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?

We usually trot out this reminder early in the season when we're still adjusting our ballological clocks to the idea that we won't go 162-0, but the bromide is true anytime: You're gonna win a third of your games, you're gonna lose a third of your games and what you do in the other third determines your year.

Stick Friday night's mellow misfire in the pile of 54 about which you can't do spit. Not that it should have been impossible to overcome a 2-1 deficit to the last-place Nationals, but look at the variables working against us.

• Lefties with stuff need not apply. Billy Traber followed in the tradition of soft southpaws everywhere, baffling and beguiling Met bats while leaving every pane of glass at RFK undisturbed. Don't let him be traded where he can hurt us — and god forbid a potential playoff foe gets ahold of Zane Smith. We'll be doomed. Redeeming feature: Lastings Milledge timed a slopball and singled. There's hope for this kid yet.

• Heck hath no fury like a Met prospect scorned. I knew Billy Traber was a familiar name. When I heard the story from Howie — he was a top draft pick selected by Steve Phillips for whom Steve Phillips was already making excuses and placing blame before trading him for Roberto Alomar — I figured the fix was in. Bonus points on this count for Alex Escobar's mini-revival. He was in that trade and he probably wanted a piece of us. What, you thought I was only as good as Robbie Stinking Alomar?

• Bang zoom, they were due. Cripes, we hadn't played in Washington since Jefferson was president and we hadn't lost in Washington, it seemed, since the Adams administration. It had been merely eight straight over them there, but you can't swat Nats every night.

• I'm sorry, Mr. Glavine, but the offense is reserved for Mr. Trachsel. For Stevie Shoelaces, the Mets may very well have found a way to score eight runs and win 8-7. For Tom Tentative, not so much, but the important thing was he got sharper and sharper in defeat, especially in the sixth, his final frame, the one he had to talk Willie into (Willie doesn't get talked into much, I'm guessing). Lately we've witnessed a return to health by Pedro, a rounding into form by Duque and now a second straight start in which Glavine is kind of getting it together. I'd love to get you past 287, big fella, but just keep overcoming into October. Good advice for us all.

• The Homestead Grays have always been more legendary. The New York Mets are now 2-2 dressed as New York Cubans, winning at home over the Chatham All-Stars (a.k.a. Toronto Blue Jays) in 2001 and in Kansas City against the Monarchs in 2004, losing last year to the Crawfords in Pittsburgh and last night in D.C. Result aside, nifty throwback threads…or as Julio Franco put it, “hey, these fit just like I remember.”

The magic number is stuck at 36 over the Phillies, who won an endless game in Cincinnati. It went 14 and pitchers were pinch-hitting on both sides, raising a question: Do managers run through their benches quicker than they used to? How is it Davey and Bobby managed marathons and still seemed to have a Rusty Staub or Matt Franco available at the last possible moment? Or are benches just so much thinner because bullpens are so much more bulging? But I digress. The Phillies won, as did the Braves, the Marlins and of course the Nats. We lost. Everybody picked up ground on us.

Tough to say that with a straight face.

I know it happened last Tuesday post-Sanchez, but I'd bet (not that I bet on anything but the ponies, which is perfectly legal) there haven't been three nights all season when everybody in the division gained a game on the first-place Mets. That's why what could have been an irritating-as-hell 2-1 loss in August was so easily shoved onto the 54-L pile. Not that I haven't known for quite some time that nobody's gonna get us, but after having just won five in a row and increasing the games-ahead to 14 and the games-above to 25, this may have been the first one-run loss in 2006 that I really and truly greeted with “so what?”

Lest you think I was slacking, I also knew very well that if we had won, we'd be 26 over for the first time since ending 2000 that way and we'd be in sight of 30 over, a perch we've reached in only five Met campaigns ('69, '85, '86, '88, '99). Also, once we get to 15 up, we can think about 16 up, which would be the largest margin the Mets have ever floated above the field in any year that wasn't 1986.

Assuming nobody taxied back to the team hotel or limoed up to Atlantic City for some action, these are the problems with which a Mets fan can joyfully deal.

