Kaz Matsui shouldn't have been a New York Met. It was wrong for him, it was wrong for us.

This was not Reggie Jackson and George Steinbrenner, one of whom was a liar and the other was convicted, thus they deserved each other — as an overwrought, overbuzzed Billy Martin so memorably and accurately framed it. We didn't deserve Kaz. Kaz didn't deserve us.

We both deserved better.

To this night, when we learned that our long international nightmare was over, I never understood how Kaz Matsui became a pin cushion for Mets fans. I mean, yeah, I get that he didn't succeed and those who don't succeed aren't generally treated royally, but how could you boo that face? I spent 2-1/3 seasons just feeling sorry for the guy. I'd like to believe the negative reaction was to his presence and performance, and that it was nothing personal, though I'm not sure why I'm still worried about it.

Kaz Matsui never uttered a cross word (at least one that was translated) about his tormentors in the stands. He never let on that he didn't like how he was being used (not that he gave his managers much choice). He never sat off in a corner of the dugout by his lonesome, George Foster style. The other night, after Milledge's second homer, Kaz was jumping up and down and congratulating a guy he presumably barely knew. That, I thought, is a good teammate.

That said, there was no good reason for his being signed to play here. Given the money ($8 mil a year for three years), the domino effect (shifting Reyes to second) and the allocation of resources (Jose had just staked his claim to shortstop, so WTF?), you could argue that it was the dumbest high-profile free agent acquisition in Mets history that didn't involve Vince Coleman's signature.

Even if the Mets weren't the only MLB team that saw something special in him based on his stellar Japanese career (and his potential Asian-American fan appeal), they simply didn't need him. This wasn't the '93 Braves enhancing a rotation of Glavine, Smoltz and Avery with Maddux. You can always use more great pitching. You can only do so much with two shortstops, especially if the new one isn't Alex Rodriguez.

The Mets had no business trying to convert Reyes to second. Once that was deduced, it was a shame Matsui couldn't pull off that switch. He was as inept at second in 2005 as he was at short in 2004. Definitely looked fine defensively this year, but he never came close to mastering Western pitching on a going basis. Maybe getting the whole package was too much to ask for, though at these prices, you're entitled to inquire.

I'm a little sad to see him go not because I was anticipating a Matsui resurrection in the second half and not because he left behind such a stacked résumé of Mets accomplishments. Actually, I'm not sure why I'm sad to see him go. I guess it's because he did show flashes of ability and he did seem like such a nice fellow and he did deserve better. But since he shouldn't have been here in the first place, this is better.

In late 2003, Kaz was the cornerstone of Jim Duquette's Catch The Energy, let's get athletic rebuilding program. Tonight he was traded to Colorado with two sacks of cash for Eli Marrero. At this point, we would have accepted Eli Whitney and a cotton gin to be named later.

To recap, Kaz Matsui is a Rockie. Anderson Hernandez and Jeff Keppinger are Tides. And your everyday starting second baseman in everything but name is Jose Valentin, who's become pretty darn good at it, hitting and fielding. Even a month ago, did anybody see that coming?

Wha? Grim? What is there to possibly be grim about after El Duque took a gleeful, terrible revenge on the team that just got done trading him? Why, the old man carved that lineup up like they were a bunch of El Rooques. Carlos Beltran smacked his 15th homer, putting him one behind last year's total, though he probably should have got credit for an extra homer, considering his shot was hit so hard that fans out in right probably saw it arrive before they heard it struck. Heck, young Mr. Milledge can even juggle.

I enjoyed it. I really did. But it was like enjoying the sunshine as dark clouds gather and the TV keeps beeping with a hurricane warning. I apologize in advance for this, but I'm gonna go over some news of the last day or two — not because I think it'll be new to most of us, but because it's going to be the background for a lot that's to come in the next weeks or months. We'll be familiar with it soon enough; may as well start now.

