I'll be danged. All along I thought I was blogging with Jason Hardtke.

Since my partner chose Halloween to unmask himself, it seems appropriate tonight to delve into some other quasi-secret Met identities. And what better way to do that and start running out the offseason clock than with a spooky, scary, frightening, some would say deadly quiz?

Well, not so much a quiz but a test of your deepest Mets knowledge and, perhaps, a test of your patience.

Credit Where Credit's Due Dept.: In the aftermath of Mike Piazza's (unofficial) final game as a Met, the fellow who calls himself Johnny Dickshot at Crane Pool Forum conducted a brilliant and stimulating exercise in tickling the Met memory. He offered descriptions of 44 different instances of Met players playing their final games as Mets. He described what they did in those final games and dropped an extra hint or two to help divine their identities. The key was that each answer corresponded to a different year in Mets history. There was only one answer for 1962, one answer for 1963 and so on. This provided a helpful process of elimination.

See for yourself.

I liked Johnny Dickshot's quiz so much, I decided to rip off the concept (but not his questions or answers).

The parameters are the same. There are 44 “Who Am I?” questions below. Each of the 44 played for the Mets. Each of those 44 played his final Met game in a different Met season (perhaps in the regular season, perhaps in the post-season). Can't emphasize that enough. If you've figured out that somebody played his final Met game in 1970, then nobody else who played his final Met game in 1970 can be an answer for the rest of the test.

You must have the player and the year in which he played his final Met game to have a correct answer.

If you're with me this far, then you are probably remotely interested in proceeding. So here are some of broadly helpful hints.

• Ultimate Mets Database is, as it is with all things in life, a tremendous resource.

• Retrosheet can be useful as well.

• Read every question very carefully and take everything that you read into account. Each question is worded the way it is for a reason. It's like the New York State regents exams in that respect — they don't want to take it easy on you. (I hated the regents but this is about the Mets.) Understand that this is a test designed to get you thinking about your favorite team, so arriving at the answers is meant to keep you thinking the whole way there.

• Consider everything you know about baseball, everything you've ever read about baseball, everything you've ever absorbed about the Mets. It's all fair game.

• Some Mets are better known than others here but none was chosen in random, eff-you fashion. There's a strong chance, depending on how seriously you've been taking the Mets and baseball all these years, that you've heard of everybody who is an answer. Nobody was chosen for the sake of obscurity.

You must give the player's name and the year he played his final Met game. Again, this is to your advantage. If you know you have the 1980 Met answer, then you know you can eliminate all others who played their final Met games in 1980. (The flip side is the questions are not in chronological order.)

Reminder: 771 baseball players have played for the Mets. Some 20 to 30 have probably not played their final Met game, so you can eliminate them from consideration. Your pool is now below 750. See? This thing is answering itself.

Answers will be posted in about a week, sometime after The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror airs. If Fox can pretend Halloween goes until November 6, then so can I.

Specific questions? E-mail them to faithandfear@gmail.com. Comments section good as ever but I don't plan to publicly give partial answers before next week.

If you try and you're stumped, don't worry about turning into a pumpkin. The only entities you'll be competing against are yourself and the facts. This is a test, not a contest. But feel free to send your completed quizzes in via e-mail if you're so inclined. If you've nailed all 44, then your next $6.50 beer at Shea is on me.

Good luck. Have fun. Really.

WHO AM I?

1. My influence on the Mets would turn into a subject of debate. I had virtually no influence on my final game (I went 0-for-2), but my final hit as a Met was fairly influential…and by no means understated.

2. Some guys leave the Mets in loud deals that involve multiple players and guys who've won big awards. But when I finally exited the team, I went quietly (0-for-1) and never played anywhere else again.

3. When the year I left the Mets was over, you could say I was second to nobody except Tom Seaver. In my final outing, I gave three runs in two-thirds of an inning to the Braves.

4. Please. I can clearly say I had been second to nobody except Tom Seaver. In my final outing, I gave up two runs in two-and-a-third innings to the Pirates.

5. Guys, get serious. If Seaver was 1, then I was 2. Nobody could make a stronger case for that than me. In my last game as a Met, I even collected a hit and a walk before Ed Kranepool pinch-hit for me.

6. How big a deal was my first Mets' start? A Hall of Famer came on the field and said some wonderful things before the game. A player en route to the Hall of Fame said it was a dream come true to play with me. And another future denizen of Cooperstown finished up for me. In my final game, it seemed appropriate that I collected the final hit of the Mets' season.

7. I began my lengthy career with the Tigers in the '60s. When I got to the Mets, I didn't have much left. I said au revoir to baseball after retiring Rowland Office in the ninth inning of my last game.

8. I never really got the attention I deserved as a top-notch lefty. I won more than 200 games and went 3-0 in World Series competition. But I was never as famous as the big-deal righty at the top of the rotation. Not only did he win a Cy Young, but when I had my best year, somebody else who had a splashier start to his season beat me out for the award. By the time I pitched my last for the Mets, I wasn't terrible, but they didn't score for me. As a result, my record was short on wins and long on losses. The last batter I faced as a Met was Willie Stargell — he homered off me and I didn't get a win. You may also remember me as being traded for someone who played a large role in Mets history (hint: he's another lefty and you generally don't think of him as wearing a glove in his biggest moments).

