The only entertaining, non-Reyes aspect to Tuesday night's blowout loss (to be confused with Monday's night's blowout loss, but try to keep them separate) was a conversation between Keith and Gary that led to a startling revelation:

Keith Hernandez was upset that the Shea DJs That Be blasted “Who Let The Dogs Out?” after the Mets won Game Three of the 2000 World Series.

Gary Cohen seemed startled. I was actually shocked into laughing, something I hadn't done any of since the Mets boarded the Acela in Washington.

Keith's got it in for the Baha Men?

Yes, our Mex was hot (in the non-Paris Hilton usage sense) that the Mets were somehow rubbing it in the Yankees' face that they had just won a game. Never mind that this had become the Mets' anthem across late September and October. Never mind that the Yankees assaulted every victim with Frank Sinatra's latter-day warbling. Never mind that baseball stadia play songs after baseball games. Keith thought that “Who Let The Dogs Out?” fired up the Yankees, that the playing of a team fight song (you can debate among yourselves the efficacy of the song in question) slapped them in the face, that it was inappropriate given that the Mets still trailed the Series one game to two, that is was no wonder Derek Jeter hit Bobby Jones' first pitch over the fence the next night.

Keith is very fucking weird sometimes.

Of course this was also the same postseason in which the Athletics apparently had the inside track on the ALDS in Oakland until someone behind the scenes brainlessly beamed the pregame press conference onto their DiamondVision during Game Five BP. Eric Chavez was up on the big screen answering a question with a little youthful bravado, declaring the Yankees had been great but now it was the A's time to shine. Down on the field, the doddering Yankee dynasty turned up its hearing aid and was aghast, just enough to have a big first inning and hold on for dear life. That helped gild their path to the Subway Series if you believe in the power of video board material.

I don't know what Citizens Bank Park plays when the Phillies win, as they've been doing with alarming regularity this week. Given the Mets' failure to do anything with Cole Hamels, Randy Wolf or Jon Lieber — cumulative score: Phils 27 Jose 4 — it oughta be “It's The Same Old Song” by the Four Tops.

Shea blares BTO's “Takin' Care of Business” for wins, an excellent tune if a dubious message. It's very presumptuous and not a little generic, but at the last two wins I attended, I couldn't not rock out down the exit ramps and neither could my companions. In that sense, I suppose it works and I wouldn't screw with it. But they've gotta do something about the loss music.

Where is it written in the unwritten rules that we have to leave Shea like Schleprock? The two songs used to see us to our cars, trains and ferries this year have been Natalie Imbruglia's melancholy “Torn” and Coldplay's wistful “Clocks”. I like them both in other contexts, but quit dictating my emotions. Quit telling me that in a little while now, if I'm not feeling any less sour, I promise myself to treat myself to a visit to a nearby Serval Zipper tower. I feel bad enough as it is without the manipulative musical accompaniment.

It was worse in 1998 when, for reasons known only to the person who chooses these babies, every loss brought on a recording of the theme from Jurassic Park. It was mournful and instantly reminding that we had just been stomped back to the Stone Age by the Braves or Expos or somebody. “New York State of Mind” was a more benign bye-bye. One assumes somebody said to somebody else, “The Yankees use 'New York New York' whether they win or lose. We should do something like that.” Yeah, but you only used it when we lost. Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from watching Kevin Appier or Bruce Chen get lit up. Thankfully, we're no longer in a “New York State of Mind”.

Unfortunately, we still do lose home games from time to time (or in my case, a lot of the time). I humbly suggest to Mr. Vito Vitiello, Shea's producer, video/entertainment services and the guy who I believe makes these choices, to try “Right Back Where We Started From” by Maxine Nightingale the next time our boys fall short.

Ooh and it's all right

To where we started from

Between the indefatigable lyrics and the deft deployment of what sounds like a beta version of The Clapper, this is the happiest goddamn song I know. It's like “Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy” without Ren & Stimpy irony. My dear friend and our occasional illustrator Jim Haines once told me I like happy, snappy songs as if I needed to get vaccinated for it. Well, yeah, I like happy, snappy songs and there's nothin' wrong with it (Ms. Nightingale's 1976 smash is No. 262 on my All-Time Top 500). At the risk of shoving a happy helmet firmly onto everybody's head, I think everybody should be happy when happy songs are heard.

