets (24-15) weren't hitting.

NOW: They are (77-49).

THEN: The Cardinals (25-15) were imposing.

NOW: They're barely hanging on (66-59).

THEN: Mulder (5-1) was daunting.

NOW: He's slowly recuperating (6-6).

THEN: Trachsel (2-4) got no support.

NOW: He's offensively pampered (13-5).

THEN: 2-1/2 hours to play 8-1/2 innings.

NOW: Is the game over yet?

Granted, at 3:21, the Mets' Wednesday night 10-8 triumph of attrition would beat the shortest Yankee-Red Sox game in the last 50 years for brevity. And wouldn't you stay up all night for a Met victory?

Sure you would. But when you jump out to a 10-2 lead, you could be forgiven for wondering when the hell your starter will stop giving up home runs to Jose Vizcaino and put the opposition away. It never quite happened, but five relievers — right up through sudden Cy Young candidate Billy Wagner (quick, name a starting pitcher who's a prohibitive favorite…and Trachsel doesn't count) — wriggled and jiggled and got the job done. First a laugher, then just nervous laughter. It takes all kinds.

We haven't won a bad game all year. When you win, there's no such thing as a bad game.

The only substantive factor that hasn't changed since May 17 is that the Mets and Cardinals remain the two best teams in the National League. Then we were neck-and-neck. Now we're the giraffe and they're Walt Williams. All NL Game Ones featuring the Mets will take place here. The Cards can consult with the Reds, Dodgers, Padres and any ambitious Central or West stragglers to determine all other hosting duties.

There's no way we should lose to anybody in the National League in October. That's not to say that it can't happen or it won't happen. But between you and me, there's no way we should lose to anybody in the National League in late August or the remainder of the season. At the risk of angering the gods when I'm due at Shea in 16-odd hours, if the Cardinals are the other best team in the league, then…nah, I'm not gonna say anything. Respect all opponents, especially with Pujols and Rolen and freaking Vizcaino and other assorted ex-Mets zipping around in red.

I'm of two broad minds on potential post-Yom Kippur matchups. One is I don't care who we're playing as long as we're playing. The other is I don't want to play anybody because anybody can beat anybody in the tenth month. We've been on both sides of that equation in our illustrious history. It's only fun when it comes out in our favor.

Still, I'm beginning to think that the team I actually don't want to see down the road is the Wild Card team if it's the Phillies, ridiculously hot since pawning off Abreu and Lidle on the Yankees (say, whatever happened to those guys?) and only 1-1/2 behind Cincinnati, which is only 1 behind St. Louis. We play the Phillies for about the hundredth time in August this weekend. We have the Dodgers — the previously ridiculously hot club in our circuit, now decidedly cooled off — in for four in a couple of weeks. And tonight one more with the Cardinals. Those are the only eight games we have left with serious potential pennant opponents, so get out your clipboards and radar guns and start scouting.

Gathering intelligence and not getting hurt are what it's all about now. That and continuing winning. However unappealingly we go may about it now and then, it's a good habit to stay in.

Honestly, this would have been a good night in Met Land even if we hadn't come all the way back from 7-1 in thrilling fashion. Instead of going under the knife, Tom Glavine will have to take baby aspirin — the stuff that isn't even bitter when you chew it. Instead of the uncertain business of asking what might be too much from Endy Chavez and demanding Lastings Milledge grow up in public, we added a veteran to man right field through October. And if it doesn't look like a dip in the Fountain of Postseason will rejuvenate Shawn Green, Chavez/Milledge isn't a bad Plan B.

That's what I was thinking when it was 7-1 and the only question was how many more Bad Albert would swat to Portugal. John Maine may have a tough go of it his second time through the league, but there's no first-time discount when Pujols is at the plate. Luckily, there's not a lot more to the Cardinals these days, besides annoying ex-Mets to scowl at. (RUN, TIMO! YOU JACKASS! RUN! And Looper…Christ, where to start with you. Oh, the hell with it. Just go away.) There is a lot more to us — while David Wright continues his lonely sojourn in Slump Forest, Carlos Delgado has emerged, blinking and mildly annoyed, from those deep dark woods. And has he ever brought lumber out with him — his grand slam was so ridiculously gone that I barely blinked. When a ball goes that far it's meant to be and you're just a bystander. Does one cheer avalanches or miles-long forks of lightning cracking the sky? Add in Lo Duca playing his usual gritty defense and slashing hits at every opportunity, Chad Bradford coolly inducing not one but two clutch double plays and the continuing renaissance of Aaron Heilman, and it was a very nice night indeed.

