Ninth inning, nobody out, Chipper Jones on first after David Wright kicked away a tough ground ball.

Gary — perfectly understandably, and properly — was talking about how this was the kind of game that historically had gotten away from the Mets at Turner Field.

“Fuck that ghost bullshit,” I said. “It's a new year, and this is a fucking good team.”

A few moments later, Andruw Jones smacked the ball to Reyes, and I knew it was a double play, because of course Andruw Jones wasn't running hard. Two out, Jeff Francoeur up, high fastball, and we've taken the series, ensured a winning record for one of the year's toughest road trips, and moved out to a seven-game lead. Thank you very much. *

It's been an article of faith in recent years that “this team” — whatever “this team” means in a given season — isn't afraid of the Braves, that the horrors of Turner Field and the Jones Boys and the magical expanding Maddux/Glavine/Smoltz strike zone and the Tomahawk Chop live mostly in the minds of us fans, and not in the players' skulls. I always tried desperately to believe that and somehow convinced myself that I did, right up until the point where Brian Jordan annihilated us or Braden Looper blew the save twice, when I'd realize that I'd never thought anything of the sort and had just been waiting for the headsman to show up with his ax.

I've seen the Braves lie in the weeds until midsummer too many times to get giddy, NL East April records notwithstanding, and heard too much oddly dour/swaggering early-season talk from the respective clubhouses to doubt the Braves will be the thing under the bed until our division's sun finally rises and proves them a figment of our collective imaginations. But something feels different this year, and I think I know what it is. And it's corny as all get-out: Whatever this year's crop of Mets believes about the Braves/Mets rivalry or Turner Field is a lot less important than the fact that this team believes in itself.

Chipper comes off the DL, takes Pedro deep and puts them back in the game? That's OK, just keep dealing and keep the pressure on their pen. The closer gets given a big lead and somehow puts the tying run on base with an old Met hero at the plate in enemy colors? Hey, bear down, do your job, we'll get home safe. The third baseman boots a ground ball with the thinnest possible margin for error and the meat of their order coming up? Get another ground ball, we'll see what happens this time.

The walls are bleeding, there's an evil face in the fireplace and the batboy keeps twitching his finger and croaking WURDNA? Shine a flashlight that way, stick with me and fear no darkness.

* OK, right after the ghost comment I did turn to Emily and say, “If Andruw hits a walkoff I'm gonna have this TV off before he reaches first base,” but that's just sensible, like one-handing away a big Band-Aid that's covering six inches of leg hair. My point stands.

The Devil who Went Down To Georgia and wound up laying that golden fiddle on the ground at Johnny's feet made out better in his trips there than we have. But we're not the devils in this. We've been lambs to the slaughter, particularly upon arrival.

We go down to Georgia, we go down in Georgia. Not much of a tourism slogan, but true enough. Ultimate Mets Database confirms my hunch: Of the 26 first games we've played in Turner Field (first of one, two, three or four), we've lost 17 of them. That includes the sweetly bitter 1999 National League Championship Series because why wouldn't you count that?

After last night, we're 21-54 all told at the Dead. Subtract those first games and we're 12-37. So we're not particularly good when we show up (.346) but we're absolutely dreadful (.245) for the rest of our stay.

You may be thinking, as I am, “You mean we've won nine series-openers in Atlanta since that place opened? Wow!” But even that's not terribly impressive. We won our very first game there, part of a three-of-four taking in July '97 that had me at home and Joe Benigno on WFAN insisting that this guaranteed the Mets would be in the playoffs…that year. Didn't happen because it was a tease. The Braves are good at letting us have the occasional opener so we are lulled into believing god-knows-what about ourselves. In '97, it was “we can beat these guys.”

If you can stretch back far enough, you'll recall we were actually a pretty good match for Atlanta when we weren't a pretty good match for anybody. In the otherwise unremarkable Metsian years of 1994, 1995 and 1996, when the Braves were winning two pennants and a World Series, we were 18-17 against them. Then they come to Shea in June 1997 and lose two of three to us. Our first trip to Turner, with the bat slipping repeatedly from Todd Pratt's hands and Butch Huskey sparking and Alex Ochoa completing a dramatic comeback on Sunday Night Baseball, continued our mysterious mastery of our otherwise betters. That ESPN classic brought us to a 3-1/2 year cume of 23-19 against what had been the best and most consistent team in baseball during that period. It was only a matter of time.