Back in April Jason Grimsley, a journeyman middle reliever with the very Diamondbacks we just beat, was told by his wife that some men were at the door to see him. The men were federal agents. They told Grimsley they knew he'd just received two kits of human growth hormone in the mail, and asked him to fetch them and come with them for a talk. He did, and they talked for hours. Hours in which Grimsley said he'd taken steroids, HGH and amphetamines. He said he'd stopped taking steroids when baseball instituted a new testing regimen, but kept going with HGH, perfectly aware that no urine test could detect it, that blood tests for it weren't totally reliable, and that the collective bargaining agreement didn't allow for blood tests anyway. He talked of the drug culture in the game, saying Latino players and players from the California teams were sources of amphetamines, saying that sleazy doctors at wellness clinics were sources of HGH, and naming names. Here's the affidavit — take a look at all the stuff that's blacked out.

Those names won't stay blacked out for long — and they don't just include players, but the ubiquitous “conditioning coaches” whose role seems to increasingly triangulate between trainer, hanger-on and middleman for dirty business. Deadspin is already working its sources to fill in some of the names, and while its guesswork is still just that, it's informed guesswork. And it already points — on Day Two — to a possible connection that, if true, would be a crushing blow to the game.

And there will be more. Much more. For in Grimsley the feds found a perfect tour guide for the Steroids Era — he came up in '89, with the hideousness of this era just beginning to bloom, and he's played for the Phillies, Indians, Yankees, Royals, Angels, Orioles and D'Backs, not to mention minor-league stints with the Brewers, Astros and Tigers. That's a third of MLB organizations right there.

And you know what? It's more frightening that Jason Grimsley is the face of HGH than it is that Barry Bonds is the face of steroids. Because Jason Grimsley is anonymous. He's the interchangeable middle reliever, the guy you run through a dozen of during the season in a grouchy quest to find one or two who don't totally suck. If those guys are on the juice, how far does it go? Look at this list: Rafael Palmeiro is the exception, not the rule. This list is minor-leaguers and guys on the end of the bench. Wanna say that the stars are clean, that they don't need to juice, and it's the guys scrambling for jobs who yield to the temptation to go dirty? Good luck with that.

Grimsley was never a Met, but we're not immune. Five guys in The Holy Books — Grant Roberts, Jorge Toca, Wilson Delgado, Felix Heredia and Matt Lawton — have already been nailed, as have four Met minor-leaguers. How many Mets would claim places in The Dirty Books, if all were somehow revealed?

Try not to think about it. If you can. Don't start thinking of Mets since '90 or so and wondering. If you can.

I'm not going to put my suspicions in print, because there's too much of that stuff in Blogland already, but there are Mets from the last 15 years whom I cheered for and whom I'd now bet any amount of money were dirty. And there are more and more Mets from that period whom I don't openly suspect, but whom I wouldn't be shocked to find occupying the pages of TDB. And there are more and more Mets about whom I no longer feel safe assuming anything at all. Which points to the worst part of all this: The internal debate is moving, almost too quickly for us to keep up, from “I wonder if So-and-So was dirty” to “I'm pretty sure that at least So-and-So is clean.”

It's vile, corrosive stuff, this doubting, and in the midst of El Duque's superb performance I found myself looking around the field, wondering. Wondering at chiseled physiques, at rebounds from injury, at performances defying age. Wondering about things and players I'd never wondered about before. Until finally I was just wondering.

ESPN has a poll up about the issue now, and two numbers on it stand out: 93% of fans believe Grimsley's statement that “boatloads” of players are using HGH, and 58% said if their favorite player turned out to be dirty, they'd feel deceived. (Hell, if my favorite player turns out to be dirty, I might never believe anything again.) Put those two numbers together and you have a train wreck, and not a far-off one, either. It's right around this next bend. Don't think for a minute we're going to walk away unscathed.

I'm reading a pretty good book called A Great Day in Cooperstown about how the Hall of Fame came to be and the festive occasion its opening was. All the immortals who were still alive in 1939 — Walter Johnson, Cy Young, Tris Speaker, a recently retired Babe Ruth — came to Upstate New York and caused quite the commotion. I wondered what it must have been like to have witnessed modern baseball in its formative years, to have seen these players create the game as we know it, to possibly bump into one of them on Main Street when they showed up to get enshrined.

It must have been tremendous, I decided, but it's all right that I wasn't there then because if I had been, I wouldn't be around now. And if I weren't around now, I wouldn't be seeing Lastings Milledge in his formative years recreating the game we will know in the 21st century.