And that was before the heroics of Carlos Beltran. If this season winds up being one of those that's endlessly, lovingly dissected and chronicled — like a certain one just satisfyingly celebrated — the key moment lasered in on by every baseball historian will be this one: the moment Carlos Beltran decided that no, he wasn't going to acknowledge Shea Stadium's petty, fickle fans with the curtain call they wanted — not after how shabbily he'd been treated for a year and change. And then the moment, hard on its heels, when Julio Franco told him sympathetically but firmly that his point had been made, and it was time to get up on that top step.

Since he emerged from the dugout that night there's been nary a boo for Carlos Beltran — and nary a reason for even the least-forgiving leather-lung to express displeasure. That wasn't just the moment Carlos Beltran and the fans agreed to start over, though that was significant. It was also the moment Carlos Beltran realized that there was no reason to try to make himself into whatever mythical beast is the product of Carlos Beltran + $119 million — that just being Carlos Beltran would be more than enough. He, and we, have been the beneficiaries ever since.

Before we go, a moment for a wonderful call from Howie Rose, one that'll be leading off a lot of WFAN broadcasts: “First pitch … fastball hit deep to right field! It's gonna win the ballgame! Home run!”

Oh, and keep playing “The Curly Shuffle.” Just a hunch.

We will investigate anything to make our club better.

—Omar Minaya, 2006

The Mets is a very good thing. They give everybody a job. Just like the WPA.

—Billy Loes, 1962

The 1962 Mets won 40 games.

The 2006 Mets won 40 games by June 12.

The 1962 Mets had Cliff Cook, Gus Bell and Gene Woodling.

The 2006 Mets have Cliff Floyd, Heath Bell and Chris Woodward.

The 1962 Mets had Hobie Landrith.

The 2006 Mets have Jose Reyes.

Ken MacKenzie.

Kaz Matsui.

Zimmer.

Zambrano.

Sammy Drake and Sammy Taylor.

Carlos Beltran and Carlos Delgado.

Bob Miller and Bob Miller.

Lo Duca and El Duque.

Roger Craig had two first names.

Anderson Hernandez has two last names.

Ed Kranepool came up young.

As has Lastings Milledge.

Gil Hodges' career began during World War II.

As has Julio Franco's.

Marvelous Marv!

Lima Time!

Vinegar Bend Mizell.

Bartolome Fortunato.

Cannizzaro.

Marrero.

Daviault.

David.

Choo Choo.

Pedro.

Harry Chiti was traded for Harry Chiti.

Roberto Hernandez was traded for Roberto Hernandez…by way of Xavier Nady.

You can barely tell the 1962 Mets and 2006 Mets are related. Sure they have the same family name, but where's the resemblance? While it's true that one was instantly immortalized and the other is potentially legendary, it's just as true that one was more godawful than the other is awful good.

One will clinch fairly soon. The other was eliminated in early September.

Clarification: Eliminated in early September from finishing in NINTH place. The 1962 Mets were statistically eliminated from pennant contention in early August. They were spiritually out of it long before that.

So what's the connection, besides the faintest of DNA, between the lovable losers of 1962 and the wonderful winners of 2006? Well, when Guillermo Mota first takes the mound as a Met (and presumably aims at his first batter as a Met), he will become the 45th player to play for the Mets this year.

So?

So, in all of 1962, the Mets used 45 players. Trading for Mota means we will, as soon as tonight, August 22, catch the worst team in modern baseball history square in the middle of the revolving roster door.

Significance? It is thought, with more than a modicum of logic and a dollop of evidence to support it, that the more players you burn through, the worse you must be. The most players the Mets ever used in one year was 54 in 1967. They lost 101 games. Two years ago, Joe Hietpas' ninth-inning cameo on the final day of the season meant 52 different Mets played in 2004.

Check the right field wall for me when you get a chance and let me know if the Mets won anything in 2004.

Conversely, if you're good, it implies you have the right people in the right positions and you stick with them. The 1969 world champions employed 35 Mets. The 1986 crew encompassed 36 — even if only 20 got to promenade on Saturday night. Two years later, the Mets won a division title with 32 players, the fewest to don the blue and orange in one annum.

As the Mets have added more colors to their scheme since 1988, it's become customary to add more bodies to their floating crap game of a roster year-in and year-out. Winning the Wild Card in 1999 called for just enough Jeff Tams, Shane Halters and Dan Murrays to match '62's 45. Forty-seven men, including one Mann who is now a Duck, contributed to the 2000 flag march.