But time for what we didn't know. Eliminate that first opener on July 10, 1997 and, because we don't what will follow it, last night's, and we're 7-17 in Turner openers. Seventeen painful losses, yet seven great wins, right?

Um, I don't know about that. The next three times we touched down in the land of the Delta blues (the airline, not the river), we really could have used a win and we didn't get one. Not in the quixotic September of '97, a Wild Card bid still dancing tantalizingly down the third base line (it was picked off when Bobby Jones' right hand was too sweaty or perhaps not sweaty enough to properly control the ball in the first inning on 9/17), not in the pre-All Star heat of '98 (or have you forgotten Glavine outclassing Brian Bohanon on 7/3?) and surely not in the taping of the ever-reviled Jay Payton PSA of 9/25/98 when Major League Baseball fed him those memorable lines, “Kids, always be sure that you're Out At Third.”

I thought it was a New World Coming on June 25, 1999 when the Oleruds overcame the Odalises. We won the lidlifter 10-2, pulling to within two games of first place. We left Atlanta four games out. The less said about the next three times we went down to Georgia (the beginning of the September slide; NLCS Game One; NLCS Game Six), the better for the moment.

We ended the '90s having opened in Atlanta's shiny new jewel box eight times. We went 2-6. The two wins set us up for several falls. What would the new century bring? No wins, no tease. We lost both openers (7/21, 9/18) in 2000 and counted our lucky stars — we can admit that now — that there was no further opportunity for “revenge” in the playoffs.

OK, that made us 2-8 in these situations. Since we've established we're 9-17 overall, you can do the math and figure that we're 7-9 opening series at Turner Field since 2001. Even if we put aside last night's as previously suggested, we're 6-9. Not great, but not quite as awful as we perceive, eh?

Perceive again. MLB decided intradivisional play needed to be increased. That gave us three regular-season series per annum in Atlanta. Instead of waiting around until June or July, we got one out of the box in 2001. And we won on Opening Night (4/3) when Robin Ventura hit two homers, a go-ahead blow off Rocker in the eighth and, after Franco and Wendell would give it back, the winner off Ligtenberg in the tenth. We were 1-0, they were 0-1. I skipped home from work where I refused to leave until it was over (it was a long game and a long skip) and came back the next day convinced that this was going to be 1986 reincarnated. It wasn't. We came back to Atlanta twice in 2001, losing painfully when it didn't seem to matter (6/28) and routinely when it couldn't have mattered more (9/28).

That brought us to 3-10 from 1997 to 2001 in the first games of Turner series. The next three years would be the golden age of those affairs. What? You don't remember 2002, 2003 and 2004 as any kind of golden age?

Exactly. The Braves let us have fun when it was of no use to us and no harm to them. It may not have appeared that way early in 2002 when we were making statements left and right, or so we thought. We slammed them good on April 5 by a 9-3 score, behind the power bat of Jeromy Burnitz and the power arm of Pedro Astacio. Yeah, this was gonna be the year.

It was gonna be the year, all right, but not the year of anything good. The Braves shook off our statement, went on to win the division by a zillion games and, in the way others store their socks, folded us and stuck us in a drawer the next two times (6/3, 9/10) we dropped by.

By 2003, even the hardest-core Mets fan had to admit the mostly imaginary Mets-Braves rivalry was on hiatus. They were still champing and we were in full collapse. No wonder, then, that it was the first year in the history of Turner Field that we won more series-openers there than we lost. Or have you forgotten the glorious rocket unleashed by Tsuyoshi Shinjo to nail Chipper at home for the final out on May 23? His throw and companion high-five from Timo Perez was surely the high point of Shinjo II, and it set the stage for…absolutely nothing. That we lost a heartbreaker on July 17 didn't impact our last-place destiny any more than when we barely held on come August 26. We were 66-95 in 2003 with or without Atlanta's help.

2004 was an expectation-free season. Still, we couldn't help but get our hopes up when Kaz Matsui began the year by hitting its very first pitch out of Turner Field. Yup, it was another exhilarating Opening Night in Dixie, April 6, the kind of night that proves nothing is proved on April 6. When the Mets returned to The City Too Busy To Lose on July 30, they were hanging on to some faint playoff hopes. They traded for Kris Benson and Victor Zambrano and proceeded to faint. The Mets would turn so lifeless by September that they'd fire Art Howe without actually dismissing him. His going-away present? His last road win on September 28. It was in Atlanta, the last series-opener he'd ever manage away from Shea (I'm assuming forever).