That's how far gone I am over this kid who's been a Met for a week and change. I had held it in check until last night, but by this morning, as I savored the back page of the late edition of the Daily News which documented his ARM & HAMMER…well, WOO! as the scoreboard often says. I'm head over heels for Lastings Milledge.

Yes, he's to be mentioned with the residents of Pantheon Row. Of course I'm searching my mental database for whether we've ever had anybody like him (we haven't) or whether we've produced and employed a trio of homegrowners like Reyes, Wright and him simultaneously (we also haven't). I've skipped over the ifs in record time, slid around the ands, and slammed the buts over the leftfield wall. No ifs, ands or buts, Lastings Milledge is as awesome a Met as I could imagine.

Xavier Nady? Swell fella. I hope Willie finds him some at-bats.

I've flipped through all the obvious precedents. He's not Ron Swoboda. He's not Mike Vail. He's not Alex Ochoa. He's not Benny Agbayani. He's not Victor Diaz or Craig Brazell or Mike Jacobs even. I have no evidence, only intuition, and I'm likin' what I'm feelin'. He's not Darryl Strawberry, either, though after watching him do everything right last night, I no longer mean that in the “don't compare him to a superstar yet,” but rather “Darryl was no Lastings, not at this stage of his career”…career meaning, if I'm not mistaken, eight games to date.

It's not much of a sample, but what sample it is makes me want to order the complete set right now. Lastings Milledge has filled up my senses like a night in the forest, like the mountains in springtime, like a walk in the rain.

Holy Honus Wagner! He's hitting, he's running, he's throwing, he's got me channeling John Denver.

I'm gone, baby. Waaaaaaaay gone.

666 is SO 6/6/06. On June 7, it was all about .667.

Two outta three, two outta three, two outta three. If the Mets wanna do a three outta four this weekend, nobody here would argue the point. But after one hellish night, we'll take our two of three and pack for Phoenix with no complaints.

Win more series than you lose. When you lose a series, as we did to the Giants, pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start winning series all over again the way we just completed doing against the Dodgers. That's a habit to which we had grown accustomed when we were recently routinely (if often dramatically) taking two of three from the Yankees, two of three from the Phillies, two of three from the Marlins and two of three from the Diamondbacks. That's five series out of six. If that's a lifestyle choice, it's a good one.

The 666 thing, the business about omens and demons and whatnot, is the day before yesterday's news. Sure, Rafael Furcal is Satan for certain, but he was only one of nine opposing batters. Tom Glavine, pitching more than badly enough to lose, held up against the rest of the Dodger order just well enough to be rescued by his jury-rigged lineup. Glavine got a win he didn't really deserve? How's that for throwing the change-of-pace?

Any Met win is a great win but any Met win that includes major contributions from the village elder — Julio Franco starts, drives in two and scores a third from first — and the Milledge child — Lastings triples home Julio, homers home two more and guns down Garciaparra at second on a pea from left — eases gnawing concerns that this will be the roadtrip from hell. Or to hell. Hopefully, it will be just another visit to the dry heat of Arizona. 2-1 down, four to go.

One at a time and all that, but would a series sweep be too much to ask for? You know, just for the heck of it.

What's larger than a gully, smaller than a canyon and feels like an abyss?

A ravine.

• Like Chavez Ravine, where Dodger Stadium was built five years after Walter O'Malley bolted Brooklyn for Los Angeles.

• Like the Chavez ravine that opened up in the middle of our lineup last night when a slap-hitter named Endy stepped into a hole created when a slugger named Cliff stepped into a hole in Chavez Ravine, swallowing whole our slugging out of the six-hole and slapping our chances somewhere over a cliff.

• Like the seemingly bottomless ravine that a West Coast night game creates all day and well into the evening back east.

Games like Tuesday night's, battered as they are with bumps, bruises and BS, are horrible at any longitude. But yes Mr. Petty, the waaaaaaiting is the hardest part. I can't believe how wide the chasm is between 7:10 PM EDT and 7:10 PM PDT. This is about as much fun as being told the doctor's running a little behind, it'll be just a few more minutes…three nights in a row. Bring a good book.