We want to believe 2006 will result in greater things than '99 and '00. It will — the total of players used will almost surely be greater than in either of those years. Obtain Shawn Green and promote Oliver Perez and — boom! — you've exceeded one Wild Card winner and equaled another. Though he wouldn't add a notch to the all-time roster (which, with Mota's first high and tight pitch, will hit 796), our dream date Edgardo Alfonzo would raise the '06 count to 48, breaking the record for most Mets used by a playoff-bound team.

How can a club so good be composed of so many? It's counterintuitive. If lousy teams — and none will ever be lousier than 1962's Mets — cry for turnover, swell teams that have been in first place since April 6 must not demand much tinkering.

Intuition, however, ain't what it used to be. Consider how different times are from 44 years ago.

• Player movement is uniformly rapid.

• With ten teams created since the first round of expansion, there are many more big-leaguers to be tested, evaluated and discarded.

• Impatience runs rampant, especially in New York.

• Budgets are bigger, especially in New York.

• Injuries have always dictated moves — it took 40 Mets to overcome a particularly painful 1973 — and this year has seen enough aches to excite Excedrin. What we quaintly refer to as the starting rotation has required a dozen different arms to continue spinning on its own axis.

• A general manager given a free hand in personnel matters has proven he feels untethered to the talent accumulated by his predecessors. Hey, Victor Diaz wasn't my idea. Tell him to book one-way.

Yes, perfectly logical reasons abound as to why Meeting the Mets can take all day these days. Still, we ended last season with 771 Mets ever and, with 25 NuMets already augmenting the rolls in 2006 (once we ink in Mota), we have a fair shot to reach 800 by this season's end. Use one more guy than that and we're talking 50 players on a division champion. We'll be waaaaay closer to the quantity associated with the futility of 1967 than the efficiency linked to 1988. As is, we're a single Verizon Call to the Bullpen away from being in league with the 1962 Mets and all the instability for which they will forever stand.

And the roster is still ten days from expanding.

Three words were invented for this type of Metsian phenomenon in 1962. Each of them was Amazin'.

The '86 reunion weekend brought back a lot of things: the elephant-on-the-chest anxiety and shot-heavenward euphoria of beating the Astros and Red Sox; the exploits of the Scum Bunch and the rest of that merry band of beer-drinkers, hell-raisers and plane-wreckers; the uncertainty of baseball lives after the gloves are hung up; the feeling of a city in which the hapless romantics and stubborn marchers to different drumbeats are Yankee fans.

But for me, it brought back one lesson above all else: I'm a Keith Hernandez guy.

Want to capture something important about those Mets in one image? It's the one of the two team leaders on the steps of City Hall after the ticker-tape parade, holding high the World Series trophy. Gary Carter's wearing a jacket and tie. Keith Hernandez is wearing a grotty cap, t-shirt and jeans — his greatest accomplishment is having managed to find a belt. Both men celebrated the night before. But Carter went home at a reasonable hour (one assumes), got dressed, and got to Shea in plenty of time for the 10 a.m. police escort to Lower Manhattan and the parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Keith? As recounted in The Bad Guys Won, he boozed it all night with Bobby Ojeda, went home at the rather unreasonable hour of 7, woke up at noon and wound up being lifted over a fence by Met fans to join the parade at the last possible moment.

But he made it, and there he is on the steps of City Hall with Gary. He's not exactly natty — in fact, he's probably exuding a radioactive cloud of hangover sweat — but he's there holding up the other end of the trophy, same as the Kid. It's like a Goofus and Gallant strip, only one in which Gallant doing what's right wouldn't mean a damn thing without Goofus. A writer (I believe it was Chris Smith of New York, but can't find the reference, so I'm paraphrasing) once called Hernandez the hero of every guy who's out until 3 a.m. but still kicks ass at work the next day. Keith's reaction: “I thought that was well-put.” (And I took it to heart: When I was younger and tougher there were definitely office days after long nights when I'd bull my way to bleary-eyed success and think, Seinfeld-style, “I'm Keith Hernandez!”)

This isn't to dismiss Gallant — I was and am a huge Gary Carter fan, from his boundless, Golden Retriever enthusiasm to his straight-ahead, unbowed determination. When I was 17, Carter's single to beat Charlie Kerfeld in Game 5 — the same Charlie Kerfeld who'd cheekily shown him the ball that wouldn't be a hit in Game 3 — felt like the last line of some parable. When Gary's book came out the next spring, my mom bought one at a bookstore signing and bent the Kid's ear about me, how I was doing in school, where I might go to college, etc. (MOMMM! QUIT IT!) He couldn't have been nicer, and signed my book “God bless always.”