But we're not happy when we don't win? Yes, that's exactly it! We need something to boost us out of our orange-and-blues, something that tells us the sun will come out tomorrow without explicitly using that saccharine number from Annie. Getting back to where we started from this year means getting back to our winning ways. And most of the time those winning ways are only a day away.

Or, if you're waiting for a wakeup call from the operator at the Westin Philadelphia, maybe never.

Pedro Martinez is on the DL again. Perhaps we should abbreviate it to the PM. Ice that calf, get well and…ah, you know what to do, Pedro. You always do.

Heath Bell will be killing time with the Mets until he is allowed to go home to Norfolk. Taking Pedro's place in the rotation will be somebody wasn't all that great to begin with or somebody who used to be but hasn't been lately. But it won't be Lima.

Think we need pitching depth after the last two episodes of corporal punishment? The Cubs used all 25 players in an 18-inning win over the Astros last night/this morning. How is that even possible? How can you leave yourself without a bench and without a bullpen? One line drive pings off the wrong wrist and you're gonna lose 9-0. I only watched the final six innings, so I didn't see all the buttons Dusty pushed to get to the 13th, yet, it's practically unbelievable. Bobby Valentine and Davey Johnson managed historic, marathon wins in the postseason and held a body or two in reserve. Bobby Valentine also outmanaged Dusty Baker in the postseason.

Cubs beat the Astros 1-0 in a day game today. They used a pitcher called up from Iowa to start. And coffee by the potful.

As you may have heard, the Rockies and Diamondbacks also went 18 innings. Watched it sleepily to get my money's worth out of the aptly named MLB Extra Innings. First time four teams have played two games that went 36 innings in the same day ever…on the same day a National Leaguer hit three home runs in the same year he hit for the cycle and his team lost both games. And just now, with the Dodgers succumbing to the Marlins after winning 17 of 18 (best NL stretch since our own in early '86), Vin Scully said, “the wheels have come off the golden coach.”

Do other sports have stuff like this? Are there such angled oddities in football or the indoor activities associated with winter? Or legendary platinum voices who slice glittering phrases paper-thin like an expert deli counterman? If there are, I've missed them.

Meanwhile, right around the time the Minute Maid Park grounds crew was simultaneously punching out and punching in, shovels were hoisted and cameras were mugged for in advance of the erection of a facility somewhere in northern New York City. Comedian Billy Crystal was on hand, so you know it was a somber affair. Hours later, an official with the team that will use said structure told its sycophantic announcer (who masquerades as a sports talk host on an obscure staticky frequency), that if his employer didn't get to begin construction right this very minute, it would have very possibly forced his team to very seriously consider moving to the state of New Jersey.

How's that?

That Yankee COO Lonn Trost would address Michael Kay's softball with anything but WE HEART NY makes me wonder if something can still go wrong with the burgeoning blight in the Bronx. Trost used very peculiar language like “if we couldn't start in the next 24 hours…” before making his weird retro threat (just in case the state supreme court changes its mind?). Maybe we should all hop the 4 and form a human chain to stop this project in earnest. Call their bluff, pay their toll and get them out of our Metropolitan Area once and for all. Or as Trost's intrepid interrogator would put it, See Ya!

I have mixed emotions about watching the current Yankee Stadium close up shop…half of me wants to see it imploded in one grand swallow; half of me wants to see it knocked down arrogant piece by arrogant piece with a dynamite-packed wrecking ball. All of me says atta way to Piscataway, fellas.

Jose Reyes hit for the cycle in June. It was the first time the Mets ever lost a game in which a Met cycled.

Jose Reyes hit three home runs tonight. It was the first time the Mets ever lost a game in which a Met hit three home runs.

Jose Reyes will throw the first no-hitter in Mets history tomorrow and will lose on an error by Chris Woodward.

Jose Reyes will turn eight unassisted triple plays on Thursday and the Mets will lose on a fly ball mishandled by Lastings Milledge.

Jose Reyes will walk, steal second, third and home four times on Friday and the Mets will lose 5-4 because they were no-hit.

Jose Reyes will fill in for Darryl, Doc, Davey and Ray at Old Timers Night on Saturday, retroactively win the 1986 MVP award and the Mets will lose the World Series to the Red Sox. They'll also lose to the Rockies despite Jose Reyes' five inside-the-park homers.

Jose Reyes will break ground on the new ballpark, construct it to make it triple-friendly and triple nine times Sunday and the Mets will lose when he passes Mike DiFelice on the basepaths during his last triple.

