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…

One of the things I write for the Online Journal is a daily roundup of the Web's best sportswriting called the Daily Fix. (It's co-written by Carl Bialik, a great writer, Mets fan and my neighbor in Brooklyn.) This week is the Fix's fifth anniversary, and over at wsj.com Carl and I will be marking the occasion with some retrospective pieces that we hope are only mildly self-indulgent.

The first of them looks back at the biggest sports stories of the Fix's first five years. Nary a Met to be seen, alas, but there are two links within it that I thought might be of interest. The first is my farewell to Ted Williams, one of my favorite pieces for the Online Journal. The second is a farewell to Tug McGraw I got some guy to write. Prince of a fellow, you might say.

Sunday Night Baseball is a contrivance. It was created for ESPN in 1990 and smacks of football, something we'd all keep out of our beloved pastoral pastime if given the choice…which we as fans rarely are. If we are one of its participants, it screws up our weekend rhythms completely. Wake to a gorgeous Sunday morning, count the hours to 1:10 PM — or, perhaps, wake to a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and click on the bedside radio, first or second inning already in progress — that's what summer is all about. Instead, thanks to MLB's deals with devils, it's not there. Your Sunday afternoon is a void. You're left loitering for seven hours, all the way to Sunday night when your rhythms tell you you have other things to do, whether it's dreading Monday or savoring HBO. To top it off, sometimes there's little warning. It's one thing when they saddle you with 8:05 in the pocket schedule; you can plan. But when they pull the plug on 1:10 because some network, which you know would rather be fawning on the Red Sox (or Steelers) 24/7, needs some between-X-Games filler? It's ghastly, I tell you. Ghastly.

I believe everything I've just said. Yet none of it meant a damn thing last night. I fucking love these Sunday night games. They're practically the only ones I go to that the Mets win.

Thanks to my friend Dan, whom Omar didn't mind selling a prorated Sunday plan, I was tucked into a happy corner of the loge for something I'd been missing all season. I finally got to see the Mets have one of those explosive innings that I'd only witnessed on TV, the kind they apparently meet and decide in advance not to have if they know I'm not going to be there.

The Mets' overall record's the thing, and taking the last two has suddenly dwindled our magic number to Casey Kasem proportions: 40. But this habit I'd had thrust upon me of trudging home in 2006 on the wrong end of one 9-3 score after another had made me cranky: Hot dogs, green grass all out at Shea, everybody but me (4-8) guaranteed to have a heckuva day.

Hence, they should play every home game on Sunday night; I'm 2-0, for crissake. And to think when Dan invited me for what was originally listed as an afternoon affair and we found out it had been switched, there was discontent in the air. Silly fans, day games are for kids.

You gotta understand that Dan and I have been jinxing each other for the past five seasons. We meet up inside and B.J. Surhoff in right throws out Jeff D'Amico at first. We wander in together and our September swoon receives a lethal injection. If we even know we're in the park at the same time, Bronson Arroyo shuts us down. The only times the Mets seemed to win games Dan and I attended was when we weren't aware of each other's presence. Oh, you were at that scintillating Seo-Maddux duel, too? I didn't know that! No wonder we won.

Neither of us lacks for logic, but we were convinced we were a whammy, Mets fans who couldn't go to Mets games in tandem, buddies forever cursed to end these affairs with “well, it was fun except for the result.” I hate that. So does Dan.

But Sunday Night Baseball changed all that. On Sunday night, we watched a rookie pitcher (ours, not theirs) squirm out of one unpleasant situation early and then cruise like Smokey Robinson the rest of his way. On Sunday night, we watched another rookie pitcher (theirs, not ours) show he had been studying fielding at the feet of Jon Lieber. On Sunday night, the Mets of John Valentin were finally buried deep in our past while the Mets of Jose Valentin delivered a joyful present right before our very eyes.

Most of all, Sunday night was the night we got to see what the future could and should look like at the Shea to be Named Later. David Wright, who can buy us all copious amounts peanuts and Cracker Jack and not care if he gets change back, lashed that huge double down the left field line. Lastings Milledge, looking like the guy none of us wanted to let go for just any pitcher, scorched one up the middle. And Professor Reyes earned his doctorate in bases-loaded home run hitting. The three of them, combined age barely enough to be Julio Franco's big brother, were primarily responsible (well, them and Mathieson's E-1) for the seven-run fourth. They'll be back for more.

After they did their young and frisky thing, Dan and I could no longer deny that maybe, just maybe, we weren't a mutual jinx, that the obstructed loge right field view is just about perfect, that Sunday night at 8:05 is not only convenient but appropriate, that ESPN can tell us to start whenever it wants from now on.