9. I was a pretty classy lefty in my day. As for my last night as a Met, I started a shutout victory that was finished by two relievers. I got the win, having gone five innings. Unfortunately, you could use fewer fingers than five that to count how many wins I collected for the Mets that year.

NEW QUESTION NO. 10 MADE NECESSARY BY SCREW-UP EXPLAINED HERE

10. The last pitch I threw as a Met was whacked for a double that scored two runs. Both the batter and one of the runners who scored were players who would go on to manage against the Mets. I'm most famous for a home run I gave up to another player in New York, one who never managed.

OLD QUESTION NO. 10, RENDERED INOPERATIVE BY AFOREMENTIONED SCREW-UP

BONUS: Mets fans should've loved me considering how well I pitched against the Yankees. Heck, in what appeared to be my final outing, I threw a shutout against Houston. In fact, I beat one of those Yankee dynasty guys. Then I was traded to a contender during the season but came back to the Mets a year later. I no longer have a legitimate place in this quiz, but I've got a really cool nickname, so try to figure me out anyway.

11. I was seven years from fulfilling my first manager's prophecy for me when I struck out in my last Met at-bat. My opportunities were limited in New York, but I got a chance in Seattle.

12. Honestly, I thought I did my job well with the Mets, but it sounds like the guy who replaced me was the right guy in the right place. In my final game as a Met, I started at second and got three hits.

13. I was lost on the mound in my final Mets appearance: two innings, two runs against the Cubs. Appropriately enough, we lost as the Mets scored nothing for me. America's a big country. Think the Mets could have found some runs for me somewhere?

14. You'd think going 3-for-5 in your last game (and 6-for-10 in your last two) would impress somebody, but the Mets couldn’t wait to get rid of me. All they got was some kid.

15. I didn't play in the Majors at all the year before I became a Met and I didn't play in the Majors at all the year after I became a Met. It was over after I went 0-for-4 against Milwaukee.

16. Heard of being cursed with versatility? That's what I'm beginning to think happened to me. I could play two positions with pretty much equal ability. Though I was known as an above-average hitter, the Mets kept shifting me back and forth in the infield depending on what big-name player they'd just acquired. I didn't make much of a fuss about it. I was taken out of my final game before it ended (having gone 1-for-3) and left the team with little fanfare. Why did they let me go? Maybe they were concerned about my health.

17. My final Met game? I played a half-inning in the field. The night before, I collected my final hit. It was a long one. Then, go figure, I was out of the lineup the next day. Ironically, I was run out of town.

18. I gave up a hit to Ernie Banks and an unearned run in my final inning of pitching for the Mets. So I wasn't perfect. Few are.

19. Nationally noticed later in my career, I went out with a whimper where the Mets were concerned. I took the collar. It was a pretty tight one for all of us that day.

20. Someday, a team would trust me to start with its pennant hopes on the line. Long before that, the Mets would let me pitch a meaningless two-thirds of an inning on the season's last day.

21. The Mets brought me in to take a shot at making the playoffs. And you may have heard I helped my team get to the playoffs twice. Alas, that team wasn't the Mets. My final appearance for them saw me give up three runs in seven innings. The Mets lost the ballgame.

22. I faced three batters in my final Mets game and allowed no hits. In fact I gave up only one hit in my final three Met appearances. The team found a reason to get rid of me anyway. That simply left me determined to strengthen my resolve.

23. Considering who I was traded for, I didn't really measure up as a Met, but I did manage to go 2-for-4 as the starting second baseman in my last game as a Met player. My last at-bat produced a double.

24. My last Mets pitching appearance was as representative as could be of all my Mets pitching appearances. It ended with a clean inning: three up, three down. And oh yeah — in my final Mets game, I went 0-for-4.

25. Ya gotta believe it was stunning to see me traded from the Mets so suddenly. What if my last pitch in relief lost us a game to the Pirates? Didn't I deserve better considering my Mets pedigree?

26. I came to the Mets a winner and I left a winner, going 2-for-4 in our victory over the Cardinals. Man, did I dig winning. Losing? Not so much.

27. If there were a number with which I was synonymous as a Met, it was three. Really, when you think of three, there were few other Mets who'd come up in the same conversation. Hence, it hardly seemed appropriate that I got only one at-bat in my final Met game and flied out to right. No, if you remember me, you remember me and three.

28. You can make a case for me as one of the finest shortstops of my generation. I wasn't a heavyweight or a heavy hitter, but I was a Gold Glover and can be recalled as feisty when I needed to be. I finished up 1-for-3 as a Met, batting (what else?) eighth. And it's worth mentioning that I was an All-Star and played in the World Series.

29. I gave up a very important run in a very important game versus the Braves. That was the last inning I pitched for the Mets. I was pitching elsewhere when the next season began after a trade.

30. A rising tide lifts all boats? I don't know about that. All I know is I sailed away after my final game at Wrigley, when I went 1-for-4, stroking a single to right with my last swing. I could hit. That's probably why I was able to sail away (theoretically speaking).

31. I'd save my best for later, but I'd never win a bigger game than I once did for the Mets. As for my farewell to them, I walked off the mound having paved the way for my successor to surrender a game-losing homer in Chicago (I took the loss) and never looked back.