If we're up like 11-3 and he can't hurt us, I wouldn't mind seeing Marlon Anderson hit one out this weekend in Washington.

Only kidding.

Those dispensations are rare. I liked Marlon a whole bunch when he was here, but I liked a lot of Mets a whole bunch when they were here. Yet you can count on perhaps one finger those who are permitted to re-enter Shea Stadium hit two home runs off of Pedro Martinez in the same game and then take a bow for it…though I don't think Mike Piazza technically has to ask our permission for anything. He has a lifetime pass to do what he wants to us.*

*Void in the seventh inning or later; may require additional verification in close contests; not valid in postseason; trade to National League East or intracity rival cancels offer; check local blogs for further conditions and restrictions.

Anyway, Mike Piazza has left us again. As has Mike Cameron.

Hey, remember him?

I know ya do. I know we all do. His situation this week reminded me of the crack a teammate made about Ron Cey after Steve Garvey — who departed the Dodgers in the same offseason — took out a full-page ad in the L.A. Times to thank all his fans. “Ron,” said the teammate, “is taking out an ad in the weekly shopper to thank his fan.”

If Cameron wanted to be the center of attention in Queens this year, he should have gotten himself traded to the Rockies or the Cardinals and returned later this month. He would have bathed in a singular spotlight. As was, he got a warm greeting, but after what happened 364 days ago, he deserved a genuine homecoming salute.

Eerie we were playing San Diego on this Thursday afternoon just like last year. Eerier still that I was taking the same train ride into Grand Central from essentially the same meeting for exactly the same project that I was in Westchester for at exactly this time last year. The difference is that this year what I heard as I listened to the game via the exact same radio on the southbound Metro-North was that Cameron, like Piazza, was on the bench for Bruce Bochy; not hurt, just not playing. What I heard last year, of course, was the call of the gruesome collision between Cameron and Beltran in the Petco outfield. A lot less pain this year for Mets outfielders. A lot less angst for Mets fans, too.

Mike Cameron's Met career ended that afternoon but it was also sanctified. Before that you could argue his value as a power hitter — 30 HRs the year before — versus all the strikeouts, his natural flash in center versus his reluctant brilliance in right. But everybody always said nice things about him even before we all said the same thing: God, I hope he recovers.

He has. He's the centerfielder for the Padres now. He's playing ball which, if you think back 364 days, is as amazing and miraculous as anything Piazza did at Shea in the past 72 hours. (Carlos Beltran, who probably never let on to the severity of his own case of smashmouth from August 11, 2005, has also come all the way back and then some.)

Cameron's Met credentials are sound for posterity and I wouldn't have minded him maybe ripping into one as long as we were theoretically looking the other way and letting certain Padres jump the turnstile. You know, if we were up by a lot or something.

This Mike went 1-for-6 with a couple of walks. No curtain calls. Just hearing his name announced as being in the game most nights is probably reward enough.

Nice having such stellar reps of our Mike alumni association drop by for a spell. Surely they've stayed classy in San Diego. But given that our team just finished sweeping their team, I'm quite content making due with everybody we've got, even our latest Michael, previously written off as damaged goods. Watching the Mets outman the Padres at every turn reminded me that a team is more than one or two swell fellas with whom you're on a first-name basis.

So. Eighth inning. Two on. One out. Aaron Heilman on the hill. Here comes Mike Piazza, 800 feet of home runs hastily appended to his resume, only this time we're not talking about some cosmetic solo shot. He's the go-ahead run. Gary Cohen comments on the strange mix of wild cheers and sudden boos filling Shea, sagely noting something about the process by which a revered former player becomes the enemy.

No, not really. I wasn't in the park, but I think I know what those fans were doing. They weren't booing Piazza — it may be Nostalgia Week at Shea, but nobody's nostalgic for nearly running a Hall of Famer out of town in the summer of '98. They were booing their fellow fans who were still cheering — playing out, in 49,000+ instances of voting with hands or lungs, the family feud that gripped us earlier today. The same one that gripped any other Met blog and countless Met households and was fought around umpteen watercoolers today.