When the Howe Epoch was mercifully truncated, we were looking at the New Mets. It was new era, a new team, there was even a new blog to record all the good news in 2005. Yet for all the Omar, the Willie, the Beltran and the Faith and Fear, it was back to old tricks. The Mets lost their first first game in Atlanta on April 8. They lost their second first game in Atlanta on May 23. And they lost their third first game in Atlanta on September 5. The 2005 Mets, unlike their immediate predecessors, really could have used those games. They didn't get them.

Why do I bring up all this relentless unpleasantness? Is it because happiness doesn't let me sleep on Saturday mornings? Is it because, on the heels of my second television appearance in a month, I plan to audition for the role of Debbie Downer's brother Dennis? Is it because I'm nostalgic for disappointment?

No, that's not why.

It's because as giddy, giggly and goose-pimply as I wish to be with a six-game lead in very late April, I feel I've been here before. I've seen glimpses of this sort of thing. This is the year we have Atlanta on the ropes. This is the year it's gonna be different. This is the year the Mets don't succumb to any Turner Field curse, jinx, hex, disease, malady or whammy.

I sure hope so. I'd sure like to think so. History doesn't have to be precedent, but it sure has been. There is no logical reason to think nine years of dismal failure has to guarantee a full decade of this crap. We've heard that this guy and that guy weren't here when Bobby Jones couldn't grip the ball or Jay Payton didn't stop at second or Kenny Rogers wouldn't throw strikes, right up through “what does Billy Wagner care now that Braden Looper was blowing the same game twice last September?”

Billy may not care, but it kind of occurred to me last night.

I gotta see more before I gotta believe. I've seen happy hints in the past. In 1997 and 1999 and 2001 and 2002 and 2004, I witnessed nights like last night that were going to shift the plates and turn the tides and mute the chants and blunt the chops. The Mets were going to overtake the Braves one of these years, one of those years, one of any number of years.

It hasn't happened yet. Just because we're 15-7 and they're 9-13 doesn't mean it has. It should. It definitely should. Then again, we should have won two of three at home last week. I reluctantly accepted one of three because I didn't think a series win at Shea Stadium was crucial for the psyche of this team and the complexion of this race (and it's not as if I had a choice). A series win at Turner Field is. A series sweep at Turner Field is, too. Too much to ask? Let's get aspirational for once in our lives. In every Mets @ Atlanta series I've cited, the Mets have occasionally won the first game; nine times, to be exact, including last night. Do you know how many times they've won the second game of these series after winning the first game?

Twice.

TWICE! The Mets have won the first and second games of series at Turner Field twice since the building opened in 1997. They did it on their very first visit and they did it five years later, that odd Saturday when recently converted reliever John Smoltz gave up eight ninth-inning runs (and some journeyman named Aaron Small gave up a ninth). That was probably Super Tease One on the countdown. The Mets took the Braves on a Friday night, then a Saturday night and we were all atwitter. It was April 6. We were 3-2. They were 2-3. The next day they beat us.

And so it went.

I couldn't be sicker of the whole thing. I've tried to find dark humor in all of this, but I'm far from amused where the Mets, the Braves and Turner Field are concerned. I am seriously happy that the Mets beat the Braves 5-2 last night, but the happiness seriously gets put on hold at 7:05 tonight.

Last night was only the first game of the rest of our life. At Turner Field, we've never handled that second part well at all.

Phew. Or whew. Or new.

I'll definitely take new. There was too much old in the atmosphere, and I'm not talking about Ralph Kiner in the booth or Jimmy Carter in the stands or Julio Franco in a beautiful doff of the helmet. Them I like. Everything else I feared.

Whether it was the presence of Roger McDowell and Terry Pendleton in the same dugout or the creaky continuation of Brian Jordan as a Major League player or the unwarranted return of Lawrence Chipstein Jones or just about every late loss in that hot tub of horror engrained deep in my gray matter, I could barely function in the bottom of the ninth. It begged to be lost. It cried to be lost. It was bound to be lost.

