The Mets played in Pittsburgh Friday night versus the struggling Pirates.

The Mets played in Pittsburgh Friday night versus the struggling Pirates.

It was a beautiful night for baseball at glorious PNC Park.

It was a beautiful night for baseball at glorious PNC Park.

The Mets jumped out to an early lead.

The Mets jumped out to an early lead.

Victor Zambrano pitched eight brilliant innings.

Victor Zambrano pitched eight brilliant innings.

Despite some questionable baserunning, there was no stopping the Mets.

Bad baserunning was just the beginning of the Mets' troubles.

Ramon Castro had hit a big home run and contributed to some insurance tallies in the top of the ninth.

Ramon Castro got confused on a ball that hit off the wall and with some help from Manny Acta got himself thrown out at home to kill what should have been a bigger inning.

Aaron Heilman came in in the ninth to preserve the win for Zambrano.

Heilman didn't look at all sharp and managed to load the bases.

Braden Looper entered with the bases loaded and two outs. He had a four-run lead and needed to retire just a single batter, a simple task for such an accomplished closer.

Braden Looper couldn't get one fucking out.

Looper toyed with the overmatched Tike Redman.

Looper couldn't get his fastball past freaking Tike Redman who fouled off pitch after pitch until, on the twelfth pitch, he singled home two runs.

Up 5-3, Looper would close the game against ex-Met Matt Lawton.

Freaking Lawton, who never should've been a Met in the first place, drove a sinking liner into left.

Cliff Floyd, overlooked as an All-Star but playing great defense lately, moved in on the ball and ended the game with a neat catch.

Cliff Floyd, looking like a goddamn Little Leaguer out there, first seemed to lose sight of the ball then tried to dive for it and then let it go by him which allowed the tying run to score.

In the top of the tenth, the Mets took the measure of Jose Mesa and regained the lead off the shaky veteran reliever.

It took all of five pitches for Mesa to get the Mets in order.

Looper regained his composure when he started the bottom of the tenth.

Why the fuck was Looper on the mound to start the tenth? Ohmigod, it was like watching Byung-Hyun Kim out there!

With one out, Rob Mackowiak grounded out to second, Cairo to Offerman.

Cairo freaking rushed his throw and it sailed ten feet wide of Offerman who never should be allowed to play first base under any circumstances. It went into the camera box and Mackowiak wound up on second. Natch.

With two out, the Mets elected to walk Daryle Ward and pitch to the little-known Humberto Cota. The percentages said this was the correct move.

Humberto Cota, whoever the fuck he is, singled home the winning run. The Mets, having led 5-1 with two out in the ninth lost 6-5 in ten. According to ESPN, it was the first time the Mets had blown a lead of that size at that juncture of a game since Neil Allen gave up a game-winning grand slam to Bo Diaz in 1983.

The win sent the Mets on the roll many of their fans said was just a matter of time in coming, making the predictions of those who wanted to “throw in the towel” on 2005 seem premature.

Empty the freaking linen closet.

The baseball gods, capricious as they are, like to save their weirder displays for matinees which will be viewed on the sly by all those fans trapped in offices, reloading GameCast or peering furtively at TVs with the sound turned down. I was convinced of this a long time ago, and today's game certainly did nothing to make me think otherwise. It seemed like every time I looked at the screen something strange was going on.

For instance, what was Frank Robinson doing coming out of the dugout in the fifth to talk to Tony Armas? Armas couldn't seem to grasp the idea of getting a bunt down, that was clear. Frank was tired of the fact that his pitcher couldn't do this simple thing, that was clear too. Goodness knows there's been many a time I wished Torborg/Dallas/Bobby V./Art would pop out of the dugout and deliver a firm talking-to to whichever of our pitchers seemed nonplussed to find himself holding a piece of wood. (OK, not Torborg. Fucking Torborg.) But you can do that? Really? I suppose if the pitcher can go halfway up the third-base line to have to coach whisper “Hey stupid, you're bunting,” it makes sense for the manager to be able to have a tete-a-tete in the on-deck circle. But Lord knows I don't recall ever seeing one. If Bobby V. were still around, I'm sure he would have been out there citing 5.63.15b or somesuch. (And the umpires would have ignored him.)

Then there was Heath Bell warming up for the bottom of the 11th while Looper just happened to be making up for a late start getting loose in the pen. Funny how Willie then changed his mind and brought in the closer. Frank didn't seem to like that much — I think it was knowing Looper would get eight more warm-up pitches just to rub it in. Fortunately he didn't know Willie's next move, if that hadn't worked out, was to have Miguel Cairo spend five minutes looking for a contact lens. Par for the course in Earl Weaver's day, maybe — it reminded me, naturally, of Davey Johnson tormenting the Reds in the Ray Knight Fight Game by switching Orosco and McDowell between the mound and the outfield and having them get their warm-up pitches each time. Definitely another one to shake your head at.