There may be entertaining things to watch and productive things to do in the interregnum, but I swear the world slows to a crawl when you're counting down to a California start. The struggle to make it to the first pitch may be more tormenting than the battle to remain awake for the last out.

Right now, it's late afternoon in New York. And there are still more than five hours to go. No game 'til 10. No Floyd 'til further notice. No certainty about Reyes. Just one long noooooo stubbornly ensconced in our collective gut from last night's nocturnal debacle. And miles to go before we sleep.

I hate Walter O'Malley.

So. Did we have fun?

Let's see. There was Jose Reyes getting scratched before things even started, leading to the somewhat odd sight of Chris Woodward at the top of the lineup. There was Cliff Floyd turning over on an ankle and having to be helped off the field, leading to the somewhat odd sight of Endy Chavez in the middle of the lineup. Then there was Carlos Beltran showing the trainers what he'd hurt after landing hard on the warning track, at which point I may actually have blacked out for holding my breath.

I didn't think any of that was fun.

Oh, the non-injury part of the game? There was Pedro realizing he'd come out of the bullpen weaponless and trying to make it up as he went, only to have even his legendary improv skills desert him. (I tried to convince myself that having been lights-out in May with nothing to show for it, Pedro would logically get a win when he didn't deserve one. Guess not.) There was Heath Bell, doing very little to indicate he's about to reward the faith statheads and stathead wannabes keep putting in him. (Imprison Heath Bell!) And worst of all, there was Jose Valentin trying to figure out what to do with a glove that had suddenly turned to stone.

That wasn't any fun either.

Our 7th-inning insurrection? OK, that was fun — I dared to hope after Saito came in and promptly walked Wright, bringing the tying run to the plate. But is it a crime to have wished for more fun? When Valentin came up, I was thinking redemption, atonement, and all those good qualities baseball can provide to the patient and the pure of heart. And then … Martin set up on the outside corner … and Saito threw a fastball that missed. In fact, it had a good chunk of plate … and Valentin popped it up.

That was particularly no fun.

After Valentin's pop-up came down, I was thinking that tomorrow's the rubber game. Because much as I like Milledge, and much as I believe in our team's heart and moxie and can-do spirit, the baseball gods had spoken.

The New York Mets would like to apologize to the Los Angeles Dodgers for taking a series-opening win from them Monday night. It was just, they swear, their way of soothing the hurt feelings of San Francisco Giants reliever Steve Kline who was critical of Lastings Milledge's momentary lapse of accepted decorum and gauche display of a pulse Sunday afternoon.

Lastings Milledge would like to keep on apologizing to all who are miffed by his youth, exuberance and talent. He feels terrible about that run he drove in against Brett Tomko in the sixth. If Tomko was offended that Milledge all but knocked him out of the game, then Milledge apologizes for that, too.

Mets fans who sat down the right field line Sunday have signed a letter of apology to Milledge for sticking their hands out, palms front, for him to slap in the wake of his dramatic tenth-inning, game-tying, career-first home run. They now see they placed a terrible temptation in the young man's path and are filled with remorse that they may have led him astray.

Jose Reyes would like to apologize to the Dodger Stadium scoreboard operator for showing him up by leading off Monday night's game with a home run. It's very showy to put up a 1 right away and Jose feels terrible about it.

Carlos Delgado would like to apologize to his slump for the two-run homer that followed. The slump was shown up something awful by Carlos' swing, and Delgado is a professional and never would have done that had he realized it could be taken the wrong way.

Jose Valentin would like to apologize to Kaz Matsui for hitting and fielding well. Valentin now knows succeeding at second base is really just another way to show up Matsui, who was calmly and professionally batting .205 before giving way to his reluctant successor.

Alay Soler, through an interpreter, says he is deeply sorry that he shut down the Dodgers for seven innings and earned his first big league win. He reserves his most sincere apologies for the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks, the two teams that might feel shown up because he didn't pitch nearly as well against them and now they are left wondering if they were offered a true test of his abilities.

Chad Bradford sincerely hopes Billy Wagner didn't take his saving the opener against the Dodgers the wrong way. Chad understands now that it is wrong that anybody besides the designated closer secures a victory. He'll see to it that it doesn't happen again, though he can't promise anything. And for that, Bradford apologizes some more.