Only the Braves in Turner Field could make a three-run deficit seem like a tie. Only the Atlantans could find a way to cancel insurance runs just by coming to bat. Only the 11-for-11 National League East champions could make Billy Wagner look like Braden Looper look like Armando Benitez look John Franco look like a cheap watch.

It was only a matter of time before this one got away. Renteria never hits Wagner, Cohen said. So he gets a hit. Chipstein, he of the two-run homer off Pedro (he never hits him either), strikes out, but there's the more dangerous Jones and Dangerous Jones made his elbow a part of it all; HBP, two on. Some nonentity strikes out but then Jeff Francoeur relives his rookie glory. Somehow Renteria doesn't score on the sophomore's hit. It's the bases loaded and it's Billy Wagner showing this uncomfortable habit of not being quite what we paid for and who is he facing?

Todd Pratt.

Forget Arizona and 1999. Don't forget it, of course, but I didn't think it was relevant. It's not like Todd Pratt could touch Wags last week, but then Gary had to go and remind us that Tank caught Billy for the past two years. I've always assumed catchers who face their old pitchers should be able to own them. Then I remembered that Todd Pratt, for his many, many impressive attributes, isn't really much of a hitter. Never was and he sure isn't now. And Billy Wagner, even a Billy Wagner who is more of a Mad Hatters Tea Cup Ride than a monorail, is never going to be mistaken for Matt Mantei.

Like that matters to the man wearing a Braves uniform in Turner Field against the Mets.

But it wasn't Looper and 2005. It wasn't Benitez and 2001. It wasn't Franco and 1998. It wasn't even Jolly Roger getting taken deep by Terrible Terry in 1987 when everything looked so good. It's when everything looks so good that we're in trouble. I'm back in Shea in my mind to the night the magical comeback was close but so gone 19 Septembers ago. And I'm back at Shea in 2001 when Brian Jordan was Andruw Jones (though Andruw Jones was pretty much Andruw Jones then, too) and he was squashing our spirited surge. I'm in whichever ballpark Franco is coughing up a thousand deaths by nicks and cuts and mixed metaphors. And mostly I'm in Turner Field watching Braden Looper turn to goo a year ago.

Except it isn't last year anymore. It really isn't. It isn't any of those years when Braves are giants and Mets are mutts and Turner Field swallows us alive. This isn't one of those years when we're gasping and grasping and trying to move up. We can't move up because we're already on top. All we can do is bring the hammer down.

And we do. Billy Wagner strikes out Todd Pratt on three pitches.

Game over, you tomahawk-chopping dilettantes. Pedro beats Smoltz again. President Carter gets dragged under by a changing tide again. (Sorry, sir, we have to part ways when it comes to that cap you were wearing. But didja catch the size of that footlong Rosalynn was working on? It oughta be suspended for ingesting performance-enhancing substances, not Iriki). David Wright was David Wright for the first time in a little while and Kaz Matsui was Edgardo Alfonzo for the first time in his life and Paul Lo Duca was taking no guff and as much as we need Carlos Beltran back, I sure like what Endy Chavez is doing. Sanchez was perfect and Reyes was clutch and Carlos Delgado made the most productive out of the year.

But I still couldn't breathe fluidly until the bottom of the ninth was history. This is not an outfit against whom you hatch a single chicken ahead of time. This is the bunch that has made an ASS out of U and ME more times than I am able to count. This was the Braves in Turner Field.

Was.

Mets win 5-2, lead the East by six. It doesn't mean a whole lot when there's another game Saturday night, but it means everything right now.

The latest issue of Baseball America features the Opening Day rosters for every club (major and minor-league) that began play in April, making it a perfect resource for tracking down those who have strayed from the Met fold.

I'm not talking so much about the big leagues: We've accepted that Todd Pratt is a Brave, noticed that Danny Graves is an Indian, shook our heads to imagine Ty Wigginton as a Devil Ray and grimaced (mildly) to find Kelly Stinnett a Yankee. (Though I'd missed that Roberto Petagine is a Mariner and think there's something ridiculous about Jason Phillips as a Blue Jay.) What really interests me is running a finger down the agate type and finding familiar names on AAA rosters, or even AA squads — old vets still holding on, fourth outfielders who came in fifth, drinkers of cups of coffee hoping for a refill, and so on. Ex-Mets all, still playing ball, still waiting for one more chance. (Which they may not get: Witness the quietly tragic career of Blaine Beatty.)

