Joshua, Met fan in training, made his big-league debut two years ago, watching Kris Benson get poleaxed by the Dodgers. Last year he saw the D-Train mow us down. So for his third-ever game, I was kind of sweating it. The kid's 0-2, what if he's a jinx?

Kind of sweating it, ha. The mezzanine was the approximate temperature of the surface of the sun, with the crowd on slow boil as the Mets failed to hit, muffed plays, relieved crappily and generally looked the way they've looked since clearing Customs. (And I didn't even know Jose Lima was back in the building for some unfathomable reason. The Neanderthal conservatism of major-league front offices, sheesh. Genghis Khan looks progressive by comparison.) Beyond the fact that it was too hot to move (though not too hot for my son to insist on being on the lap of whichever parent looked marginally further from heatstroke), the crowd's annoyance was held in check only by the fact that the Mets looked as irritated with themselves as we were with them. After Glavine failed to handle Zach Duke's bunt, he batted it back toward the pitcher's mound with his glove. Then he did it again, and for a moment I imagined he might just keep on swiping at it, muttering all the way, until ball and pitcher exited through the bullpen gate.

But then the worm turned. My son was dwelling in a parallel universe by then: The kid had spent a lively two-plus hours cheering for the Mets by number (“Get a hit, Number 11!”), then by uniform (“The man in the white shirt is my friend!”), broken briefly by disapproving of my hollering at Angel Hernandez (“You shouldn't say he's a BAD MAN, Daddy!”) and crying because Number 7 had to wait his turn before he could bat again (with Reyes our only offense for much of the game, I felt the same way) until hot dogs and ice cream and heat and the lack of a nap had left him a ranting, overstimulated mess, more interested in trying to dismantle Shea than in whatever those guys down on the field were failing to do.

Come the 8th, the crowd's near-savage exultation fit his mood perfectly: He cheered madly for Endy's double that left us on the brink and then enjoyed his insane father waving him in the air like a boy turned American flag when Nady sent Wright and Chavez home to somehow give us the lead. Then Billy Wagner didn't make us incredibly nervous for once (maybe Heilman had already squeezed all the incompetence out of the relief sponge) and we were free and clear and my kid finally had a Met victory for the first page of what I hope will be a long ledger.

Later, walking the approximately 25 miles back to the car, the play at the plate on Chavez left me pondering an apparent paradox: Since Angel Hernandez is both incompetent and out to get us, how was Chavez safe? Had our otherwise-inexplicable employment of former Hernandez partner-in-crime Michael Fucker caused our least-favorite ump to abandon his ancient grudge? Or had Angel's primeval urge to screw up a call trumped his hunger to screw the Mets?

Imagine my astonishment when I finally queue'ed up ESPN Motion and it looked like Angel, by golly, got the call right. I suppose I should apologize, at least in some half-assed way, but let's not kid ourselves. This has been a week in which Angel Hernandez called a close play correctly and Alex Rodriguez came through in the clutch. If the sun rises in the west tomorrow, I won't be a bit surprised.

(Oh, and Greg — the guy in the aisle next to us got skulled by a foul ball. My thumb emerged intact, as did my child, but that was through no action of mine — I watched the ball arrive in mute, useless astonishment. Anyway, strange things are afoot in Faith and Fear lives. Let's be careful out there.)

Blowouts that go against you figure to be dreary business. Rare that you can attend an 11-1 loss and come away thinking it was one of the weirdest nights you ever spent at Shea Stadium. Yet despite the lack of eventual intrigue in the final score, it was.

I imagine that somewhere in the decisive fifth inning when Jose Castillo was at bat, Gary Cohen mentioned that one John Maine pitch was “fouled back into the crowd”. Well, I was in that crowd. My left thumb was the leading edge of that crowd. I still have my thumb. I don't have the ball.

Through the thoughtful invitation of my friend David and the unidentified patron who favored him with two choice loge seats behind home, we had the unique perspective that loge can afford. You could really see the ball. You could see it being pitched, you could see it being belted and you could see it coming at ya. Like Castillo's foul.

It was coming at me. Not at my face but just to the left of me. It's making its way up over the boxes and into the reserved. And I have time for one thought, which was…

“I can catch this.”