I can't really blame Willie for not having Looper up in time, though, because I still can't quite process what I think happened to end the top of the 11th. So let me get this straight: With one out and Floyd on first and Beltran on second, Piazza blooped a hit to right field in front of crybaby Jose Guillen. Beltran scored just ahead of Brian Schneider's tag as Floyd headed for third. Piazza, moving at the approximate speed of continental drift, decided to break for second. Schneider threw the ball to Jamey Carroll, who tagged Piazza out, at which point Carroll realized Floyd was churning up dust on his way home. So Carroll threw the ball back to Schneider, who tagged out Cliff. Inning over! What the hell?! But wait, we have the lead! Whoo-hoo! But…what the hell just happened there?! Who cares, we have the lead! I know, but….

A 9-2-6-2 double play. Usually when you see one of those, there's a keg at second base.

Hey, I just found a towel lying around in here like somebody threw it. Let me just pick that up and drape it over in our corner where it belongs…there, that's better.

First place, despite the best efforts of Aaron Heilman (which were pretty darn good), likely remains a pipe dream but I'm not tossing out the Wild Card as fast as you did the terry cloth. I wouldn't bet Fred Wilpon's mortgage on us making it to October, but I don't think we're completely preposterous, not with the pitching we have and not with Carlos Beltran who, word has it, is quite the second-half player (and New York's gonna love Bill Pecota). While it's a pity that Atlanta, of all teams, is this week's leader in The House of the Wild Card — and I've noted more than once how perennially untenable our position is against them — five games doesn't seem impossible.

No, the world doesn't owe us a hot streak, but look around the Majors. Everybody seems to be getting one this year. Two teams that we, in our infinite wisdom, left for dead, Houston and Oakland, have made a major push to the edge of contention. Is it a coincidence that their rolls began against us? Could we get a few intrasquad games going and maybe take off versus ourselves? (Actually that would be perfect for these Mets: win one, lose one all at once.)

I think we've established here that this season, barring a collapse of Howeling proportions, is an improvement over what came before and that we can feel good about any number of platforms for 2006. But ya know what? It's not 2006 yet. This team has to play 2005 for at least another month before it can think that way. Too much has been poured into this edition before consigning it to the archives. We didn't sign Pedro to kill time and fill seats. We can't tell Wright and Reyes to get used to this sort of thing, that every August and September we start to look ahead, that it'll get better next year.

There are words for that sort of thinking: Tampa and Bay.

While I don't necessarily disagree strongly with any individual aspect of your plan for eventual world domination, I will caution against treating the trading deadline as a legal and binding contract to do something. Listen to offers for Cameron, Floyd or Piazza? Sure, why not? Stephen Hopkins, delegate to the Continental Congress from Rhode Island said (in 1776, the movie we watch every Fourth of July), “I've never seen, heard or smelled an issue that was so dangerous it couldn't be talked about.” He was referring to declaring independence. All we're talking about is fielding inquiries for outfielders. (God Bless America.)

I more or less trust Omar to do the right thing. I like the way he handled the Cameron-Sheffield bit, at least by most accounts. Cashman asked about Mike C. and Omar said, fine, how about Sheffield? From there it blew out of proportion and probably was never going to happen anyway, but he thought big. So if another GM wants to ask about one of our non-Beltran outfielders, listen. But don't rush to sign any papers.

Honestly, I'm in no hurry to trade either one of them. If we're building for 2006 (each has a year remaining on his contract), then we'll need a slugging left fielder and an athletic right fielder. Floyd and Cameron will both be 33 next Opening Day. The way they're playing this year, it feels as if they'll still be in some portion of their prime next year.

Their trade value will never be higher? Value for what? What are we going to get in a panicky, eleventh-hour deal? Who will be in just the right spot to give us X, Y and Z in order to have Cliff Floyd or Mike Cameron come to them and be the big difference in their lives? When does our team stop building for a future that never comes because we never break this cycle of midsummer groping for something better that's rarely if ever attainable in late July?

And how many questions in a row was that?

I know you're not preaching trades for trades' sake, but I'm wary of July 31 under the best of circumstances. It's one thing when you're a pure seller as we were in 2003 and just wanted to move merchandise. And it's another thing if you fancy yourself a true contender and you're shopping for playoff pieces. Sometimes you do well for yourself (Craig Paquette for Shawon Dunston), sometimes you shoot yourself in the foot (Melvin Mora for Mike Bordick). The Mets are neither here nor there, your towel-toss notwithstanding. When residing in that gray area, I vote for here over there. I vote for keeping Floyd and Cameron for the rest of 2005 and considering their future at a calmer, cooler time of year, like after the season. All things being equal, I just as soon return them to office in '06.