Let's call the roll, with a little help from Ultimate Mets Database.

Esix Snead, prover of the truism that you can't steal first base and owner of one unexpected, excellent home run, now toils for the Ottawa Lynx, earning a Baltimore Orioles paycheck.

Matt Ginter, whose departure paved the way for the arrival of Kaz Ishii, is now a Pawtucket Red Sock.

Hideo Nomo yet lives, toiling for the Charlotte Knights in the White Sox' organization. And one of his teammates is Jorge Velandia.

Brian Buchanan, one of the more-pointless Met pickups of recent years, is still around, playing for the Louisville Bats and dreaming of being a Cincinnati Red. (Which is somehow a nice dream so far this year.)

Brace yourself for this one: Someone is paying Felix Heredia. Fortunately, it's the Cleveland Indians, who assigned him to the Buffalo Bisons.

Jaime Cerda, who broke in as an unlikely Yankee slayer, is now getting used to breaking stuff that doesn't break as a Colorado Springs Sky Sock. Send him $5 and maybe he'll drill teammate J.D. Closser during BP.

This one is not a typo: Bobby M. Jones is in Double-A, pitching for the Erie Seawolves. That's the Tigers' system. And that's incredible.

Sure, the Florida Marlins have a bunch of our young players. But they also have some not-so-young ex-Mets: Momentary third-string catcher Tom Wilson, anonymous outfielder Mark Little and Mike Kinkade, he of the not-proud-to-a-fault home-run sprints, are all at AAA. (For some reason the Marlins' AAA team is now the Albuquerque Isotopes. That's convenient.)

Joe McEwing's grit and guts and other intangibles are now on display in east Texas: Super Joe is making his latest stopover on the way to a long career as a beloved coach and manager with the Round Rock Express, the Astros' AAA squad.

The Mets once took a gamble on speedy Jeff Duncan. Now it's the Dodgers' turn: He's a Las Vegas Sun. Craig Brazell, meanwhile, is back in AA. Ouch. I doubt that being told that the Jacksonville Suns have a link to Met history would be much comfort.

Jason Tyner is now a Rochester Red Wing. The Red Wings are now the Twins' AAA team, which is ludicrous. Shouldn't they be renamed the Triplets or something?

You'd think the Yankees had a crush on us: The Columbus Clippers' roster includes pot-averse Mark Corey, human action figure Scott Erickson and first-Cyclone-in-the-Show Danny Garcia.

Matt Watson, who was only a Cyclone because we were cheating and only a Met because we were desperate, is a Sacramento River Cat (that's the Athletics' AAA team), alongside Moneyball star Jeremy Brown.

Watch out, Clippers! Here come the Indianapolis Indians, whose roster of proto-Pirates includes C.J. Nitkowski, Scott Strickland and Raul Gonzalez — yeah, that Raul Gonzalez. And clinging to baseball life with the AA Altoona Curve is Met-for-a-minute Jason Roach.

Stuck behind some fella named Pujols on the Cardinals' depth chart is Memphis Redbird Brian Daubach. He's now a teammate of Prentice Redman, whose extended family hates us twice as much as they used to.

Whatever happened to Ricky Gutierrez? He's a Portland Beaver, which means he's already tired of opposing fans' funny comments. One of his teammates in Portland is the plucky, ultimately luckless Eric Valent.

Sticking with the Northwest, Kevin Appier apparently isn't done: He's listed as a member of the 2006 Tacoma Rainiers. Wonder if their scoreboard displays an INSANE APE graphic when he strikes somebody out.

We don't have James Baldwin to kick around anymore, but International League hitters do: He's a member of the Syracuse Skychiefs, Toronto's AAA team.

Alberto Castillo remains in the game, donning the tools of ignorance for the New Orleans Zephyrs, the Nationals' AAA club. I hope he still daydreams about beating the Phillies late one 80-degree afternoon in March, because we were there and it was nice. Laissez les bons temps roulez, Bambi!

Oh, and Jose Valentin is now toiling for the Single-A Lake Elsinore…oh, wait. No, he's right where we left him. Rats.

Programming note: SNY's Mets Weekly is scheduled to feature Team FAFIF holding forth on any number of Mets issues this weekend. Tune in and see us there if you can't get enough of us here.