Pedro Martinez would like to apologize in advance to his teammates for the guilt and shame with which they will be racked when they won't score for him Tuesday night. He is ashamed already.

Willie Randolph sends regrets to the New York Yankee clubhouse staff for forgetting to return their very long and pointed stick upon leaving their organization to become manager of the New York Mets. It had just been up his ass for so long, he explains, that he forgot it was there.

Bravo! You have thrown around more inside-baseball dance terms in one post than I have in the decade-plus that I've been attending performances of the New York City Ballet. It's one of those things, rather obviously driven by my non-blogging better half, that I've come to appreciate without really learning a lot about. I just kind of know what I like when I see it.

I can't say I liked the date of Sunday, June 4 for our annual visit, but I signed off on it somewhere back in the winter, gambling that missing a few innings of Bondsmania wasn't going to kill me. That I'm still technically alive proves I was right, but while ballet played out in front of me and baseball played on without me, it was touch and go there for a while.

Keeping up on afternoons like Sunday is the luck of the draw, but you've got to work your opportunities. I caught just enough of the game to feel informed and missed just enough to be completely in the dark.

Train ride in: The David homers. We lead 1-0. Plenty of time for pizza at Don Pepi at Penn Station in advance of the 3 o'clock start (or curtain, as Stephanie calls it).

Emerging from the 1 at Lincoln Center: Resume radio contact with too much apparently going on. Trachsel wriggles out of a jam, retiring Bonds to preserve 1-1 tie in the middle of six.

First ballet: An American in Paris, led by the incomparable Damian Woetzel. Why is he incomparable? Because he's the only principal dancer whose name I recognize anymore. But he (and George Gershwin) totally carried the piece. He earns my most sincere applause of the day to this point. DW = David Wright. DW = DW = Damian Woetzel. They're both kicking ass. DW II is the early choice for the evening's headline if things work out.

First intermission: Years of May and June Sunday matinees have taught me where to stand to receive WFAN inside the New York State Theater. On the Third Ring level, it's the picture window overlooking Lincoln Center's famous fountain, avoiding all obstructions if possible. I march to my spot. Long commercial break. Probably means a call to the bullpen. But whose? Ah, crap, Chad Bradford is coming in. The Giants have scored three in the eighth and now lead 4-3. We led 3-1? Bradford does his bit for the arts by coaxing a DP out of Alfonzo Alfonso Alfo… whoever. Inning over, valuable intermission time being used up by more commercials. Let's hear who's up for us in the bottom of the eighth. It's Wright! OK, I'll wait through The David's at-bat, you never know, he might hit another home run. And he hit another home run. It's 4-4! I pump a fist — the best player in town ties 'er up while I'm getting my culture on; what a madcap Manhattan weekend! — and go back to my seat. Anything else the Mets do will be interrupted by those damn bongs that call you back in anyway.

Second ballet: I'm interested in the guest conductor because he has the same last name as a branch of my family that is chock full of classical musicians. I've never heard of this guy, though. I wonder if he's related? A glance through the opera glasses is inconclusive. A later Google search yields no evidence that we share anything but an alibi for why we weren't watching the ninth inning. Fancy Free, I am reminded, inspired the film On The Town, not the other way around. It was first produced in 1944. Sailors on leave, drinking, fighting, chasing skirts. I've been to the ballet enough now that I can say I've seen it before. Stephanie agrees that it didn't seem particularly fresh.

Second intermission: Out onto the patio off the First Ring where the other patrons drink and smoke and perhaps impress one another with their use of balletic terms. I'm unraveling my cord and tuning in, allegro. The game is in the tenth. Nothing happened after DW I hit his second of the day, but he's leading off again…and facing the dreaded Benitez. Tom McCarthy diplomatically explains for all listeners under the age of six that while Armando had many big saves for the Mets when he was a Met, he also didn't several times. Armando retires The David. One out, no chance. Jose Valentin up. Maybe Valentin will do something. He sure as shootin' does. Home run! Of course it's 6-5 and I remember Mike hitting one off Armando when he was a Marlin and Armando still holding on. Bastard. Stephanie, who's bought her annual NYCB t-shirt, and I hear the first set of bongs. I could wait out the intermission to the bitter end, but I don't want to cut it close. Not because I care all that much about the third ballet but because these audiences are notorious for the dirty looks they give you when you need to get by them to find your seat. I swear it's some sort of tradition, like the Bleacher Bums who throw the enemy homers back at Wrigley.