That was just silly. I couldn't catch it. I'm still following the advice of Marvin the Fifth/Sixth Grade Counselor from Camp Avnet, the sage who told us to leave our gloves in our cubbyholes as we filed on the bus for Shea Stadium 33 years ago next week 'cause “you'll just lose 'em.”

If I wore my glove Monday night, I probably would have lost Castillo's foul, too. But it would have been healthier. I wouldn't have put my left thumb in the way of sizzling Major League harm. This was no lofty foul. This was the essence of “fouled back into the crowd”. It glanced off my left thumb — the first time I've touched a foul at Shea after at least 2,700 innings of waiting — before hitting the guy sitting behind me on the arm and apparently beaning a woman sitting behind him before bouncing into someone else's hands (that was one magic horsehide). The lady was eventually presented with the ball in recognition of taking the worst Jose Castillo could mete out.

It's times like these that I'm thrilled that I've never been broken of the habit of chewing my thumbs. It's a lifetime of thumb-chewing, even through six years of braces, that has given me a marvelously strong callus which is where Castillo's foul hit. It felt like when you whack your funny bone provided your funny bone resides in your left thumb. It buzzed for a couple of innings but nothing was broken and nothing was bruised; nothing was gained, but nothing was lost.

'Cept the game, but that was going to happen anyway. When we weren't watching fouls make a beeline for our personages, we could see Maine (a surprise starter so surprising that I had no idea he was the man until I heard the third pitch of the game on the radio and no idea that Soler was gone; shucks) look unhittable for four-plus innings. His command abandoned him all at once.

In less than five frames, he was way over 100 pitches. That was weird.

The first-place Mets were hitting more than the last-place Pirates for most of the night, but not better, certainly not well enough to register a safety with someone in scoring position. That was weird.

By the time the Bucs began to slip away from the Mets, our relieving began to appear worse than our starting. That was weird.

And in the eighth, the mostly dependable Pedro Feliciano gave up two of the longest and hardest hit home runs, back-to-back, that I've ever witnessed from wherever I sat. That was very weird. Weird and disconcerting. I don't know the Pirates very well, but I do believe one of their eighth-inning sluggers was named McLouth. You can't spell McLouth without clout, that's for damn sure.

It wasn't just any 11-1 defeat, so it figured that the reactions would be somewhat out of the ordinary. Even though I don't sanction it, I'm surprised there wasn't more booing. Most of the hostility in our part of loge was funneled through one fan who kept telling Willie that he was “stupid” and should “go back to the Yankees.” Maybe the promise of fireworks kept everybody seated comfortably.

Two attendees were determined to be just that. I prefer sitting on the aisle because it gives me more legroom. As compensation, I have to get up a dozen or two times a game, maybe more, to let people in and out. Once in a while it gets on my nerves but mostly it goes with the territory. Well, one row down from David and me, there was a lady on the aisle who wasn't having any of it, not by the ninth. Late in the game, a family of three had gotten up to do whatever and came back together. They wanted to return to their seats in the middle of the row. The aislekeeper put her foot down…or, more accurately, nailed her ass down. She and her son wouldn't budge to let them pass. The father in the threesome began cursing her out. She said nothing. An usher was awakened to settle the dispute.

Finally the lady burst out with her complaint: “I CAME TO SEE A BASEBALL GAME! I DIDN'T COME TO STAND UP AND SIT DOWN!” I can't argue with her logic, but since when does logic have a place at Shea Stadium? In exchange for being coaxed into standing for five or six seconds — “THIS IS THE LAST TIME I'M GETTING UP!” — so the aggrieved party could sit down, the usher moved her and her son into a few rows down into a box seat. The squeaky wheel got the grease but, judging from the applause of several in our section, nobody minded the appeasement.

When it was 8-1, I reminded David that I was here six years ago on another Fireworks Night, the Mets down by the same score. But this wasn't that night and even on that night, I didn't hang around for the Gruccifest. Thus, I bid David adieu once the final out sealed the Mets' fate. They've been outscored 27-8 since Sunday night. I'm 2-6 on the year. I've seen eight different starters and the only wins I've enjoyed were secured via Glavine and Pedro. A little foreboding, no?