No, they didn't place cameras behind our respective bathroom mirrors while we muttered to ourselves after the 14-inning loss to San Diego (though that would make for quite the reality show). We taped something with them the other day and they say they'll use it unless they have to cut away to the Benny Ayala Windsurfing Pro-Am, live from Waikiki.

Not that we care about being on TV or anything, but Mets Weekly airs at 12:30 pm Saturday; 6:30 pm Saturday; 12:30 am Sunday; 7:00 pm Sunday; 11:30 pm Sunday and intermittently throughout the week. To be on the safe side, just leave your set on SNY, plant yourself on your couch and gaze intently.

I do that most days.

Snigh is airing the Mets 11-inning, 9-7 win from yesterday as an SNY Encore today. And tonight, it's showing Game Two of the 1986 NLCS as a Mets Classic.

Semantics, semantics. This one will see light again if this network is any good. This one was a wonderful affair. Was it a classic?

If it wasn't, your standards are higher than mine. Whaddaya want out of a game?

Amazin' defense? Check.

Hitting from the pitcher? Check.

Adversity overcome? Check.

Production from unlikely sources? Check.

All-time greatness manifesting itself without killing us? Check.

Heart of our lineup showing heart? Check.

Bizarre cameos from our past? Check.

Clutchiness? Check.

Milestones that hadn't occurred to you but they occurred? Check.

A Mets win? Double-check. Mets take two of three at Telecommunications Terrace.

It's a bonus that this uproarious prank call from the Phone Booth (a.k.a. Turner West) happened in broad daylight and didn't rob the adoring masses back home of any more z's. Midweek afternoon games needn't be as entertaining as Wednesday's was. But it's pretty cool when they are.

The bottom line is that when we look in our rearview mirror, we have to squint to see anybody. The Phillies are 4-1/2 car lengths back. They're in front of the Braves, pending their finale with the Rockies. Let's say they win and then sweep their weekend opponent. Let's say, for argument's sake, that we perform to precedent at Turner Field (a.k.a. Phone Booth East) and go down three times.

It would be terrible.

It would be awful.

But we'd be in first place on May 1. It's not the goal or even a goal, but it's better than the four alternatives.

Before trundling down Peach Tree Road and all the standard horrors that entails, I'd like to wallow in how we hung up on the Giants when it counted.

I'd like to come up with a new job description for Ramon Castro. He's not a scrub, he's not a sub and to label him a backup doesn't do him justice. Alternate catcher seems more apt. Other than run like Heinz Ketchup, is there anything he can't do? Not yesterday.

I'd like to know how Jose Vizcaino continues to be a force in this man's game. Of the five* 1994 Mets still active, he's as vital as any of them (take that, Kelly Stinnett). He lost his N.Y. privileges where we're concerned in the early hours of October 22, 2000, of course, but I have to admit I always liked him as a Met and he's never stopped being a solid contributor to whatever team will have him. Bastard.

I'd like to know where Brian Bannister came from. Yeah, I know, the loins of Floyd Bannister, but was there a scouting report that said he could hit? Two doubles? And did dad give him a magic kit for his birthday? How does he keep escaping jams of his own making.

I'd like to know when Brian Bannister is coming back. Yikes, but it hurt to watch him limp home. But he did and that's a gamer. I'd also like to know who'll take his next turn and like the answer to be Darren Oliver, who continues to be a small revelation in a bullpen brimming with good news (though I did shiver when I saw Jorge Julio warming up in the top of the eleventh).

I'd like to advise David Wright that Cal Ripken as role model only goes so far. If you're achy, find a seat. This grit your teeth and drag yourself out there when you're not 85% is not admirable unless it's crunch time. It's not. It's April. Your mobility is limited, you're hurting yourself, you're hurting the team. You're so good that you delivered a clutch blow somewhere amid an array of clutch blows anyway. But don't be Braden Looper and gut it out when you're gutting isn't gritty, just foolish. Be Carlos Beltran for a couple of days at least where caution is the issue. Whatever's bothering Diamond Dave held him back not just on the error on Alou's ball but his inability to get to Vizquel's leadoff hit. Sit a bit, Dave. You're young. The game will still be there.

I'd like to kiss Carlos Delgado on his awesome pate. But I always feel that way.

I'd like to get us some more Blue Jays. Delgado is delightful. Woodward is wonderful.