32. Joe Torre derailed my final game as a Met, though Mets fans should be used to that sort of thing after all these years. To be fair, I didn't much help my cause by going 0-for-4. Performances like that didn't leave me in the mood to express what I was thinking.

33. I'd like to think I got a little revenge on Joe Torre's team given the way I closed out my Met career, giving up just one hit against them as the last Met pitcher of the night. They traded me a while after that. Hey, what can I say?

34. The manager turned to me to pinch-hit in the fifth in Cincinnati and I struck out. We got beat. After that, I could've used a vacation, but I was traded to the other league instead.

35. Reggie Jackson and his bold declarations about playing in New York had nothing on me. I threw a complete game and drove in a run in my last game as a Met. Pretty sweet.

36. I was known as a terribly dreadful hitter. Historically dreadful. They didn't get much worse than me at my position. Thus, it was as if the Mets paid tribute to me by not scoring during my last game. I, however, had four hits on my ledger that night.

37. No Met had more hits than I did in my last year as a Met. I got one in my final game, at Montreal, but it didn't rescue me from being traded in the off-season. I wasn't as mobile as I'd once been, so my career took a dive after that. Sometimes I think about who they traded me for and all I can conclude is, “Him? Rich. Very rich.”

38. My specialty was retiring lefthanders. Given that the last batters I faced as a Met (in Houston) were righties, I guess it's no wonder that they I gave up a walk then a hit. I'd hate to think that was what led to the death of my Met career. I was all about the lefties.

39. In two years' time I went from starter to rarely used backup. In the final game in which I donned a Mets uniform, I went 1-for-4 with a triple against no less a pitcher than Steve Carlton.

40. My years with the Mets spanned more than a decade. I could hit even if I wasn't exactly Babe Ruth reincarnated. Nevertheless, I was used only as a defensive replacement in my last game against Chicago before being traded in the middle of the season.

41. I didn't start the season with the Mets, but I did start the final game of my Mets career, going 2-for-4 against the same pitcher off whom Mike Piazza hit a very memorable home run. After I departed the team, I retired.

42. I gave up three hits and no runs in my final Met start, so why did they trade me? Maybe it was to set the stage for an eventual pennant.

43. My performances on the All-Star and World Series stages as a reliever were excellent, but my last appearance as a Met came as a starter. It wasn't too bad either: I threw seven innings of two-hit ball.

44. I did something no Red Sock before me could lay claim to. Yet Boston overlooked my historical contribution to their team and I ended up on the Mets. I got a hit in three at-bats in my final game for them.

Need a study break? Visit Gotham Baseball for some thoughts on why baseball cards never stop being great.

Time has come to no longer be an anonymous Met blogger.

OK, as mysteries go this wasn't exactly what happened to Jimmy Hoffa or even whose fingerprints were on the Kazmir-Zambrano trade, because some people actually care about the answers to those questions. But anyway, here goes: I'm Jason Fry, alias Jason, alias half of the Faith and Fear team. The younger, balder, alternately less-hopeful half. The half that can't do math and doesn't think Gil Hodges is a Hall of Famer, though he fears Greg Prince's wrath every time he says so.

Why step forward now? Because of this blog's odd connection to what I do for a living. Faith and Fear began as a project that interested me as a technology columnist: Blogging was all over the news, and I kept finding myself writing about it, but I didn't have any real sense of what it was like day-to-day to write and run a blog. So I decided to try my hand at it, thinking if nothing else I'd get a column out of it. I figured I should write about something I loved, and I was lucky enough to have a good friend who shared my obsession — and who also just happened to be the best writer I've ever encountered. I hoped it would be a fun experiment, and it was. Boy, was it ever. One baseball season later, the experiment has become a big part of my life — one I thought was worth reflecting on. (And hey, I finally did get that column out of it.)

So for those of you coming to us from WSJ.com, thanks for clicking, and welcome. Please take a look around, and I hope the level of Mets obsession Greg and I share isn't too scary. If you like the place, feel free to stay a while — we'll be huddled by the hot stove all winter.

If you're coming to us from the Faith and Fear side, well, you already know the drill. Check out this link to this week's Real Time column if you'd like to know more about how our no-longer-so-little blog started, and what Year One was like behind the scenes.

And that's way more than anyone cared to know about me. Back to our regularly scheduled offseason, already far too much in progress….

Confession time: I was battling the flu and fell asleep, after a valiant effort, in the bottom of the 7th of Game 4. I woke up briefly to see Emily (who'd been trying to sleep for about an hour) come up with the remote and aim it at the set with a gunfighter look in her eye. “Nooooo,” I managed feebly, “I'll wake up when something happens.” Click. Darkness. A protest tried to swim up high enough in my brain to be acted upon, failed, and I went back to sleep. Then I awoke in the middle of the night, stared into the gloom, and staggered to the computer to read the news from My Yahoo.

White Sox Sweep Astros.

Oh my God, I thought, I slept through the rest of baseball season.

If only I could sleep through the rest of the offseason.

See, this is not the terrible day, for today there is at least coverage of the White Sox victory parade. Today at least a team is still together as a unit of 25+ guys. Once those victorious players disperse, though, watch out: Eight-foot snow drifts may as well arrive this very second, for baseball is truly gone.