On the Pirates: They're atrocious? They played like the Red Sox did last week. I don't suppose it had anything to do with their common opponent. Every game I see the Mets lose to the Pirates is a blur of futility. They lose by 9-0 and 5-0 and 4-0 and 5-1 and now 11-1. The only NL teams the Mets have a losing record against when I'm in the neighborhood are the Braves (13-21) and the Pirates (11-12). I should hate the Pirates more than I do, but look where hating the Braves has gotten me.

My favorite thing about Fireworks Night is that if you leave after the game, you have the easiest trip of the year out of Shea (unless the year is 1993 and the trippin' is automatically easy). 54,000 filled the stands/seats Monday night. Maybe 4,000 departed in advance of the postgame show. Walking unmolested to the 7 — no pushing, no shoving, no waiting — I fantasized I had a police escort. Clear the way, folks! Clear the way! Half of Faith and Fear has to make his train at Woodside! My fantasies are pretty tame.

Made that train. Was on it in Forest Hills when I saw colored lights filling the northern sky. It was those Shea fireworks after all. Got to see 'em and got to walk in the door before 11:30. The Mets still lost, the night was still weird and the foul ball was still elsewhere.

There's no moral except maybe that more kids should chew their thumbs.

Before moving ahead to the Pirates, a look back — and a question.

So we're done with the Yankees. Three games at Shea, three games at Yankee Stadium, huge gates everywhere. Same as it's been since Lance Johnson stepped in against Andy Pettitte on June 16, 1997. Same as it'll be as long as they play baseball in this town.

While I don't like interleague play, never have and likely never will, I've discovered something I dislike even more: Interleague play that doesn't settle anything, at least where the Yankees are concerned. Last night's public undressing of Alay Soler let the Yankees emerge with a split: three games for them, three games for us. Same as it was in 2005. (We won the series, 4-2, in 2004; 2003's Subway Series, starring such notables as Jason Phillips and Jeremy Griffiths, is not discussed in polite orange-and-blue company.)

Three games each. A tie! And ties, as a wise baseball man once said, are like kissing your sister.

So here's a modest proposal to avoid future sister-kissing: Give us one more Mets-Yankees tilt. Make the Subway Series a seven-game affair. And bring back the Mayor's Trophy.

We used to play a Mayor's Trophy Game in this town: It was a Yankees-Dodgers affair in the 1950s, though if you want to get super-historical it first reared its head with the City Series, a seven-game set played by the Giants and the Highlanders after both finished second in 1910. (The Giants won, 4-2: Take that, MF-ing Highlanders!) The Mets took over the Dodgers' role in 1963, and for years the Mayor's Trophy Game was the exhibition that wasn't an exhibition. George Steinbrenner hated it: The Yankees would bring up minor-leaguers for cover and still be threatened with torture and pain if they didn't win. The managers hated the distraction and fuss of it — there's a famous tale about Billy Martin and Joe Torre exchanging secret messages negotiating who was going to end an extra-inning Mayor's Trophy Game with a squeeze — just like they hate the distraction and fuss of intracity games that count. The players hated it too — until they got out into the bowl of Shea or Yankee Stadium and saw the place had been packed with rabid fans. (And then they still sort of hated it.)

In other words, except for the minor-leaguers and the secret messages, it was pretty much the way it is now. Only then there had to be a winner, and that winner got a trophy. So what happened to the Mayor's Trophy? Was it in Giuliani's bunker? Did Steinbrenner melt it down to pay Howard Spira? Did we trade it to the Devil Rays for a painted plastic one that our on-staff trophy experts didn't notice had been Superglued? Whatever the case, can't we get it back or get a new one?

Play one more game, and subtract one game from a truly pointless interleague series. (Was there a Met or Blue Jay fan who really needed a third meeting this year?) Home-field advantage alternates, the way the World Series used to. Winner takes home the Mayor's Trophy, to be displayed proudly until the next go-round: The Yankees could do what they like with it (not limited to taking it and shoving it straight up their collective ass, to plagiarize Tanner Boyle). We could built it a nice shrine in the new stadium, and until then keep it on a dais made out of escalator parts and Pepsi Party Patrol t-shirts.