How can you be cheering for a guy who's trying to beat us? If he hits one we're down 5-4 and Pedro doesn't get a win! And man, there's a lot of baseball left to play — this team hasn't won a damn thing yet! What are you, nuts? Don't you have any brains?

What? How can you not be cheering for the best position player we ever had? Day game tomorrow — this could be the last time you ever see him! And we're so far ahead in the standings it's not even funny! What are you, nuts? Don't you have a soul?

I was thinking that was the perfect moment to freeze, but it's not. That came one pitch and a few seconds later. The ball's left the bat in an awful hurry, gone rocketing by far over the heads of the Joses, Carlos B. is moving onto the warning track, eyes on the sky, tracking its trajectory. Gonna be close.

And…STOP.

So. Where do you want that ball to land?

Maybe you're saying, screaming, pleading that it needs to find Carlos's glove — for Pedro's W, for the team's march to October, for the sake of finding a role for Heilman, for the simple reason that the guy in the wrong uni hit it. That's OK. I'm on your side. Lots of other smart folks and diehard Met fans are too.

Maybe you're hollering, whooping or cheering for it to bank off the camera tower, for Gary to yell that it's outta here — one of Mike's final bits of tape in a storied career, a nice bit of closure, another unforgettable night at Shea, the happiest L you'll ever take. (And hey, we could still win it.) That's OK. I'm not on your side, but lots of other smart folks and diehard Met fans are.

Or maybe you have absolutely no idea what you want to happen. And you know what? That's OK too.

It landed in Carlos's glove. We won. Twenty-four games over .500. Heilman got the job done. So did Wagner. (Neither was a model of execution, but this year I've taken a lesson from my co-blogger: There's no column in the standings for style points.) Endy gave us more evidence he can play. We got to see another how'd-he-do-that work of art by Pedro. Got to cheer for Mike, or at least smile. Saw a visiting player get a curtain call, of all things.

Not a bad night, even if it did come with a scenario that couldn't have been more perfectly designed for an intra-Met-family squabble. Heck, that's OK too. It's not abortion or Iraq or whether or not to tip on tax or any of the terrible searing quarrels that bring out the long knives. Just a baseball argument among adherents of the same faith, and an academic one at that.

Besides, we should be so lucky. Tomorrow we might have to cheer for Michael Tucker.

The most telling sign of Mike Piazza's status upon his return to Shea Stadium was the graphic posted on DiamondVision in advance of the sparkling “In My Life” video tribute. There was a circular icon with a 31 in the middle. The numbers were blue, the trim was orange, the numerals were adorned with pleasing pinstripes.

That's right: A retired number. It was an implicit public promise that what we all think should happen will happen, barring long-term memory loss on behalf of ownership or the re-emergence of Kelvin Torve. No. 31 will go up on a wall, here or next door, alongside the ones you know in your sleep: 37, 14, 41 and 42. Without dredging up dozens of fun but tangential arguments on behalf of removing 24 and 17 and 6 (what, no Orsulak?) from active duty, 31 getting Stengeled is so appropriate that Miss Manners could emcee the ceremony.

Until then, we'll have to make do with turning our own backs on Mike Piazza. Thirty-Ones were in full effect last night, tens of thousands doing as I did and diving into their jersey and tee collections to break out a classic (though one joker in my section invested in a Padre road top with 33 and MET FOR LIFE on the name plate). We're on the same page with the Wilpons here. We're all respecting 31 however it's embodied.

This, by the by, is something the Dodgers won't do as is evidenced by their assignment of 31 to Brad Penny, so let that end any notion that an LA can adorn Mike's HOF cap…and how in bloody hell does Brad Penny get to keep wearing 31 when Greg Maddux is on the same team? Not our problem, but tacky.

Mike should receive the digital honor of honors just for pulling off the neat trick of returning to Shea and maintaining virtually every fan's loyalty while not pulling it at all away from the home team. The 2006 Mets get an assist there, too. In other not so long ago years, the crowd could be easily swayed against the Mets if one charismatic personality alighted in the wrong shirt. It is to Mike's credit that his Met popularity is rock solid. It is to the Mets' credit that last night didn't devolve into a late-'90s Merengue Night fiasco when even a Felipe Alou could turn a plurality of attendees into raucously supportive Montreal Expo acolytes and there wasn't enough of the royal we to convene a critical mass on behalf of our guys.