There's no getting around the fact that if you're a baseball fan, you've now signed a 3 1/2 month lease for a studio apartment in Suck City. Here's a little guide to what's ahead, just so you're not surprised:

Early November: Devour all news of free-agent positioning (we bought out Danny Graves' option!), coaching changes, and tidbits from the Arizona Fall League. Tell all your friends that hey, Matt Lindstrom could really solidify things in '06.

Mid-November: Realize during Sunday chores that you've spent three hours working yourself into a fury wondering how in hell Armando could have walked O'Neill.

Early December: Sign up for a Google alert whenever an article includes the words “Pedro Martinez toe.” Try to find Licey Tigers cap to buy. Scan upper regions of digital cable for winter-league games, spend an hour waiting and listening to Spanish, after which sight of Anderson Hernandez grounding out makes you briefly ecstatic.

December 8: Freak out about loss of Double-A player you've never heard of in Rule V draft.

Mid-December: Obsess about non-roster invitations extended to middle relievers, utility infielders and fifth outfielders. Give in, watch 2000 Mets highlight tape. Think it was wholly appropriate that the tape mysteriously ends, Pravda-style, moments after Benny Agbayani's game-winning double off El Duque.

Late December: Repeatedly write out likely 25-man roster after dog-and-cat trade nets middle reliever, utility infielder or fifth outfielder.

Early January: Sight of green field while channel-surfing leads to accidental viewing of 15 seconds of Horace Clarke Yankeeography. Shudder, take hot shower.

Mid-January: Actual free-agent signing/big trade coincides with freak warm spell and weather above 55 degrees. Mets all over back pages and WFAN, crocuses briefly appear. Run around for a day in shorts and Met gear. Euphoria quickly quashed by disappearance of Mets news, death of crocuses, horrendous blizzard.

During Mid-January Blizzard: Give in, watch “Think Big” video. Play “Centerfield” 34 straight times.

Late January: Certain winter not survivable. Sit in corner rocking and muttering.

Early February: Buy every glossy baseball preview/fantasy sports magazine on shelves, even though they're published according to some archaic schedule and list Braden Looper and Doug Mientkiewicz as key 2006 contributors. Despite this, spend three days spittingly furious when one magazine picks Mets for fourth in NL East.

Mid-February: Pitchers and catchers report, life begins again.

Hang in there, kids. We'll make it.

Last night, I went to bed at around 7 o'clock. While it had more to do with a lack of sleep from the night before, it seemed appropriate that on the first of many consecutive evenings with no baseball game in sight that a baseball fan turn off the lights and shut his eyes.

Hibernation Fever…catch it!

Before this thing of ours takes its fitful winter's nap, waking up at frequent intervals for awards, trades, signings, releases, rumors and sheer boredom, I want to stay awake long enough to appreciate the 2005 post-season one more time, even if the Mets weren't part of it. I have to admit I'm beginning to feel like the Morgan Stanley guy — you know the investment adviser in those commercials whose devotion to his clients' financial well-being borders on creepy…

“Wow, that's quite a White Sox blog you've got there.”

“Oh, this isn't a White Sox blog. I'm a Mets fan with a desperate need to write about whatever baseball you put in front of me.”

I don't understand why the World Series doesn't get a 60 rating and an 80 share and I don't understand baseball fans who bail on October just because their team failed to qualify. This was great theater we who had the good sense to witness it just witnessed. We are living in a golden age of post-season baseball since 2001, a different champion each year, a different story unfurling in the form of 25 scrappy players, 25 fighters fighting to make 25 dreams come true.

It's not as good as when the Mets were in it in '99 and 2000 but it's waaaay better than the endgames of those years (and '98 and '96). Unless the Mets are going to be a dynasty, I despise dynasties. I think those who favor dynasties are weak of character and generally have no spine as human beings. An era when we go from Diamondbacks to Angels to Marlins to Red Sox to White Sox is thrilling. If you're a baseball fan, you have five distinct sets of memories from the past five years if you were paying attention.

The fan must take responsibility for remembering what took place because baseball's deep and cavernous memory hole is already licking its lips in anticipation of devouring the 2005 Chicago White Sox. By 2007, the White Sox will be referred to as the Red Sox having won two in a row. By 2009, the Cubs will get credit. And by 2012, the Yankees will be recalled for having won 18 consecutive World Series.

I don't think the White Sox' first championship in nearly 90 years was nine minutes old when I heard an ESPN anchor frame the whole thing in terms of the Cubs, as in “the White Sox have been the second team in the second city and the Cubs blah blah blah.” Tell me what on earth the Cubs had to do with any of this? Yes, I recognize proximity and lengthy bouts of barrenness, but so what? This was the White Sox' night. Let the Cubs get to a World Series before mentioning them in the same breath.

These Sox also can't enjoy a headline all their own. The Times, for example, had to juxtapose 1917 with 1918 in their treatment because last year it was the Red Sox and now it's not the Red Sox. Listen, I loved the Red Sox' romp last October as much as anyone who wasn't an actual Red Sox fan, but their reign is over. Give the White Sox their own storyline. That they're both Sox and they both waited a long time is noteworthy, but it's sidebar material. However Curt Schilling's foot is feeling these days is irrelevant to October 2005.