Yes, there's a baseball world outside of New York, and no, not every team has a natural rival. But there are a fair number of good or at least natural matchups that could support seven-game showdowns with attendant hype and some kind of shiny award: Cubs/White Sox, Giants/A's, Dodgers/Angels, Nationals/Orioles, Cardinals/Royals, Astros/Rangers (they already play for the Silver Boot, in fact), Brewers/Twins, Marlins/Devil Rays, Reds/Indians. Elsewhere the pickings are slimmer, but gin up something historical-minded out of Braves/Red Sox, then fill out the spread with Phillies/Blue Jays (heck, have the Phillies wear Blue Jays throwback unis) and Pirates/Tigers, and let the Padres and Rockies and D'Backs take turns against the Mariners. Those teams don't have perfect rivalries anyway (though there has been some agitation for Pirates/Indians instead of Reds/Indians), so what do they care if two three-game series become a two-gamer and a four-gamer?

We had a Mayor's Trophy back when the games didn't count. Now that they do, where has it gone?

If your eye wanders down and to the left a little, you'll notice we've realigned some of our links, most notably the seating chart for BLOG PARK @ FAFIF YARDS (formerly The New Breed). You'll find a lot of good and great Mets bloggers in the house on every level. There's one site you have to visit immediately, though. That's not a matter of opinion, it's an obligation.

Go to the Loge section, where the perspective is unique, and click on Metstradamus. And when you get there, take part in the second annual election for the Metstradamus Hall of Hate.

Metstradamus makes hate a beautiful thing.

Readers like myself love how Metstradamus expresses his hate. Every night he offers up a new hate list pertinent to the most recent Mets game or just stuff that's eatin' him. It's some of the most touching vitriol going. But the Hall of Hate is even more special. It's hallowed hate ground.

As no strangers to bile (by all means, revisit Faith and Fear's Met Hell, further down our sidebar when you get a chance), we take the subject of hate as it relates to our passion very seriously. That's why I respect what Metstradamus is doing so very much. It's a great public service.

Metstradamus' first Hall of Hate class, as chosen by The Seer himself, was inducted as an all-time detestment team. Much like the initial Cooperstown honorees — Cobb, Ruth, Wagner, Mathewson, Johnson — there could be little argument with the likes of Coleman, Bonilla, L. Jones, Clemens, Rocker, Harazin and the 1993 Mets home uniforms (“the official wardrobe of failure”).

If Metstradamus had left it at that, his work would have been monumental. But he saw greater things. He opened up induction to a second class of first-class jerks last August and left the decision to his readers. Five more mopes, morons and murderers (of franchises, anyway) were tapped on their shameful shoulders by immortality.

It's time again for the rest of us to choose.

It's time again for the rest of us to choose who belongs in the Metstradamus Hall of Hate.

It's time again for the rest of us to choose who belongs in the Metstradamus Hall of Hate because Metstradamus is going on vacation and he had to leave something on his blog to get us through what will be a long and winding week without him.

I've already voted. In the best tradition of self-important Sunday baseball columnists who walk you through their Cooperstown ballots every January, I will tell you who I voted for and why and who I didn't vote for and why.

Pete Rose: DIDN'T. Can't get worked up over Pete Rose after more than 30 years — and I'm pretty good about holding a grudge. He was just playing the game hard and all that when he slid into Buddy Harrelson. Too hard? Yeah, I suppose. Maybe if we had lost that NLCS or if Buddy had been damaged in some severe fashion. But it seems to have done wonders for Buddy's longevity on the public stage. He's the guy who stood up to Pete Rose.

Jeff Torborg: DID. I'm sure the reason the Braves have spiraled to the second division is they have hired this hollowed-out windbag as an analyst on Turner South. Likewise, the Mets became big-time turners to the south when he took over as manager in 1992. I hear his voice and the little hairs on my arm stand up on end. That's not because he's making excuses for Brian McCann in 2006. It's because he brings back that entire disgusting year of 1992 and the memories of how he piloted our ship to the bottom of Flushing Bay. How is he not in already?

Joe Torre: DIDN'T. Oh, he's awful and all that. And I understand there's a very basic crime where he's concerned, managing terrible Mets teams from 1977 through 1981 and doing what he's been doing since 1996. I didn't think the first part was really his fault and there have been so many others I blame first for the second part. I wish he'd go away, though.