The Mets aren't the only local team that should think about standing pat on July 31, or so it says at Gotham Baseball. Don't worry, I'm plenty catty to them.

Time to start thinking about 2006.

This team ain't catching the Nationals, no matter what the Nats' run differential says their record should be. This team ain't closing 5.5 games worth of ground on the Braves either. I know, you could argue we haven't had a run, one of those where you win 14 of 17 and get some momentum going. But there's no law of baseball that every team gets one of those. Bad teams don't, and neither do plenty of .500 teams. And we're not going to get one either. Those October '05 plans you were holding off making? Get on the phone. You'll be free.

This isn't to say I'm down on the 2005 edition of the New York Mets. Not at all, in fact. We added a superstar center fielder, signing him to a rare long-term deal that makes sense, and will start reaping the dividends offensively once he settles in to his new, extraordinarily demanding city. We have a pair of 22-year-old infielders well worth building on, particularly now that/once they're hitting in the proper slots in the batting order. We've got two outfielders and an ace starter who may give us solid '06 seasons, and if not have already served as veteran leadership to help the next generation through its apprenticeship. We've got some promising young arms maturing at the big-league level or close to it, and can expect a least a couple of arms further down in the system to prove useful. We've got a manager who may move a little slowly for our tastes, but is a firm, respected hand in the clubhouse and a good teacher. We've got a pitching coach who may not always live up to his off-the-cuff boasts, but already has a string of successful or near-successful reclamation projects on his resume. We've got an ownership that's willing to spend and a new stadium and TV network on the way.

So 2006 looks good, and there's no reason the rest of 2005 shouldn't be fun and encouraging. In fact, I think it'll be more fun and more encouraging if we let go, if we accept. This club just has too far to go to play postseason baseball this year: Too many old players aging too fast, too many young players who won't be ready in time, too many declining or dead roster spots that can't be cleared in the next couple of weeks. It's not going to happen, and that's OK.

Since it's not going to happen, here's hoping Omar and Willie and the Wilpons do the smart things in the next few weeks. From my admittedly flawed, fannish perspective, here's my list:

ARMS

* It no longer matters that Ishii and Glavine are dragging down the starting rotation, so keep them in there with hopes of moving them at the deadline.

* Listen to any takers for Zambrano. He's certainly earned the chance to stay, but might be worth more in a trade.

* Figure out whether Seo, Heilman or both deserve starts in August and September, and make sure they get them.

* Move Looper and/or Roberto Hernandez if the right deal comes along.

* Solidify roles for Ring, Bell and Heilman (if he remains a reliever) so we know what we have.

* Continue the Danny Graves experiment, but cut the Dae-Sung Koo one short.

BATS

* Listen to any offers for Piazza, Floyd or Cameron. Don't trade Floyd and/or Cameron for the sake of trading them, but they may have more value now than they ever will again.

* Get rid of Matsui by the time pitchers and catchers report again. He's not a dog, but he needs a new start. We may never find out if he was hurt, couldn't change positions, couldn't adjust to natural grass, hated New York, or exactly what went wrong, but it doesn't matter anymore.

* Determine, as best one ever can, the right long-term place in the batting order for Reyes, Wright and Beltran and let them get 200+ at-bats there.

* Figure out which veterans can really be teachers in part-time roles, and give the other spots over to minor-leaguers who could use a taste of the Show.

Post-Script: Funny, but my reaction to the Nationals last night was the opposite of yours. I'm actually coming to like them. Sure, Jose Guillen seems like a jerk, but other than him it's hard not to root for them. They're a bunch of kids and journeymen you've barely heard of or forgot were still around, and yet they win one-run games and somehow do everything right, and they're unbeatable. In fact, I daresay they remind me a bit of the story of a hangdog squad that made good the year of the moon landing.

Hell, I hope we go 11-0 against them the rest of the way, but I wouldn't mind rooting for them come October. (I don't think they'll make it, but that's another post.) It's a great story for that franchise and for Washington, and I'm happy for both of them. And nope, even though you've chronicled our struggles and our frustrations with the Expos quite ably, I don't mind that tri-color M in their history. What I hated about the Expos was the turf and the dead air in the stadium and the weird mirror glass behind home plate and the air horns going BRAAAP! BRAAAP! all the time and Youppi and the acres of empty, jaundice-colored seats and the random road trips to Puerto Rico. All that's gone, and in my mind the Expos and their essential Exponess went with it. This is a new team, and I bear them no ill will beyond the fact that they're ahead of us in the standings. Which, as I said too many words ago, no longer matters. With 11 exceptions, Come October, what the hell: Go Nats!