And then there are the Yankees. This blog's stance on their existence (we're against it) is well-known and any mention of them in any context that doesn't indicate their immediate dissolution is made with utmost regret. But following the White Sox' victory, I watched Baseball Tonight show numerous replays of Juan Uribe's headfirst dive into the third base stands to make the second out of the ninth inning of the fourth game. It was a great, great catch. But you know what ruined it? The ESPN heads who fell all over themselves calling it a “Derek Jeter play”.

How? How was it a Derek Jeter play? Derek Jeter was sitting in his living room listening to Yanni for all we know while the Juan Uribe play took place. Juan Uribe made that play, not Derek Jeter. For that matter, Derek Jeter, despite occasionally tumbling into the stands as a result of a chronic inability to break his own momentum without calling attention to himself, has never made a catch that good in so dramatic a spot. If you're going to compare Uribe's snare to anybody's, look no further than David Wright who, like the White Sox shortstop, actually had to go full speed into a batch of fans in an enemy ballpark to spear a foul ball this season in Seattle.

This was the World Series. Derek Jeter doesn't play there anymore.

Now I've fallen for the media's game. I've gone and ruined a perfectly nice post-season reflection by devoting space to the futile Cubs, the deposed Red Sox and the irrelevant Yankees. I apologize. Let's isolate them in their own paragraph and be done with them for now.

The White Sox are champs. They played in a way that defied superficial analysis. There is no way they would've been picked to win anything because there were no obvious standouts, no superduperstars. That was a team playing ball, the same as the Angels in '02 and the Marlins in '03 (or have you forgotten those spinetinglers?). I won't claim to have seen them coming but I got an inkling when they pushed back the Indians that something good might happen for them. They reminded me of us at the very end of the 2000 schedule when, after putzing around in September, we won our last five in a row. That momentum fueled us versus San Francisco and St. Louis. The White Sox took it further. Good for them.

The Astros are runners-up. They also reminded me of us in 2000, specifically how all your blemishes and shortcomings can be exposed in a single series. Their offense, which boiled down to Lamb and Lane and pray for rain (so we can close the gol'darned roof), was never their strong suit but they would not have gotten as far as they did without something working; their NLDS and NLCS performances were breathtaking. Though I wholeheartedly rooted against them, I actually felt bad through Games Three and Four as they flailed and missed. The Backes and Burkes and Brads were players worth admiring for their grit. I doubt there's a lot of consolation in being the best 0-4 in team in World Series history, but I think they were. With a few notable exceptions, keep charging, Astros. You're all right.

OK, I'm done caring about other teams. Let's Go Mets.

You watch enough baseball and you get a strong feeling regarding what is going to happen next. You're almost smug about it. You're a longtime fan. You can see it coming.

Not Game Three of the 2005 World Series which went fourteen innings, nearly a quarter of a day and put the Chicago White Sox within one win of their first championship since just before the Soviet Union formed. I watched it all (save for nodding off somewhere between the fourth and the fifth, meaning I missed the blown-call home run by Jason Lane and the leadoff blast by Joe Crede, but the nap turned out to be fortuitous in the loooong run) and I didn't see anything coming.

I didn't see Roy Oswalt falling apart.

I didn't see the White Sox leaving the bases loaded when they got to Oswalt.

I didn't see the Sox not paying for leaving the bases loaded.

I didn't see the Astros getting only one hit over the final ten innings and that hit being the one that tied the game in the eighth.

I didn't see Orlando Hernandez (whom I couldn't root for because of his past associations) wriggling out of trouble.

I didn't see Fox not showing a clip of Timo running himself into an out in 2000 when he came up but maybe nobody besides us cares that much about it.

I didn't see Orlando Palmiero, a pest of the first order, not doing something.

I didn't see Jose Vizcaino, his credentials well understood in these parts, not doing something.

I didn't see Craig Biggio not writing a fitting ending. I've never much cared for him but I find myself appreciating his eighteen years of hustle and his moment in the spotlight.

I didn't see Bobby Jenks escaping unscathed. I was sure he was Looperized.

I didn't see Barbara Bush get up to leave but she lasted until at least 12:30 local time. I think one of her non-politician sons accompanied her but for a second I thought the guy sitting with her was Brownie of “heckuva job” fame.

I didn't see Brad Ausmus starting a very heads-up 2-6-3 double play on Scott Podsednik in the thirteenth.

I didn't see Piazza stroking a two-out, season-saving, three-run job in the ninth off Wagner only to have Ausmus tie it off Cook in the bottom of the inning all before Hundley drove one over the Astrodome wall versus Bergman and an overworked Wendell hung on for dear life to win it in eleven. (Whoops…right city, wrong insane classic.)

I didn't see the White Sox pitchers walking every other batter and not giving up a run.

I didn't see the Astros popping up in every other at-bat.

I didn't see Morgan Ensberg turning a sensational fourteenth-inning double play on Paul Konerko's hot grounder after Jermaine Dye led off with a hard single.

I didn't see October 25, 2005 turning into October 26, 2005 turning into October 25, 1986 turning into October 26, 1986.

I didn't see Ezequiel Astacio giving up a two-out home run to Geoff Blum.