But ultimately, there are Gary people and there are Keith people, just like there are Mick people and Keef people and Chuck D. people and Flavor Flav people and Luke people and Han people and Carrie people and Samantha people. And I'm a Keith person. Before the celebrations began Saturday night, I was watching the rebroadcast of Game 7. I saw most of it with one eye as I went about my business. But I stopped and zeroed in on Keith's crucial at-bat in the sixth. And it all came back.

Keith, at the plate, staring out at Bruce Hurst with a combination of a surgeon's concentration and a gangster's impatience. It's the era before weight lifting and worse things, so he looks impossibly small and lithe compared with today's players — a fourth outfielder, maybe. Out of uniform the signature mustache looks somewhat distinguished, but the effect is different combined with the 80s mullet squashed under a batting helmet, the unshaven face and the tobacco-stained teeth — he looks like a pirate, like a rock star. (If he were a Rolling Stone, he'd be…Keith!) The indignant disbelief on his face after the first pitch is called a strike. And then, bang! He pounces and here comes Maz and Mookie to make it 3-2. The camera jumps back to Keith on first base. He's cool for a moment, standing there with Bill Robinson, and then the emotion overflows. A first pump, a yell, but that's not enough, so one more of each. “Yeah!” FUCK YEAH!” Then Dwight Evans rolls over Carter's little flare, with Keith caught in no-man's land and tagged out at second as Backman scores, and of course Keith begins hollering at Dale Ford, like it's the umpire's fault, and Ray Knight (playing the Rusty Staub role of bodyguard/cool counselor) has to calm our Gold Glove first baseman.

Cool focus existing side by side with fuming impatience, giving way to emotions boiling over, and a bad idea or two not quite suppressed. That was Keith. When it mattered most, a huge clutch hit for the club that looked to him. That was Keith. Afterwards, blitzing through Finn MacCool's and who knows how many other bars in epic celebration. That was Keith. And then he got to the parade on time. That was Keith too.

His second life as a pitchman and commentator hasn't been all that different, come to think of it. Yeah, the “Just for Men” ads with Clyde Frazier are dopey, but somehow Keith escapes their cheesiness — he's a player, he's getting a check, and what are you doing taking it so seriously? He embarrassed himself with his small-minded objection to Kelly Calabrese in the Padres' dugout, but being betrayed by your own mouth every now and then is part of being Keith. (His worst moment in my book? Being forced to back down after writing — correctly — that the 2002 Mets had quit. Mike Piazza doth protest too much, methinks. And even then it wasn't long before Keith was defending the essential truth of what he'd said.)

At some point in most any broadcast you'll find Keith being snide or dismissive or indignant. You'll also usually be hugely entertained by whatever he's started ranting about. And you'll almost always turn off the set with a greater appreciation for some fine point of the game. He was smart and impatient and complicated and sometimes his own worst enemy then. He's the same today.

Game on the line, All-Time Mets vs. All-Time Rest of the World, the fate of the universe in the balance. There are nearly 800 guys in our dugout. Who's coming out to hit? Apologies to Rusty and Piazza and Carter and Alfonzo and Olerud and Beltran, but I want No. 17. (Speaking of which, why on earth isn't there a 17 on the left-field wall?) And if Keith's unavailable, if for some reason he's up in the booth? Then there's nobody I'd rather have tell me what to look for as we watch what unfolds.

Waking up in the first inning this afternoon, still hung over from last night's emotional doings, I couldn't have predicted that it would be a 1986 Greenville Brave who would captivate our thoughts as retro weekend concluded. Especially since Tom Glavine wasn't pitching against the Rockies.

Now he may not be pitching against anybody. Cross your fingers that he can cross his fingers. He was one of the two givens among our starters and now both of them are parked in the TBD lot. Hence, after 4-1/2 months of puzzling out potential rotations and trying to assure you and reassure myself that we'll have enough pitching when it counts, I give up. Whoever takes the ball will take the ball and we'll figure it out from there. We've just fortified the bullpen with the acquisition of Guillermo Mota, but even the Michael Tucker of relievers can only do so much. The casting call is in effect, then:

Mike Pelfrey, Brian Bannister, Oliver Perez, Dave Williams, John Maine…come on down!

Orlando Hernandez, step right up!

He did! He did!

Good Duque, who swings by about four times as often as horrendous Duque, reappeared at Shea Sunday and made Colorado question its contender status. He struck out eight batters, collected one hit and stole one base. He can do all that. He is advised to continue.

Solid to occasionally spectacular outings from solid to rarely spectacular starters is what it's going to take to win more than a division title, though I plan to linger and enjoy the magic number countdown (26…and 27 over .500 for the first time since 2000 1999) before sweating profusely over phrases like Game One, Game Two and Game Three. As an intense 1986 Met and frisky 2006 broadcaster said after the 2-0 lilacwashing of the Rocks, Mets fans, get your heads out of the oven.