Jose Reyes will sit out next Tuesday. Then maybe the Mets will win.

…baseball is a masterpiece of tension, with the storyline unrevealed until the final seconds. Some nights you spend guessing who'll be the hero. Which batter will end it in extra innings with a blast into the darkness or a clean single up the middle? Which pitcher will coax a final pitch past a final batter? Which manager will emerge from the chess match with bragging rights?

Other nights, you find something the hell else to do with whatever you can salvage of your evening. Because in January when you're moaning that you'd watch any baseball game, you don't mean games like this.

When the Nationals spat the bit in gruesome fashion, Emily and Joshua and I were wandering Coney Island. I had Howie and Tom in one ear, the cacophony of Astro-Land in the other. And while that meant I couldn't see Frank Robinson, I could certainly imagine what he must look like. I assume it was something like this.

Frank Robinson is up there with Larry Bowa and Dallas Green in my personal pantheon of Managers Without Poker Faces. The beauty of this pantheon? It's that each of those three men gets catastrophically angry in his own unique way. (Willie, on the other hand, is a graduate of Headmaster Torre's Great Stone Face Academy. Kyle Farnsworth could give up a grand slam to a blindfolded relief pitcher who was holding the bat upside down and it's possible Torre might blink.)

Larry Bowa: Primordial rage, with the tics and head twists giving way to square eyes, purple face and bulging neck. The limits of mere human form couldn't contain Bowa's fury — properly capturing it would demand a master cartoonist, a Tex Avery or a Chuck Jones. Man, I miss watching Bowa in the Phillies dugout, particularly with Keith Hernandez gleefully narrating. Those nights were like performance art.

Dallas Green: His trademark was combining rage with astonishment at whatever numbnuts thing the Mets were doing. His signature face was the mouth hanging open while the rest of the body was absolutely still. Like he knew as well as everybody that he was going to lose it in spectacular fashion (with the shotgun mikes picking up every word), but the explosion was delayed while he processed how mindbogglingly awful whatever had just happened truly was.

Frank Robinson: Frank incensed is a dish served very, very cold. When things go bad, for a while he exudes ice and a certain lofty disgust, as if he's thinking, “I've got a half-century in this game, 586 home runs, nearly 3,000 hits and have dealt with more bullshit than any man should have endure, and you are going to subject me to this?” If you'd been kind enough to hand poor Ryan Zimmerman a shovel when he crossed the white lines after brainlocking on the number of outs, I'm sure Zimmerman would have gratefully used it to tunnel his way out of RFK rather than go anywhere near Frank.

As long as it doesn't come excessively at our expense, I'd be happy to see Frank Robinson get some payback for having to endure the cynical dismantling of the Expos, their shameful forced march into nomadism and their relocation without money. (Now that they have a new owner and a new park on the way, money would certainly help.) Watching the Nats, you're reminded that hey, this is what bad teams do — not all the time, but often enough to be out of it by late July. Tony Armas was rolling along impressively and then boom! A throwing error, a bobble and a wild throw erase a lead, and then a horrid mental mistake keeps them down. If you're a Nats fan, you can moan that a couple of bad breaks doomed them, but that misses the point — bad teams take the field having buried landmines for themselves, step on them more often than not, and good teams ensure they don't crawl away. (We know — we've been those bad teams more years than I care to remember.)

Anyway, Michael Tucker officially regained the use of his given name as we were leisurely oscillating far above the city on the Wonder Wheel, and Delgado bailed out Billy Wagner as Joshua was feeding his newfound rollercoaster addiction. Then it was off to Keyspan to see the Cyclones do very little against the horrendously named Batavia Muckdogs. Afterwards, Joshua did a fine job of running the bases despite being tired to the point of hallucination, with me trotting behind him reminding myself not to stop and gaze in rapture at the Real Professional Baseball Field I was on. At home plate Joshua (who'd been forbidden multiple times from sliding) even got in a low-five with Sandy the Seagull, an exchange Emily wanted broken down with a Zapruder film level of detail. Our assessment: It was a lame, perfunctory low-five. No, Sandy the Seagull is not off the family shit list 13 months after his infuriating brush-off of our kid.

(Yeah, I know it might not even be the same person in the smelly mascot suit. Don't come around here with your logic.)

Michael Tucker, on the other hand, is most definitely in the clear.