I didn't see Astros radio announcer Milo Hamilton calling that home run, as damaging as it was to his team, with all the passion usually reserved for remembering that the dry cleaning is ready; what a homer — and I'm not talking about Blum's line drive.

I didn't see hair like Blum's when he took his helmet off in the White Sox dugout. I hadn't seen anything like it since Williams, the kid with too many impure thoughts, in 1985's Heaven Help Us.

I didn't see Geoff Blum, who I vaguely assumed was still on the Expos, becoming the second man to hit a home run in his first World Series plate appearance in extra innings. The only other man to accomplish that mouthful was Dusty Rhodes of my beloved 1954 Giants.

I didn't see Morgan Ensberg not fielding a squib and then allowing a bunt to go fair setting up an insurance run.

I didn't see the Astros getting the winning run to bat.

I didn't see Mark Buehrle, a starter who hadn't pitched relief in five years and just threw seven innings on Sunday, coming out of the pen and getting Adam Everett for the final out with no sweat.

I didn't see Brandon Backe, the Game Four starter, going to the 'Stros bullpen in the fourteenth before that final out in one of those just-in-case maneuvers that would've sent this game through the roof if it had come to that whether the roof was open or not.

I didn't see the roof making a difference one way or another when all was said and done.

I didn't see the Astros fans hanging around as long as they did; mea culpa for questioning their credentials.

I didn't see that they're going to have rechristen that place as Five Hour Forty One Minute Maid Park.

I didn't see that I'd feel really badly for Phil Garner when he threw his stool after Astacio threw his gopher. I wasn't rooting for his team but I felt bad for him. It reminded me of my father's reaction to a shot of Michael Dukakis late in the 1988 campaign when in an effort to come across as a regular guy, his staff convinced him bowl a couple of frames for the cameras. “I'm not voting for him,” Dad said, “but he shouldn't have to do that.”

I didn't see the game lasting until 2:20 AM here, meaning it was ending close to the time George McGovern's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention started in 1972. Ever since then, the political parties have taken great care to do what the NFL does with the Super Bowl: make sure their big moments take place in prime time or as close to it as possible. This baseball game, which will go a long way toward determining the champion of the world, ended in prime time if you live in the Aleutians or points west. I'd like to think that as what was occurring was occurring that every sleepy-eyed baseball fan/bathroom-goer who gave up around 11:30 turned on the TV around 1:30 to get the final score and found out it was still going on and stayed up 'til the end in order to enjoy a little of the historic climax. I hope the game's ratings trajectory followed the 18-inning NLDS affair played in the very same House of Whew!s when the longer the game got, the more the audience increased. But that was a weekend day game. This game started at 8:39 PM in the east. I don't know how you fix that short of blowing off prime time which baseball would never do willingly but managed to do accidentally. And I'm not sure whether this was one of the greatest games ever played or just one of the longest, but I do know every bit of it was worth watching.

I didn't see it coming, but boy am I glad I saw it.

Just read that the commissioner is insisting that the Astros leave the roof open for their World Series home games unless it's raining.

Huzzah!

Sure, baseball should be played outdoors or as close to it as possible, though Minute Maid Park, no matter how far back you peel the ceiling, never feels like it's outside. The reason I'm behind this edict is the reasoning the Astros gave for shutting themselves off from nature earlier in the post-season.

It's noisier this way.

Well, yeah, it probably is. But so what? It's a yahoo tactic, the same kind of progressive thinking that had the mayor of Houston urging his constituents not to wear socks this past weekend (imagine the mayor of New Orleans running for re-election on that platform). Close the roof so our yelling will echo into the visitors' ears? It's down there with Red Auerbach shutting off the hot water in the visitors' locker room in Boston Garden. No, actually, it's worse because “heh-heh, we'll make lotsa noise and spook 'em” isn't baseball. What do the Astros think? That Jon Garland will be called for a delay of game? That A.J. Pierzynski's cadences will be off? Heck, why not just bring out some purty cheerleaders to rile up the crowd?

Cripes, Texans, this is baseball and baseball's world championship. It's not the Baseball Bowl. Make all the noise you want but get over yourselves and your horrendous football mentality.“It holds the noise.” Y'mean like it held Albert Pujols' home run that suddenly shut all of you up?

This brings to mind Moneyball and Chad Bradford suffering a silent meltdown amid a frenzied, sold-out Oakland Coliseum, a house ostensibly cheering in his favor. Billy Beane offered some solid advice that Ozzie and the Sox might want to consider:

When play resumes, fifty-five thousand people rise up and bang and shout, perhaps thinking this will help Chad to settle down.

“Why should noise have any more effect on the hitter than the pitcher? says Billy, a bit testily. “If you're playing away, you just pretend they are cheering for you.”

Or in the case of the Minute Maid throng, the Spring Westfield High School Mustangs.

For a little expansion brethren solidarity among the Mets, the Astros and all the others who have come along since 1961, slide headfirst into Gotham Baseball.

Sure, it's dropped from crisp to cold all at once and it's raining enough to make Channel 11 air an impromptu Fresh Prince of Bel-Air marathon, but cheer up.

It's October 25!