Third ballet: Whoever put the program together screwed up. An American in Paris, specifically Woetzel, was so good that it should have closed the afternoon. Fancy Free was sturdy enough to hold down the middle. But this thing in the three-hole, N.Y. Export: Opus Jazz was a Benetton ad meets Hurray For Everything. And it could have taken bronze in a high school talent show if the competition wasn't too tough. I've seen enough ballet to know what I don't like, too. The novelty has worn thin and I'm wondering what the hell happened after Valentin's homer. Did we go down futilely to Baby Huey? Is it possible there had been yet another danceoff win? Victory or defeat? I must know! Would my pulling out my phone, turning down the sound and fiddling with whatever function gives me scores be ruder than the ladies at the end of the row who gave us the punim as they grudgingly rose to let us through when we got here? Fortunately this unendearing audition for Up With People ends — the dancers milking the curtain all the way; I think it's required — and we race out of our Ring. We agree to meet after we make our respective pit stops (the men's room at the ballet is pretty much a private comfort station while the line at the ladies room likely began when George Balanchine was just discovering his feet). I knew I'd have time to catch up with how the game concluded.

After the final curtain: THEY'RE STILL PLAYING? Yes, they are. It was 6-5 when I left the Mets and Armando to carry out their maneuvers. Tom and Eddie are kvelling about how 48,000 were in attendance and many are still here given all the magic moments they've seen. MAGIC MOMENTS? WHAT MAGIC MOMENTS? HOW DID THE METS TIE IT? Somebody says something about the Mets having been down to their last strike when Lastings Milledge hit the game-tying homer, the first of his career. LASTINGS MILLEDGE HIT THE GAME-TYING HOMER, THE FIRST OF HIS CAREER? AND I MISSED IT? Suddenly, I was the Jimmy Fallon character in Fever Pitch whose night of romantic bliss with Drew Barrymore was rent asunder when he found out the Red Sox scored eight in the bottom of the ninth to beat the Yankees in the first home game he had missed in eleven years. I always thought that portrayal was a little over-the-top, but I now owe it an apology. I MISSED LASTINGS MILLEDGE'S MAGICAL GAME-TYING, FIRST-EVER, TENTH-INNING HOME RUN OFF ARMANDO BENITEZ TO WATCH THE FUCKING BALLET, AND NOT EVEN THE GOOD PART WHICH WAS PERFORMED IN THE SEVENTH, AND I'LL BET DAMIAN WOETZEL HIMSELF IS BACKSTAGE WATCHING THIS ON CHANNEL ELEVEN? “And once again the Mets are down to their last strike,” Eddie, I think, said. Hey, wait a minute…last strike? I assumed it was still 6-6 from Milledge's first-ever home run that I missed. Had the Giants gone ahead AGAIN? Apparently they had. And apparently that would be that. Giants 7 Mets 6. Final in 12.

As we walked down Broadway, I sorted out my emotions while catching up with the highlights. Eddie Coleman's call of Lastings' long shot was the best thing I've ever heard come out of his mouth and as honest a description I've ever heard in a baseball game. He was, to quote Mel Allen, partisan without being prejudicial. Eddie was excited. I was excited and it had taken place like an hour earlier. Gosh, it would have been nice to have waited out that second intermission and heard it as it happened. Would have been even nicer to have won. I'd have leaned over the Third Ring and high-fived every dancer I could. But we didn't win. And I did miss it. Then again, the Diamondbacks swept the Braves. The Phillies were leading the Dodgers on the Coast, but by the time I discovered that tidbit, we had found a Cuban place on Eighth Avenue for dinner. At some point, you simply have to concede that you can neither see nor win them all.

Ah, the ballet. I watched some myself today.