In the past ten games, dating back to the finale in Miami on August 3, the five Mets starting pitchers have thrown 63 innings and given up 21 earned runs. That's an ERA of exactly 3.00.

That's not bad. That's not bad at all.

I guess we can now officially slide our floating anxiety anvil from above the rotation to above the corner outfielders because the starting pitching has quietly but definitely come around.

Each pitcher has taken two starts since August 3. These are the results.

Pedro Martinez: 13-1/3 IP, 3 ER

Orlando Hernandez: 13 IP, 6 ER

Tom Glavine: 13 IP, 5 ER

John Maine: 11-2/3 IP, 4 ER

Steve Trachsel: 12-1/3 IP, 3 ER

Not eye-poppin', Doc '85 numbers, but not eye-gougin', '06 Lima lines either. Every start in the last ten has given the Mets a genuine chance to win. The three club losses in this span are attributable at least in part to the other guy (Dontrelle Willis, Billy Traber) pitching just a little better twice and our pen pitching a damn sight worse than the other team's once.

We haven't been hitting a whole lot, which is of some nagging concern, but remember that we were getting antsy because our offense was making up for our pitching so often early in the year. Well, guess what — the reverse works sometimes, too. In Steve Trachsel's turns, it works to ridiculous extremes.

After being fed a mountain of runs start in and start out, he marched parched through the D.C. desert today. I'm not kidding about the parched — he wasn't allowed to haul his beloved case of vino with him on the team plane…a rather unjockly carry-on item that is presumably yet another reason we all love Steve Trachsel as we do. But he didn't let down. The Nationals may be a wine cellar-dweller, but do you feel gently buzzed or horribly hung over when the opposing lineup features the likes of Soriano, Johnson and Zimmerman? Stevie Shoelaces is certainly capable of pouring runs by the bottle for anyone, but he didn't for the second start in a row. He kept the Mets in the game long enough to allow the Nationals to take themselves out of it. And they did.

Good starting pitching today and the last ten days. Good, not great. Maybe we'll get enough great to make up for whatever bad is bound to come. But more than at any point this year, even when Alay Soler had me goin', I'm confident about whoever takes the mound on any given date.

As for the outfield corners, tie yourself up in knots at your own discretion. I'm not worried there either. I know it's quickly become de rigueur to fret the cast of Milledge, Chavez, Tucker and Ledee and the TBD availability of Floyd. I also know that there is a strain of Mets fans (otherwise known as “the majority”) that isn't happy unless they believe there's a segment of the big picture that's dangerously out of focus. The pen is falling! The mound is falling! Left field is falling!

Poppycock! Or pish-posh! Take your pick, they're both delicious.

Yes, it would be sweet to turn back the clock two weeks and whisper in Duaner Sanchez's ear, “you're sleepy…you're very sleepy…you don't want to go find Dominican food at two in the morning.” Then we'd still have Xavier Nady and Xavier Nady would be competent if not spectacular (in itself a crime in some Mets minds during his truncated tenure) and we'd have to stay up nights worrying about Delgado's slump and, perhaps, searching for our own Dominican food given that we're staying up that late. As is, Nady's not here, man. The guys who are, or maybe the guys who will be, will do the job because on the 2006 Mets, somebody usually does.

Can I prove that statement? Not exactly. Speculation is inadmissible as evidence if I remember my L.A. Law, but I can present for the court, your honor, today's Exhibit A, Michael Tucker.

Admit it, Mets fans. You've still got some of that 2004 in you even though we have now won exactly as many games in 2006 as we did during the entirety of two years ago. Maybe you are also unknowingly trudging around the darker portions of 2005, to say nothing of all of 2003 — and any number of the many unsuccessful seasons you've lived through — in your souls. It's OK, I do, too. Those years are hard to shake, but for your own good, at least try to shove them to way in the back, back where you keep your vaguely simmering dismay over George Bamberger or Wes Westrum.

When the Mets brought up Tucker, I don't know how many snarky references to Gerald Ice Williams I read and heard. “Oh no, Tucker! He's Williams! Why do they always do this to us? It sucks to be a Mets fan!” Or words to that effect.

Have you seen Michael Tucker since he came up? He's not Gerald Ice Williams. I don't remember Gerald Ice Williams throwing out a runner like Tucker did Thursday. He might have, but it doesn't stand out, know what I mean? I didn't see Gerald Ice Williams pile on some insurance runs as Tucker did that same day. And I sure as hell know when Gerald Ice Williams was double-switched into games the way Michael Tucker was at RFK Sunday, Gerald Ice Williams didn't wallop the tiebreaking and decisive homer late.