Buckner Day! Mookie Day! A Ground Ball…Trickling Day! Call it what you will, it was the night in 1986 (after midnight on 10/26 if you're a stickler for the trickler) when the Mets staved off elimination in the World Series by winning the sixth game in ten innings.

Perhaps you've heard about it.

For nineteen consecutive years, I've been lobbying Albany to declare October 25 a state holiday on the order of Patriots Day or Stonewall Jackson's birthday in other parts of the country, but I've gotten nowhere. Instead, let's observe it our own Michael Sergio-style and parachute into the town square for a reading not from a Metscentric source but from a charming, underknown book called A Player for a Moment: Notes from Fenway Park by John Hough, Jr. Hough writes as a lifelong Red Sox fan who also happened to be the ghost author of Gary Carter's autobiography. He was watching Game Six with Red Sox friends who weren't collaborating with a New York Met on a professional venture.

In the bottom of the inning Wally Backman hit an easy fly ball to Rice. Keith Hernandez drove one to center, an easy catch for Hendu. The announcers began talking about how long it had been, 1918, since the Sox had won the Series. They announced that Bruce Hurst had been judged Most Valuable Player of the Series.

“Do you realize,” I said, as much to myself as to the others, “that we're about to see the Red Sox win the World Series?” The world would never be quite the same.

Gary Carter was at the plate. Here I made a fatal mistake.

“Don't make the last out, Gary,” I said.

“Are you crazy?” Kib said.

“He's a nice guy,” I said. “Let him get a single.

We know the rest. It's an instructive tale, I believe, because it shows that in no way, shape or form can you dictate your terms in a baseball game. It's hard to enough line up all your good-luck ducks in a karmic row, and goodness knows that doesn't always give you the result you want. But try plying the gods with notes (“let us win our first World Series in 68 years but only after the guy I know and like doesn't make the last out”) and you will come away looking at 69 years and counting. (No offense, Red Sox fans; you had a pretty good October 27 last year.)

I'd like as much baseball as I can get my eyes and ears on in 2005. There may be as many as five games remaining or as few as two. I suppose I should pull for five. But I find that I have developed a rooting interest in this World Series. I want the White Sox to win. I suspected I was anti-Houston, but I wasn't sure I'd be quite as pro-Chicago as I've become. They are my team of the moment. That allegiance has a short shelf life, but I have planted myself firmly in their camp for the duration.

I wouldn't mind this Series extending well into the weekend but as a White Sox fan of the Salon Day Pass variety, I want them to win however and whenever they have to. I will not root for the Astros to “make it interesting”. Baseball's interesting enough no matter how much or how little there is left in any given October.

On Monday night, while the MySox rested, ESPN Classic took time out from its heavy rotation re-airings of 1993 poker tournaments and the like to count down the twenty greatest World Series ever. It pretended nothing before 1946 (pre-TV) existed so it was kind of bogus, but guess what was No. 1.

1991 Twins-Braves? No, that was fourth (though it's the best I've ever seen).

1975 Reds-Red Sox? No, that was third (though it's the second-best I've ever seen).

2001 Diamondbacks-Yankees? No, that was second (though it's the third-best I've ever seen).

Chosen as the greatest World Series ever played was the 1986 affair between the New York Mets and the Boston Red Sox. It was the fourth-best I've ever seen, but I gotta tell ya, I lodge absolutely no objection to '86 getting its due. It's overdue.

If you want to drown in delightful minutia regarding the events of 19 years ago tonight, I'd suggest a leisurely scroll down Mets Walkoffs where Mark Simon has been dissecting the ultimate Mets walkoff to within an inch of its wonderful life. And if you agree that the World Series should be a non-sectarian religious experience for every baseball fan whether his team is playing in it or not, spend a couple of posts with Dave Murray, the Mets Guy in Michigan. He traveled to Chicago over the weekend to take in the scene so we wouldn't have to. Dave also regales us with the night eight years ago when he parachuted — in the non-Michael Sergio sense — into another World Series. I found his version of the Marlins and Indians at least as compelling as the one I watched from afar in 1997. That, to borrow from a phrase that was all the rage in 1986, is blogging like it oughta be.

It always happens this way: The season ends, and for a little bit (it might be a few hours, maybe a few days, just maybe two weeks) you don't mind. The pain of a year that didn't quite measure up is no more. No need to mutter about Braden Looper, or what's wrong with Carlos Beltran, or to try to convince yourself there's some scenario where the Phillies, Astros and Marlins all fall over themselves and you win out and they'll still be talking about it when we're in our final days. It's over. Put it in the books. Wait till next year.

And hey, you discover, there's this big world out there. You can sit down to dinner at 6:30 and not start fidgeting every time the waiter's a bit slow. It's amazing the number of useful errands you can get done starting at 1:30 on Saturday or Sunday. People always talking about how there's not enough time in life, sheesh. There's hours upon hours in the day. There's so many hours you're not quite sure what to do with all of them. What possible excuse does anyone who's not a full-time baseball fan have for not having their shit together?

Sure, there are these games called the playoffs. You might even have a mild rooting interest, a bandwagon team, a team you hate with such singleminded purity that you can't sleep until you know they're home for the winter too. (Just sayin'.) Maybe you watch, maybe you don't, most likely you watch but you're doing other things while you're watching. It's diverting, this playoff stuff. It doesn't really matter, but it's nice to keep an ear or an eye on.