By the same token, in other years and on other nights, contagious amnesia has been known to break out. I was bemoaning to my friend “Other” Jason last night that I was here for the returns of Alfonzo and Olerud (and, we determined as I reminisced, most of the '99 Mets), and they were all treated like gray-suited strangers by almost everybody but me.

Say, who's that vaguely familiar character batting for the other team?

Oh, just somebody who used to work here. Pay him no mind and root for Tyler Yates.

But Tuesday with Mikey was invigoratingly different. The love in the room was intoxicating, the priorities were sober. Let's Go Mike and Let's Go Mets: concurrent emotions sung in perfect harmony. Nice job.

Having established that Mets fans don't always turn their old heroes into hero sandwiches, I am now left to wonder about some other sentiments expressed at Shea in recent nights and why we en masse think the way we do.

He's slightly old news, but what was with the booing of Chase Utley Friday night? Co-blogger and I were just reaching our seats Friday when Utley of the 35-game hitting streak was announced. You'd think Chase was a Pennsylvanian abbreviation for Chipper. Ya gotta be kidding me — we're booing Chase Utley for his recent spate of excellence? Talk about tacky. Worse than tacky…it's Yankee. It's Juan Gonzalez hitting a couple of home runs in the '96 playoffs and then becoming Public Enemy No. 1. We did the same thing with Utley, except without flinging Duracells at his head (can't beat that Yankee tradition).

Whatever happened to “Here comes that Man again”? Brooklyn fans may have hated what Stan Musial did to their Dodgers (owning them), but they recognized they were witnessing a great player and they applauded him. Didn't don Cardinal 6 jerseys as far as I know, but they respected him. When I was a kid, Mays the Giant and Aaron the Brave were above spiteful booing. You see an immortal among us and you clap.

What's that? Utley ain't them? No doubt. But Utley was doing what Pete Rose was doing in 1978, hitting every night and nearing history. Pete Rose really had been Public Enemy No. 1 in these parts since October 8, 1973; he still hasn't been forgiven for upending Buddy Harrelson. But when he came to Shea with the National League hitting streak record in sight, Mets fans — and not just the frontrunners who infect big events — saluted his feat. 1978 was like 2006 in one respect: There were no real ramifications in this for the Mets. If Rose had gone hitless, those Mets still would have sucked, just like if Utley had singled Friday night, these Mets would still rule.

You didn't have to root for Chase Utley to keep at his skein successfully (though why you wouldn't want a Yankee Clipper toppled clear out of the record books is beyond me), but you really couldn't take a moment from preserving the integrity of Metdom to put your hands together a few times and say, “hey, you're a real good player accomplishing a pretty great thing…now strike 'em out Duque!”? There has to be an aesthetically satisfactory middle ground between the Stockholm Syndrome that turned New Yorkers into home run whores for McGwire and Sosa and the brainless state that dictates anybody who's the enemy has to be fully and frontally attacked.

Listen, I cheered real hard when Pedro Feliciano put an end to the streak. Just because I admire what Utley had done doesn't mean I wanted to actively encourage him to succeed at our expense. But I also applauded him for having gotten that far. It's not that hard.

If you don't care for Pete Rose, maybe Axl Rose will do it for you. I'm thinking in terms of the acoustic G N' R of “Patience,” as in take it slow, things will be just fine. Consider this a long-distance dedication to the fans who are pumping up the volume, notch by disturbing notch, on booing Lastings Milledge.

Remember him? He's the extremely talented rookie you loved approximately two months ago. He's apparently been optioned to oblivion in your estimation because the Lastings Milledge at Shea on this homestand isn't being offered any high-fives down the right field line.

I won't argue that Milledge isn't showing nagging indications of shrinking into Jason Tyner, Size 2000, right before our very eyes. There is a growing process here and with growth comes pain. Thanks to Miami DUI fucker Cecil Wiggins, Milledge is back before his time. He's learning at the highest level and the lessons are complex, but I and, more importantly, those who evaluate talent for real think he's capable. Heck, even Jason Tyner is playing for a contender (the Twins) these days.