I'd like to find out why we can't kick Armando Benitez in his fragile psyche like so many teams did when his head was our affair. Load the bases on Armando as we did in the tenth, you should send him home in Baby Huey tears. We don't seem to do that.

I'd like to thank Billy Wagner even if he did not protect the ninth-inning lead for the second time in a month. Thank you for not being Benitez or Looper or any number of Mets relievers past. You'll be fine.

I'd like to wear a baseball cap, but I can't when I watch the Mets play the Giants. Usually I wind up tipping my cap to Barry Bonds. After the last two days, I had to toss it into the ring like a bouquet to a bullfighter. Damn he knows how to hit. I don't know what he is or isn't shot up with, but what a shot he delivered in the ninth. Off the end of the bat!

I'd like whatever Julio Franco's having. A dozen egg whites? Year-round training? Deal with the devil? I'll just stick with Julio doing whatever it is Julio does and I'll simply marvel. Whoa. Not just the pinch-hit RBIs but the stolen base. Oldest player to swipe a bag in just about a century? I wasn't surprised that he stole it. I was surprised that someone older once did.

I'd like an investigation into why the Giants didn't sign Julio Franco. He meets their age requirement.

I'd like another look at Xavier Nady diving, grabbing and robbing in right field. Did we know he could do that?

I'd like to see less of Endy Chavez just because if he's playing, it means something is wrong with somebody else. But I could watch him chase down fly balls 27 times a day.

I'd like to see more of Jose Reyes breaking out and Kaz Matsui staking claim. Have they ever served in tandem at the top of the order the way they were supposed to like they did yesterday?

I'd like the first base line to widen a smidge for Cliff Floyd's sake. He deserves some hits for all the ferocious fouls he's pulled. (Like the Monsta, I'd pull my uniform shirt out of my uniform pants as soon as I was allowed, too.)

I'd like SNY to air this game again not just soon, but later, when we haven't seen it in a while and we say to each other, “Hey, that game against the Giants is gonna be on! You know, the one where Bonds pinch-hits the two-run homer with two outs in the ninth off Wagner but the Mets come back in extra innings and Franco got that hit and that stolen base and Nady made that catch off Vizquel and Delgado blasted a home run into McCovey Cove and Bannister, he had the two doubles before he got hurt, and Castro got three hits and Chris Woodward drove in the winning run and Darren Oliver held on even though Bonds came up again and hit another one deep to center but not as deep as in the ninth and with nobody on so it was the last out! What a great game that was! What a great year that was!”

Yesterday's replay is finishing up. Mets vs. Astros from twenty years ago is on at seven. Imagine that: Two Mets Classics in one day.

*In addition to Kent, Burnitz, Stinnett and Vizcaino, all of whom I mentioned at the end of Spring Training, it occurred to me watching the Braves that Remlinger is also from the Class of '94. He doesn't like us, I don't think.

Beyond the fact that we survived Barry Bonds taking umbrage at uppity bloggers, endured a horrifying error by poor frazzled David Wright, thought Brian Bannister's leg might actually fall off, and then walked away realizing that hey, we took two of three from the Giants to finish the first leg of California Tour '06 at a we'll-take-it 4-3, consider this: We won a game on Getaway Day at Phone Company Park.

Whether it was the small bit of the game I caught between duties at work or the smaller bits I caught on the radio when snarled lower Manhattan subways allowed (which wasn't often) or the tense parts I saw in the mirror or by craning my neck at our beloved Waterfront Ale House during dinner with Emily and Joshua or the last moments I heard on the radio again walking home, I felt like I should have my hands clamped over my eyes, with maybe a sixteenth of an inch of space reserved for peeks out. Getaway Day in San Francisco, I kept thinking with a shiver. Bad things, man.

But c'mon, was my paranoia really justified?

Well, yes. I checked. Beyond our horrible overall record at Phone Company Park, consider this chronicle of Getaway Days gone awry:

May 4, 2000: Not a good start. We were up 2-1 in the eighth when all hell broke loose. Walk. Single. Strikeout. Single ties it. Exit Rick Reed, enter Dennis Cook. Balk. Hit batsman. (Marvin Benard, whom Cook felt compelled to call a “fucking midget,” sparking a near-brawl.) Exit Cook, enter Armando Benitez. Oh goody. Triple. Pop-out. (Bonds, somehow.) Home run. We lose 7-2 to complete a Giants four-game sweep.