And then, just when you think you've figured out the rhythms of this odd second season, you realize: Winter, that crafty old wolf, is at the door. How many games left are there? That few? Really? You mean this will all be over when Monday comes around again? It could all be over…Wednesday?

No, that can't be. That's way too soon. Wait, baseball, wait! I'll watch! I'll watch without talking on the phone with my parents or balancing the checkbook or slogging through the National Geographics I feel too guilty to recycle unread. Wait, baseball! I didn't mean all those things about how this sure takes forever and I'm sure glad I've got an emotional stake in this game or I'd be going out of my mind. That was crazy talk, summer talk, the babbling of an ingrate who's very, very sorry. I'll watch guys stroll back and forth between the batter's box and the on-deck circle all night. I'll watch White Sox and Astros warm up! I won't make fun of Scooter! I'll listen to Guillen and Garner between innings! I won't complain about the Nascar swoosh that has to signal we're moving between live action and a replay every single time. I'll wait to see the next star of a Fox sitcom freezing his ass off.

Anything you want, baseball. Just don't go. Because I'm not ready yet. Maybe in another week I will be. Maybe two. Definitely in two. OK, I'm pretty sure I'll be ready in a month. But not yet. Not yet, baseball. You hear me, baseball?

Braden Looper overthrows and pays for it. Armando Benitez can't be trusted in a big spot. Now substitute the names Bobby Jenks and Brad Lidge and it's like the Mets are closing both ends of this World Series.

The danger in watching post-season play is you tend to familiarize yourself with players in such a compressed timeframe. Bobby Jenks? Saturday night he was large and in charge. You can't beat Bobby Jenks. Bobby Jenks is huge…literally, figuratively, undoubtedly. The White Sox can't go wrong if they call (or pantomime) for Bobby Jenks.

Sunday night Bobby Jenks is Braden Looper or, if you can remember how good another strapping, young, unknown reliever was in Game One of another World Series, Calvin Schiraldi. And Brad Lidge? If he's not Armando reincarnated, let's just say he's got quite the albatross Byung-Hyun around his neck. I've been hearing for two post-seasons how Lidge is the Mariano Rivera of the National League. Now in his last two outings he has given up two of the most dramatic and most crushing home runs that any modern-day reliever has given up in consecutive outings.

This closing business is not the kind of endeavor you score with a pen. Francisco Rodriguez, who gets a lot of those “other than Mariano Rivera” accolades himself was not sharp against the White Sox. Our prospective Christmas present, Billy Wagner, is a prime reason the Astros and not the Phillies made the post-season. And the great Rivera was at the core of the worst choke in sports history a year ago.

So all closers must be non-tendered? No, it's just that none is untouchable, at least not forever. Jenks and Lidge (isn't that who opened for Jeff Foxworthy on his last tour?) will have their good nights again, maybe as soon as Tuesday, but there are no guarantees in ninth innings, particularly World Series ninth innings. There's a tendency to get carried away with closers we're first viewing up close in October. It is balanced by the urge to declare them busts and turn them into national jokes the Monday morning after a Sunday night like both had. Neither view is healthy. No matter how good the closer, he's facing batters on a team that is by definition one of the two best in baseball. Something's bound to give.

Not that this Series isn't fun enough on its own, but for those who like and miss Met angles, here are few others I've noticed:

• Craig Biggio briefly turned into Kaz Matsui handling — or not — a routine pop fly. “I waited a jillion games for this?” he presumably wondered.

• Chris Burke's slide with the hand reaching for the plate was the sort of move Robin Ventura used to execute regularly. I don't think there's anything I enjoy in baseball as much as a brilliant grab of home. I'm not rooting for the Astros, but I am digging on Chris Burke.

• Jose Fucking Vizcaino had to show his wretched form again. Never mind the instant 12th inning, Game One, 2000 ghost that leapt to mind. The replay of him standing on second all pleased and pumped was a Dorian Gray replay of what he did nine years ago against Steve Avery when Avery felt compelled to throw at him and Bobby Jones felt compelled to throw at nobody. I wish Jose Vizcaino would go away already.

• Scott Podsednik was one part Al Weis and one part Lenny Dykstra and, if you need a third part, one part Melvin Mora making with the post-season power where little to none was displayed in the regular season before. I didn't think that sucker was going out. So happy it did.

• Seeing Joe Crede do it all as a third baseman elicited my instinctive reaction of “man, I wish we had a guy like that.” Then I remembered we do have a guy like that. I instantly stopped trading for Joe Crede when I remembered David Wright.

• Roger Clemens sucks. That's not just a Met angle. That's a human angle. Keep icin' that hammy, big boy.

Speaking of Astro starting pitchers of unfortunate distinction and unpleasant association, all the Kids in the Hall fans should remember the show's lesbian league softball sketch between Sappho's Sluggers and Pandora's Jocks. In it, the pitcher for the Jocks, played by Mark McKinney, glared out from behind her glove in a manner that eerily presaged Andy Pettitte doing the same thing. Every October, we get that tight shot of Pettitte with the pouty scowl, and if Stephanie's around, I tell her, “look, it's Pandora's Jocks!” I've been making this observation for ten years and it gets a laugh every time.