With nearly 40,000 compatriots a-hootin' and a-hollerin' and making Philadelphia feel like Punxsutawney (tiny and wondering where the hell its shadow went), you don't have to delineate between Sheas and anti-Sheas for me. In the context of my recent travels, Shea is the anti-Busch. It's not nice. It's not polite. It's not monochromatic. It is, however, on Sunday nights like these, pretty freaking awesome.

It's no secret that Shea can be a boorish place, full of drunks who've advanced directly to Seriously Antisocial without ever having landed on Amiable or Funny, dimwits who can't find their seats and aren't interested to hear they're in yours, asleep/feckless ushers, catatonic cashiers and people who apparently forked over $18 to $25 to yap on their cellphones about how bored they are. There's no such thing as a visit to the big blue rattletrap without at least one of the above; on a bad night you'll find yourself beset by all of them and wondering why you didn't just watch it on TV.

But then every once in a while you get the opposite: convivial seatmates, a cheerful, interested crowd, and an all-around fine time — one that can make the occasional stopped escalator, geysering toilet or unplugged Carvel kiosk just something to shrug aside as colorful scenery.

Happily, this was one of those nights I got the Anti-Shea.

It started on the subway: My car was taken over, in a good way, by a six-foot-plus Montana cowboy, complete with a deep tan, the kind of moustache Sam Elliott sports in “The Big Lebowski,” 10-gallon hat, giant belt buckle and gorgeous ostrich boots. Anyone who got within five feet of him got cheerfully greeted and interrogated; to him, New York City was a rollicking good adventure, from the subway he was on to the folks on their way home to Flushing and the subway musicians who came by to entertain us and the view out the window and the prospect of the ballgame he was headed to. It was tempting to follow him and watch how many people he could befriend on the ticket line, but I had a friend of my own to meet, so I let him go his way, silently thanking him for putting me in such a fine mood. (And New York City is a rollicking good adventure, if you let it be.)

My pal Aileen had been kind enough to offer me a spare ticket; she and I made our way to the upper deck, ejected two puzzled but nice-enough interlopers from our seats and got down to the cheerful business of drinking beer, chatting about baseball and work and writing and childhood misadventures and enjoying a wonderfully cool summer evening with the playoff-bound Mets on the national stage. An efficient, pleasant vendor kept us supplied with Budweiser (and returned at the last minute with ice cream), didn't sweat a forgotten ID and offered an explanation of the vendor trade (vendors pick what they'll haul around in order of seniority, if you're curious), along with stray but welcome bits of existentialism. The guys behind us were loud and boisterous (after they left I noticed an impressive number of little airplane bottles of booze under their seats) but knew their stuff, down to Maine's newfound reliability and Wright's new contract and Utley's old hitting streak. The guys in front of us looked like “Dazed and Confused” extras, and were lackadaiscally babysitting a couple of junior metalheads, which meant protesting if their charges didn't check in every two innings or so and good-naturedly giving them crap about constantly needing more money. But all involved were just fine, and having a good time.

The nearest thing to a badly behaved fan? It was me, at least for the moment I noticed the Mets were fawning on Joe Morgan and had to scream “MORGAN! YOU SUUUUUCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!!” at the fullest volume I could muster.

One of the vaguely babysat metalheads could have passed for me circa 1981, in fact: He had long blond hair, was decked out in Iron Maiden garb and around the eighth inning was frantic to spend his last $20 or so of ballpark money on some souvenir — any souvenir. The kid returned with a fascimile autograph ball bescribbled in machine black, and it was all I could do to laugh out loud. On the few occasions I got to Shea as a kid, inevitably in the back of somebody's mother's station wagon, I'd spend the first four or five innings obsessing about what to get with whatever ballgame money my mom had given me, then spend two innings dithering or inhaling soft ice cream, and then realize the game was almost over and wind up racing frantically around the stadium (having been threatened with eternal grounding if I wasn't back before the ninth), only to find all the shutters had come down on all the forerunners of the clubhouse shops. I'd return at the last possible moment with a Toronto Blue Jays pennant or something equally stupid, which I'd lose within a week or two. Mrs. Heingartner kept a better eye on us and certainly didn't preface every other word with fuckin', but the overall effect wasn't dissimilar. Nice to see some things don't change.

Anyway, all good, helped by the fact that down on the field John Maine was flinging Phillies aside like bowling pins and Jose Reyes was celebrating his contract in grand style and all was right with the baseball world. Nice place, this Anti-Shea. It could grow on a fella.