I know it's more fun, on some perverse level, to wallow in woe-is-Mets rooting; there nothing like claiming “I'm a long-suffering Mets fan!” for defeat cred. But that time has passed. If Michael Tucker were a 2003, 2004, even 2005 Met, it likely would have been dispiriting. Michael Tucker as a 2006 Met is at worst an experiment that won't come to fruition and at best a revelation. So far, it's the latter. This is what happens on good teams. It's the difference between depending on Michael Tucker and taking a flyer on Michael Tucker. On the 2006 Mets, Michael Tucker sits way down the depth chart. You get something out of him as you have twice in four games, then life is good. You don't? You find somebody else.

Who? I dunno, but he's out there and Omar knows where to find him. Put another way, who made more brilliant, game-saving plays at second today: you or Jose Valentin?

As for Michael Tucker's lousy, illegal slide into the person of Mike Piazza at Turner Field on July 5, 1998, that was more than eight years ago. He's on our side now. That pardons most crimes. If we were able to forgive Jay Payton for being stupid in Atlanta, we can dislodge the Scarlet A from Michael Tucker's cap if he's going to function effectively with an NY up there. Should he barrel home the same way as a Met that he once did as a Brave, we'll call him exceedingly competitive and exchange high-fives.

Shoot, if Angel Hernandez could catch day games after night games and get a hit or two in the process for us, he'd be dispensated so fast it would make Frank Robinson's head spin. And his doesn't appear to be a particularly spinnable head.

Friday night, the whole division gained ground on the Mets. Saturday night, the Mets snatched that ground right back from under them. With a New York win over Washington and losses by Philadelphia, Florida and Atlanta, the Mets' magic number was reduced to increasingly inevitable.

John Maine's pet gopher, out to lunch since his doubleheader start against the Marlins more than a month ago, came back to nibble on him a bit. I wish it hadn't. And I wish we could have scored a couple more TDs from the red zone…I mean runners from third (damn football). But those are not problems.

Problems are Iraq when it refuses to receive the memo that things are getting better all the time; Israel and Lebanon in the heat of a ceasefire; anybody who was just getting comfortable with the notion of flying again; anybody whose car runs on petrol.

There are problems in this world. As has become custom during baseball season, I focus on the limited-perspective quandaries I'm under the illusion of having some control over, like begging Delgado to hit to left or urging Willie to bring in Bradford already yet. My impact on these situations is every bit as negligible as anything I could do about peace in the Middle East, but it sure is more fun worrying about the Mets.

Alas, every now and then I force myself at twenty minutes before or after the hour to turn to WINS instead of WFAN and I am reminded that our 14-game lead isn't saving a single life or foiling a single terrorist plot or dropping the price of gas nine-tenths of a single cent. Then it's back down the dial to the FAN to join Joe Benigno in stressing about who our third starter will be in the NLDS.

Am I disturbingly shallow in my information-gathering priorities or par for the course? If history is any guide, I'm merely one of a long line of Mets fans for whom the back page trumps the front page as often as the severity of bad news will allow.

The following passage is from Jerry Mitchell's The Amazing Mets, a seminal team history first published in 1964. It pretty much explains that when the world teeters on the edge of extinction, we are the one group that can be counted on to keep its concerns on an even keel.

It was the morning of October 23, 1962. President John F. Kennedy had the night before declared an embargo on Cuba, taking a step which could have meant the beginning of thermonuclear war. There was a sense of crisis all over the United States and all over the world.

After replying to the fan, Allen forwarded the postcard to the Mets with the observation, “With the world on the verge of ruin, I thought you might be interested in what the Mets' fans are worried about.”

The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved. And the Mets improved to 6-12 on Thursdays in 1963.

We're 10-5 on that day this year…in case you were wondering.

I was.

This has been the summer that Joshua has slowly but surely become attuned to the doings of the New York Mets.

It started with the simple things: wanting to see Mr. Met, or watch the apple come up after a home run. (Explaining the apple's absence during a road game was a challenge.) From there we got into the rules, which aren't so easy to break down into chunks for someone who's just learning and is easily distracted. Three strikes and you're out, three outs and the other team gets to hit, the team with more runs is winning, the teams take turns hitting nine times, if they have the same number of runs they take a turn each again and see if someone has more runs. That's a lot to keep track of right there. Now throw in all the complications: For example, that foul balls are strikes but not if there's two strikes, unless the batter is bunting. (What's bunting?)