Richie Hebner: DID, DID, DID. From what I can tell by reading his comments section, Metstradamus' demographics skew younger than Faith and Fear's. That's a problem where votes like this are concerned. It's the same reason a Gil Hodges doesn't make the Hall of Fame because after a while, those who didn't see him play make up a majority of the deciders. If you were around in 1979, you know “Hebner” should be a synonym for “Hate” in all manners Met. We have done what we can do to set the record straight by devoting the entire Sixth Circle of Met Hell to Richie Hebner. I can only ask you read the harrowing tale of the Windsor Hotel again and then go vote to condemn Richie Hebner to the Hall of Hate. He deserves it, trust me.

Jim Duquette: DIDN'T. On paper, he traded Scott Kazmir. But that's only because somebody else was grabbing his hand and forcing him to sign the dotted line. Jim Duquette did all he could in a very straitjacketed era of Mets general management to make Shea a marginally better place. I'm frankly surprised that he's on this ballot at all.

Tony Fernandez: DIDN'T. Considered by some a jaker for the way he was suddenly hurt when he came to a very bad Mets team and suddenly wasn't when he was sent back to a very good Blue Jays team. I'm not one to doubt one's claims of ill health. Maybe Tony Fernandez really did spend his two Met months passing a stone. Even if he didn't, Dallas Green intensely disliked him, and you know what they say about people Dallas Green intensely dislikes…they can't be all bad.

Eddie Murray: DIDN'T. For all his choruses of The Duke of Surl while he was here, he did manage to hit now and then. Maybe he was, as Bob Klapisch recently recalled, the instigator of the antisocial tendencies of the Worst Team era, but I've gotta think you bring a surefire Hall of Famer in here, it's you (Harazin, Torborg, Bonilla) bringing him down to your level.

Anthony Young: DIDN'T. Aw, that's just mean.

Gene Walter: DID. Great insight by Metstradamus to put him in this elite company. Gene Walter was the single most depressing relief pitcher this team has ever had, and that's going a ways. Maybe he'd slip into the abyss of decidedly unspecial lefty specialists with the Paul Gibsons and Lee Guettermans and Eric Gundersons except Walter came with a label. The front office, delighted with itself for ridding the organization of troublemaker (and future MVP) Kevin Mitchell for talent (and future sack of potatoes) Kevin McReynolds, hyped throw-in Gene as “death on lefthanders”. Geno still needs to work on his grim reaping.

Alejandro Peña: DIDN'T. Was effective against us. Was ineffective for us. Was traded and became effective for somebody else. When we start Hating players for that, we start being mad at caterpillars for evolving into butterflies.

Guillermo Mota: DID. A close call. I almost didn't vote for him because he hardly seems worth our disgust, but he did throw at our most important player and then run and hide like a…well, like a Guillermo Mota.

Mel Rojas: DIDN'T. Mel Rojas seemed more pathetic than hateful. We know his pitching was disastrous, but I don't remember him beating his chest à la Armando or hiding an injury like Looper or coming here of his own free will like Billy Wagner (who's great, of course; why even bring him up in this conversation?). He was supposed to be better than he showed. He wasn't. Bobby Valentine used him a few times too many and learned from his mistake. I'm willing to abide by deploying Mel Rojas as an example, as in “Jorge Julio reminded me of Mel Rojas except Julio straightened out some,” but that's as far as I'll go.

Steve Phillips: DID. The Steve Phillips Wing of the Metstradamus Hall of Hate must be erected at once to dishonor all arrogant, self-loving, two-faced, creepy slimebags who actually got to make personnel decisions that adversely affected millions of loyal fans.

Mike Francesa: DID. I'm not sure if he goes in for his nearly two decades of patronizing, condescending, ill-informed anti-Met cage-rattling or his two innings of dreadful play-by-play. I think it says something that the Blowhard is on the ballot but his partner, the Retard, is not. It shows that Francesa is seen as the brains of that outfit, and if you've listened to a single segment of Mike & The Mad Dog, you know that's a pretty hard slap at Chris Russo.

Dick Young: DID. I think we've got another demographic gap working against the historical record here. As with Hebner, Metstradamus' readers may not have been sentient in '77 when this once-vital, then-vile columnist was doing M. Donald Grant's dirty work and running Tom Seaver out of town. He attacked Seaver every day in the Daily News. He attacked Seaver's wife, the beautiful Nancy. He attacked Seaver's motives. He attacked Seaver's priorities. He attacked the man who brought more pleasure to more Mets fans than any man who has ever drawn breath. It was a concerted effort to cleanse the clubhouse of intelligence and free thinking, something Young had taken up as his wider cause from the late 1960s on. If you are a Mets fan and you have it in you to hate at all, you must hate Dick Young.