For a while, the matinee between the New York and San Francisco companies seemed hardly worth saving the program. There was a fine performance from Steve Trachsel, who's not exactly a diva but known to like everything just so, and to take changes in his carefully established routine out onstage with him. The other lead, Matt Morris, is most certainly a diva, as was obvious when Barry Bonds was nowhere to be seen as Carlos Delgado's sixth-inning double bounced off the wall: Morris spread his arms out as if to say, “What on earth?” Oh dear: Recent asterisks and clubhouse reputation aside, that's a Hall of Famer out there, and more importantly, he's wearing your colors. The San Francisco company appears to need a little group therapy.

Barry, ugh. There's nothing more cringeworthy than an aging dancer falling out of pirouettes and not being able to stay en pointe. He still fills out that orange and black tutu impressively, but the horizontal Arabesque he essayed during what became an Endy Chavez triple was painful. His replacement, Jason Ellison, was slightly more graceful: Only a hasty en arriere by Jose Valentin prevented Ellison from erasing him as the tail end of a most unlikely 5-4-7 double play. That would have been one to stare at in the scorebook when discovered years hence.

Alas, Bonds wasn't the only one whose art was lacking today. Jose Reyes, normally so reliable, opened the door to horror by getting too cute on a double-play ball. He's still just 22, our Jose, so you have to expect the occasional young-player mistake, but that was a bad time for a casual toss a la seconde. As for Sanchez walking in a run, well, merde.

And that's not even mentioning my favorite move from today's exhibition: The nifty pas de deux between Reyes and Morris with Reyes on third and only Manny Acta for company, thanks to the overshift against Delgado. Morris's look of terror at seeing Jose 40-odd feet down the line was priceless, as was the crowd all but ordering him to steal home. (Too bad it all came to naught.) I would like to know what passed between Acta and Reyes before Jose seemed to shorten his lead; I bet he was told he was distracting Delgado as much as he was bothering Morris. Whatever the communication, Jose looked like a Lab who'd just had the expensive cowboy boot he was chewing on taken away: He seemed to understand, but wasn't going to hide how disappointed he was.

And, of course, the half-inning that had the crowd all demi-pointes. That would be our belated (and ultimately ineffectual) revenge against one Armando Benitez. Yesterday Armando seemed like a lock for a walks-then-a-big-hit meltdown and wriggled free; today he seemed like all systems were go and then inexplicably threw a rod. Confusion reigned in the Fry/Bernstein household, however (or at least in my half of it): We'd had to pause TiVo and so were 40-odd seconds behind with Valentin at the plate when Joshua accidentally changed the channel, erasing TiVo's recording and hurling us into the present, but on some random channel. I flipped back (26? Augghh! Think! Oh! 11!) just in time to see Lastings' drive sail over the fence, which threw me into a paroxysm of rage: Oh these tack-on runs! Now it's 6-5 and Lastings' homer doesn't matter! Second night in a row! Fricking Heilman! And he got got by the guy from Double-A whose name still isn't spelled right on his uniform! Wait, why is the WB claiming it's 6-6? Stupid WB, they can't even get…wait a minute, did somebody else homer? Valentin? Endy? Who cares? YAAAAAY!!!!

(As for Milledge's post-homer oh-no-he-didn't decision to slap hands with the customers along the right-field line, we'll revisit it the first time he faces a Giant next year and immediately takes a pitch in the earflap. For now, let's just say that when the other team's psycho reliever, your own cool veteran and your old-school manager agree you fucked up and tell the press as much, you fucked up.)

All in all, a recital that see-sawed from exhilirating to excruciating, but was never anything less than hugely entertaining. I only wish I could let go of my quarrel with the New York company's choreographer: In the 8th, with Valentin on second and nobody out in a tie game, why was Chavez bunting? The base-out matrix will tell you that's a bad idea, but you didn't have to be a stats geek to hate that call. Bunting there puts Milledge — a rookie who had two big hits but has also looked very overeager — up against a guy who's a ground-ball machine. If the 21-year-old can't get it done, you've got a pinch-hitter coming in with two outs. And, indeed, Milo grounded out and Franco struck out. Ack!

Oh well. We didn't get the win, but I can't say I wasn't riveted. Sometimes you wind up delivering your Bravos to the other guys.

(Ballet terms butchered thanks to Wikipedia.)