May 13, 2001: We manage four hits against the immortal Chad Zerbe, lose 6-3 to complete a Giants' three-game sweep.

August 22, 2002: We lose 3-1, completing a (wait for it) Giants' three-game sweep.

May 18, 2003: Holy cow, we win! 5-1 behind Glavine for a four-game split. On the other hand, this is the series in which Piazza tore his groin, ushering in the then-exciting, now faintly ridiculous Jason Phillips era.

August 22, 2004: August 21 was the great Barry Bonds game recently extolled by my partner. August 22 wasn't. It was a 3-1 loss behind Matt Ginter. Giants took two out of three.

August 28, 2005: This was the West Coast trip we opened by shellacking Arizona four straight, then continued against the Giants with Steve Trachsel returning for a 1-0 win. We dropped the second game but thought, Hey, can't win 'em all. On Getaway Day we took a 1-0 lead in the sixth, after which Kris Benson gave up home runs to J.T. Snow and Pedro Feliz. We lost the rubber game, went home, and beat the Phillies two days later, not knowing it was the high point of the season.

So. Nice win. Put some ice on Bannister's leg, put soothing music on Wright's iPod, and let's get out of town before further annoying Barry Bonds or otherwise tempting fate. We've escaped the house of horrors! And with a win! How cool is that?

Say, fellas…where are we going next?

Whew.

There are lots of baseball games like tonight's — taut little affairs that are closer than the final score indicates, not a lot of scoring, good pitching performances but not anything that leaps up and demands to be counted as brilliant, a long ball to admire, a managerial decision (of the non-fatal variety) to scratch your head at, most plays made, a couple not, most calls made properly, a couple not. Just a baseball game, in other words — one not much to be remembered beyond a moment or two that will become detached from the narrative and later need to be reaffixed to the proper date, but one for the lifers among us to enjoy as a fine use of two hours and change.

The first moment that will endure is Clifford's attempt to launch the world's first cowhide satellite; it was marvelous to see a week's worth of frustration and buzzard's luck vanish in the time it took to say Ohmahgawd, which is more or less the sound I made seeing that ball seeming to pick up speed as it exited stage right on its way to McCovey Cove.

The other? It was Bonds (it's always Bonds) just trying to remain upright, whether it was dragging his way around the bases on one of his final homers, or leaping the approximate height of a medium-sized city's yellow pages in his failed attempt to steal Nady's home run away. Watching Bonds struggle from Point A to Point B, I didn't say Ohmahgawd; I just kind of muttered and stared lemon-faced at the screen, not quite sure what to think, because I was thinking everything at once.

The normal reaction watching a professional athlete passing from twilight to night is a mix of pity that he (or she, for that matter) doesn't know his time has passed — athletes are almost always the last to know, betrayed in the end by the willful disbelief that let them become stars in the first place. To that, add in amazement that his time is finally gone, that he's at last been rendered mortal. And then comes, usually, some mix of appreciation (there he is, for one of the last times) and disquiet (my goodness, I remember when he was young — I must be getting old too).

And I did feel some of that strange mix for Bonds. But I also felt other things. The pity alternated with a determined refusal to feel it, for Bonds knows exactly what's happening to him, and on some level must grasp that it's his fault, that he and nobody else did the things to his body that grotesquely reshaped it and in doing so ensured its sudden, shocking ruin. There was anger at baseball for this whole terrible mess, for its shameful efforts to conceal what was happening from itself and for whatever stumblingly pathetic attempts it will make in an impossible effort to put things right. And there was sadness, once again, that Bonds could ruin his own name and numbers and legacy so thoroughly, and for whatever bottomless insecurity lies at heart of him and drove him to cheat when he didn't need to.

Bonds is like a man who lives alone in the penthouse of the tallest building in the city, and in his solitude becomes consumed with rage that he doesn't live at an even loftier height. And so he tears apart his own house to built some rickety contraption reaching ever higher into the sky, as the neighbors watch in horror through their binoculars. Now it's popping bolts and rivets and coming apart, and all you can do is look away.

Ah, enough gloom. We won. Cliff hit a monster shot. Everybody else in the East lost. And we're done with these post-midnight endurance tests for a bit. Life ain't so bad.