A single pitch can start dominos of questions falling, and sometimes you discover you've plunged into the depths of the rulebook without taking care of the basics. (What's a foul ball?) It's hard to explain why a ball that took one bounce before going into the enemy shortstop's glove is bad when a moment before a ball that took one bounce before going into the enemy left fielder's glove was good. And let's not get into force plays vs. tag plays. (Or the fact that last night I realized to my horror that I'd spent three baseball-mad decades missing a crucial part of what makes runs earned or unearned.)

Confronted with all this, Joshua's most-common question remains, “Was that good?” But he's getting it: He knows which number on the TV screen is balls and which is strikes, understands three outs and keeps track of them, gets that the lit-up bases correspond to actual runners, is beginning to understand singles and doubles and triples, and even has a rudimentary grasp of the strike zone. (Which makes him more advanced than Rey Ordonez ever was.) Not bad for someone who won't be four until after the season.

And he's learning his Mets. He knows Jose Reyes (probably his favorite player) and David Wright and will tell you proudly that Jose is No. 7 and David is No. 5. He neat as you please dropped Paul Lo Duca's name into casual Met conversation the other day. He thinks it's funny that there are two Carloses and two Joses. He has heard the hushed talk of this legendary man known only as Pedro. (Starting pitchers are the hardest, since they disappear from view for days at a time.) For the other Mets, he uses the Choo Choo method: “Get a hit, Number 23!”

He's even a more-reasonable fan than I am: When word came that Michael Tucker had become a Met, I made no secret of my unhappiness and freely expressed my loathing for our newest player. (I refrained from using the generally accepted variant of his name, however. Now that he's on our roster, Tucker gets the probationary use of his actual name. Besides, I'm not a completely horrible parent.) Anyway, confronted with a parent excoriating Michael Tucker, Joshua looked stern and had this to say: “Daddy, is he a Met? I'm sorry, Daddy, but you have to be happy about him.”

Blasted rational child.

Having two baseball-mad parents has certainly helped him find his way. Joshua knows game time comes around the same he's called to the table for dinner. (And he'll be able to sit where he can see the game.) He knows we'll turn the volume up at bathtime, angle the TV so we can see it from beside the tub and tell him what's happening. He expects we'll turn on the radio in his room so we can keep track of things during the bedtime ritual of books and juice. And being a cunning creature, he's figuring out that if he takes an avid-enough interest in the proceedings, he can con his father into delaying bedtime to explain some arcane rule or wait out a half-inning. When he's particularly lucky, something will happen that warrants a quick dash next door to Mommy and Daddy's bedroom to see the instant replay. The last such event was Piazza's second home run, and Joshua quickly saw a new angle to exploit. But he has a little to learn about what's TV-worthy: A few minutes after Piazza's dinger, he tried to invoke TV privileges for a replay of a long foul ball by Jose Reyes. Nice try, kid.

But the moment Emily and I knew there was no turning back? It was Thursday, around dinner time. The string of lights on the brick wall in the yard had lit up, meaning the game should be starting. (The lights are on a timer set for 7:10. Like you're surprised.) But for some reason, his parents weren't turning on the TV.

“I want to watch the baseball,” Joshua said matter-of-factly, with admirable patience. He knows parents are stupid creatures and sometimes need a little help.

“There's no game tonight, kiddo,” I said.

“They played during the day,” Emily added.

“And they won!” I chipped in.

“But I want to watch the baseball,” Joshua tried again, looking less patient.

“There isn't any baseball tonight,” I said — and my son promptly dissolved into tears.

I explained that the Mets had to play in Washington the next night, so they played during the day. They needed to get on an airplane and get to the new city and get some sleep. More tears. I looked hopefully for an encore of the day's game on SNY. No such luck. Emily assured Joshua there'd be another game tomorrow. Nothing doing — the kid had dissolved into a river of misery. Tomorrow night was not going to cut it — he wanted the Mets, not excuses.

Emily and I couldn't really look at each other, because you don't want to ever actually explain to your child that on some level you're happy he's crying. We soothed him as best we could, but we couldn't have been prouder. The kid's got the family bug. No turning back now — he's one of us.

Still, this presents a problem: If he was this sad about a day game, how on earth do I explain the offseason?