Independence Day is at hand. Our forefathers did not put themselves on the line just so we could barbecue and complain about the Pirates on Tuesday. Voting is a sacred obligation all Americans and all Mets fans are blessed to possess. Go then to Metstradamus and cast your ballot.

As John Adams declared in 1776, it's your duty, damn it.

Now vote.

Yes, I finally agree with all the naysayers and killjoys. The Subway Series is boring. Take today's ho-hummer for example.

Just another 8-3 win over some run-of-the-mill opponent from wherever.

Just another well-supported Steve Trachsel victory, his fifth in a row. He says he's fine despite the talk about his groin; I'd prefer not to talk about his groin at all.

Just another angst-free Billy Wagner 1-2-3 ninth. He says he's fine no matter what his ankle looked like at the end (and you can always trust a pitcher to tell the truth about his anatomy).

Just another cacophony of clutchy clouts from the Castros, Lo Ducas and Marreros, the heart of our clever tri-catcher attack.

Just another day of All-Star play from our, at last check, All-Star left side of the infield.

Just another cleaners–taking of Randy Johnson. More starch for his collar, please.

Just another afternoon of heads-up baseball, replacing this week's unfortunate heads-up-their-asses version of the sport. Of course it helps to face more Melky and much less Coco.

Just another triumph over the Yankees, our ninth in the last fourteen contests against them, clinching, for a third straight year, nothing worse than a tie in the six-game Subway set.

But who cares about such a detail? No, nothing interesting about beating the Yankees, nothing at all. Just business as usual.

Good business to be in, though.

OK. Deep breaths. You out there on the ledge, don't make any sudden movements. I'm not coming out to get you — we're just going to talk.

I know things seem bad right now, but let's try to maintain some perspective.

We knew this was going to be tough road trip, and it's turned into one. The turnaround was a bit sudden, but not really a surprise. Every team has down periods when everyone stops hitting at once — you didn't think we were going to put first-inning runs up every night until the end of October, did you? You knew Jose Reyes wasn't going to hit .600 for the rest of the year, right? We spent much of June insanely hot; we're cold right now, but average it out and we're pretty warm.

Yes, I know the starting pitching's seemed a little suspect of late, with Pedro hurt, El Duque old, Soler young and Trachsel Trachsel. But we have time to fix that, whether it's from within (Pelfrey, MacLane, Heilman, Maine, Bannister) or without. And while El Duque wasn't particularly inspiring tonight, you can't argue with his line. Two earned over seven innings? I'll take that every time out, thanks very much.

Yes, we've been doing some dopey things out there in the field, whether it's pitch selection or getting picked off every freaking night. Willie warned all of us not so long ago about the dangers of getting complacent — well, this is what he was talking about. While Willie may make some questionable calls strategically, he's shown himself to be a terrific clubhouse manager. He's not going to let this get out of control. I wouldn't be surprised by a little clubhouse chat about bearing down and playing every game like it's No. 163 and the loser goes home.

Of course, it's a marathon and not a sprint, and marathon's are tough on the body. The team's beat up now, no way around it: Lo Duca's thumb, Pedro's hip, Cliff's ankle, Nady's wrist, Delgado's ribs, probably a host of other bumps and bruises we don't know about. That's part of the long season. We'll come through it and find it's happened to one of the clubs chasing us.

Oh, and let's remember that chase: The Marlins are 10.5 out, and while they're not to be dismissed (great story, in fact), they've got neither the horses nor the experience. The Phillies are hurtling downward in flames, the Braves just finished a 6-21 month and the Nationals have cratered. As my co-blogger likes to remind me, there's no extra credit for style points. If you finish first, nobody remembers how many games up you were on the last day or that your lead had been bigger earlier in the summer.

We're 10.5 up on July 1. If we could have looked in a crystal ball in March and seen that, we'd have redefined ecstatic and formed the world's biggest blue-and-orange conga line. And if we'd looked in the crystal ball and seen that we were all in the dumps despite that rather astonishing lead, we'd have concluded that we'd all gone insane.

10.5 games up on July 1. Deep breaths. Don't look down. Take my hand. Everything will be fine.