Keith may be relenting and allowing his uni top to be auctioned off for charity, but can the Carloses & Co. keep wearing theirs? Two throwback fashion shows, two victories. The Mets are now 4-0 when wearing 1986 clothes past their 1992 expiration date. Remember, they did it twice in 2002 as part of the Triumphant Glory promotion, a year when, ironically, there was little triumph and no glory. True, the magic wore off those togs by 1991, but they seem to be working again. (On a personal couture note, I've suddenly witnessed three wins in a row in my black 2000 World Series cap and, as Keith proclaimed last night, you'll have to rip it off my head.)

My hangover from 1986 + 20 isn't quite faded, so a few leftover impressions from last night:

• I read today that it figuratively killed Ray Knight that he couldn't attend, but he was committed to make appearances with his golfer wife on behalf of the concern that manufactures the heart medication that saved him from being literally killed. I'm looking to feel sympathy for his cause, but what audience on earth could have been more interested in Ray Knight's presence than the one at Shea?

• Many banners flew at the ol' ballpark proclaiming variations on the message that we won in '86, we'll win in '06. Who without foreknowledge of Glavine's condition would have argued? It's so much better to have these festivities enveloped by success. So many Banner Days of my adolescence were unhinged by well-meaning participants who insisted the Mets would be known as CHAMPS 1969 1973 1979. You gotta believe delusion is painful to observe between games of a doubleheader when you're 14 under and 15-1/2 out.

• But why was it necessary for the Mets to take down their 1969, 1973 and 2000 pennants from below the centerfield flag where they have flown classily since 2001? They left only '86 and a companion anniversary banner to whip in the wind. Was Randy Niemann going to be offended by our other triumphant glories? Tacky.

• Darryl being given the Tom Seaver treatment as final introductee was perfect. But it was surprising to this reporter that Gary Carter superceded Keith Hernandez in the public address pecking order. Gary was the Kid, but Keith will always be The Man. Ah, but Gary Carter is Hall of Famer Gary Carter. Cooperstown trumps Captaincy. (Yeah, I know they were eventually co-captains, but don't tell me that was about anything but salving Carter's ego.) To whatever extent it was planned, kudos to Keith for turning it over to “the Mookster” as team rep and letting the man who made all this possible have the last word.

• Beautiful that Mookie is still MOOOOOO!KIE. He hung around as first base coach for six seasons under Bobby V, but he never faded into the Eddie Yost woodwork. Seeing him last night was both familiar and fantastic. MOOOOOO!

• Oh, you weren't the only one surprised to see CLOSE 94 belting out the national anthem. I'm assuming she was the singer at the Home Opener a dozen years ago and, true fan that she is said to be, kept and cherished her very own jersey. But the Mets couldn't make her a new one for last night? (Or do they only go to the first 25,000 anthem singers?)

• Finally, in the spirit of overwrought, mid-late '80s Iron Eagle, Over The Top action movies with a heart of gold and a Kenny Loggins-laden soundtrack, how's this?

ACT ONE

A great baseball team, one of the greatest ever, is having its big twentieth anniversary reunion. Everybody's gonna be there except for The Ace Pitcher who is unjustly imprisoned (it has to be unjust, 'cause he was The Ace). He attempts an escape but is caught by the evil warden and placed into solitary. The reunion goes on without him. It's just not the same. The Ace sulks.

ACT TWO

A gruff prison guard with, yes, a heart of gold, whispers words of encouragement in the ears of The Ace. Your cell is 60 feet 6 inches long, he tells him You're still young, your arm still has lots of life left and so do you. With nothing else to occupy his time or his mind. The Ace starts training. He throws pebbles. Then stones. The guard sneaks him a baseball. He gets better and better. The state penal authority re-examines his case and finds it was all the warden's fault. The warden is imprisoned. The Ace is released! And he can pitch again!

ACT THREE

Meanwhile, the team he used to pitch for, the one that welcomed back all the old players, has just lost the use of its current star to a possible clot. Only one man can save them now…The Ace! The Ace is signed just in time for the World Series (never mind the August 31 deadline; this is the movies) and does the one thing he never did when he was younger…he wins a World Series game. Hell, he wins THE World Series game, the one that captures his old team the championship. And this time, the enwised Ace, who missed his team's reunion during the summer and his team's parade twenty years ago when he was young, talented and foolish, rides in the lead float. His old teammates? They line the streets and applaud, arm-in-arm with the prison guard and the GM who gave him one last chance.

Meet me halfway across the sky.