So why is Lastings Milledge being booed like he's Chase Utley without portfolio? I sensed a smidge of it on Sunday night and it definitely built into something noticeable by his final fruitless at-bat Tuesday. Booing Royce Ring is silly enough, but I get that: Reliever comes in, gives up hit, you react. Unnecessary, but instinctive. This Lastings thing feels like something else, as if the eighth-place batter in your first-place lineup is really becoming a bane of your existence. Because he's got a touch of the Mendoza? Because he leapt and missed for Geoff Blum's homer like Ron Swoboda did Don Buford's? Because his body language isn't as upWright as you'd like?

I can only conclude that there's a significant swath of Mets fans who need to be down on at least one of their own at all times. It ain't gonna be the left-side youngsters with the big contracts and, because they've performed so effectively, it ain't gonna be one of the Carloses (Beltran we've always showered with adoration, right?). Lo Duca is more of a folk hero than ever for being somebody else's unreasonable target. Cliff has always been blessedly immune to anything more than mild “he's hurt again?” grumbling. Booing Jose Valentin didn't harm him, the bastard. Endy Chavez never had a chance to be disliked, what with his good playing and such. Trachsel's monumentally boring but regularly victorious. Billy Wagner refuses to screw up every chance he gets. Aaron Heilman and Chris Woodward didn't play last night. Eli Marrero has left the building.

I see. It's all about to be Lastings Milledge's fault.

Whatever it is.

Quick, who is your all-time favorite San Diego Padre?

It's a trick question because you can't choose Mike Piazza. Mike Piazza isn't a San Diego Padre.

If he were, why would have I heard myself say quietly and routinely, “c'mon Mike,” as he worked the count against Steve Trachsel in the top of the second? It was the natural thing to do. I'm in the mezzanine, Mike's hitting cleanup, I want him to get a hit. It's an act he and I perfected from 1998 through 2005. At this point it's instinct.

I'm not talking about the long standing ovations that accompanied his every step from the bullpen to the third base dugout to behind the plate to the box at its left. That stuff was predictable. Thrilling, but predictable. It was within the context of the game — after a video detailed his myriad Met accomplishments, after the PA announcer uttered his name, after Jimi Hendrix strummed the first notes of “Voodoo Child” in an unprecedented playing of a visiting batter's theme song — that Mike Piazza surprised me. He got me to mindlessly root for him during a Mets game in 2006 merely by showing up at Shea even though he batted in the top and not the bottom of an inning.

Mike Piazza comes to Queens, I root for him. I don't even think about it. What's a road uniform between friends? Mike Piazza, it's been established here, there and everywhere, will always be a Met. I root for Mets.

But who the hell is Adrian Gonzalez?

That's the San Diego Padre first baseman, the San Diego Padre fifth-place batter, the San Diego Padre who followed Piazza in the San Diego Padre order. And when Trachsel retired him in the top of the second, I let out a little “damn.”

The guy batting fifth after Piazza, whether it was Brian McRae or Robin Ventura or Jason Phillips or Cliff Floyd or whoever, was always someone I wanted good things for and from. They were Piazza's teammates. Root for Piazza, root for his protection.

Wait just a New York minute now. Adrian Gonzalez is a San Diego Padre. I have no interest in this Friars club. So what the Tuck is he doing in the same lineup as Mike Piazza? Mets game…Shea…mezzanine…cleanup…Piazza…cheers…undying affection…endless applause…

Go figure.

I did.

It took me an instant but I quickly curbed my instinct and understood that Adrian Gonzalez wasn't a part of any of this. Him I could root against. Ditto Todd Walker and Geoff Blum and Josh Barfield. Having finally snapped to and paid attention to the entire tableau, I established a handy protocol for the Takin' Care of Business portion of the evening.

Mets in Mets uniforms: hope for something positive.

Padres in Padres uniforms: wish them nothing good.

Mets whose uniforms got mixed up in the laundry: cheers…undying affection…endless applause…