XM Radio allows me to listen to the home broadcasts of every team in the Majors. It's ideal for tracking the competition in a five-team divisional race, and when that evaporates (I think I just heard it go pffffft), it will no doubt be useful for any Wild Card business as long as that lasts.

It also has had one unintended effect: It got me hooked on Washington Nationals games. Well, not the whole games, just the ends. Just the part where they emerge victorious at RFK and their announcer, ex-Met fill-in and long-ago Tidecaster Charlie Slowes, exclaims, “The Nationals win again! Bang Zoom go the fireworks!”

This phenomenon, looking forward to a grown man imitating the sound of a firecracker, is childish, I admit. I started tuning into these games to hear the Nationals lose because the Mets might pick up ground on them (hahahahaha). But as you also know, the Nationals rarely lose at home. So while my enemy-tracking via XM was failing miserably, I found myself anticipating Slowes' triumphant signature signoff. Sure it reads corny, but for some reason it's endearing on the air. I didn't want the first-place Nationals to keep winning, but I liked hearing what was said when they won.

What an unexpected dilemma. Cripes, I was actually disappointed last week when the Nationals beat Pittsburgh. No, not disappointed because of what it meant to the Mets' standing in the pennant race (hahahahaha) but because a rain delay forced the game past midnight. There's no doubt a local ordinance against setting off celebratory fireworks that late, so Slowes ended it with “Bang Zoom, the Nationals win again!”

Didn't have the same spark. I wanted my fireworks call. I knew and I know that it was wrong, that it was sick, that it was counterproductive and that the Washington Nationals, as much of a marvelous story as they are, are to be loathed as a National League East rival.

And I do loathe them. Tuesday night reminded me that this deceptively ragged band of Exponentials, from cantankerous Frank Robinson to volatile Jose Guillen to fossilized cleanup batter Carlos Baerga to Jose Vidro (who is a vicious adjective unto himself and thus requires no modifier) all the way to the disappointingly unlooperlike Chad Cordero, are despicable as opponents. I may have pitied them at the very end when they were Montreal but I wasn't terribly concerned that the likes of Jamey Carroll be given a good home (which RFK, the prison exercise yard of MLB, isn't) and a bat with which to club us.

But with the Mets down there in a last-gasp attempt to close the chasm on the division leaders (hahahahaha), I had to see if there was anything to this slight flirtation I'd indulged in with their play-by-play guy. I've had my passing other-team infatuations. They never wear well. I'm not cut out for summer flings. I'm a one-team man.

My first and probably most meaningful rendezvous came in 1978 when I ran around town in a Red Sox cap because I just knew they were going to inflict humiliation on the Yankees that they would never live down. There were people who assumed I was a Red Sox fan for real. That's how convincing I was. Then there were 1982 and 1991 with the Braves when they were feisty underdogs in another division, and 1993 and the nutcase Phillies of Lenny Dykstra who provided a font of amusement and a touch of inspiration while the Mets dedicated themselves to finishing eighth in a seven-team division. My previously copped-to distant — now dormant — thing for the Angels was more an October fancy, but I retained some nominal feeling for them post-2002.

You'll notice all of these little winks I made toward other teams came in years when the Mets stank on ice. My beloveds didn't give me a reason not to look around, and to be fair, I never strayed very far. I was just looking for a little action when I wasn't getting the good stuff at home. But the 2005 Mets are, at least for another week, contenders (haha…stop laughing already). Except for '93, which doesn't (or shouldn't) count, I've never flirted with an N.L. Easterner. Yet here I was, a little too into what Washington was up to. Even Stephanie noticed something was going on.

Could “Bang Zoom” really be that much of siren song to me? I tuned in to the Nationals' series against the Cubs from Chicago over the weekend. That meant it was Ron Santo and Pat Hughes doing the games. I found myself rooting for the Nationals even though not a single bang nor a solitary zoom would filter through the XM. Mind you, I viscerally hate the Cubs (you never forget your first hate) and they are, technically, part of the same Wild Card scramble we're in. But I didn't like that I was just a little happy for the team that beat the Cubs.

To see if there was anything serious to worry about, I turned XM to the Natscast of the Mets game Tuesday night. This would be the real test. If I were actually drawn to “Bang Zoom” after a Mets loss (which seemed inevitable, rally or not), then I knew I had a problem. Frankly, I was concerned.

When the teasealicious ninth inning was over on MSG, after Brian Drawback brought shame to uniform No. 13 (I swear that for about an eighth of a second after I saw those digits, I thought the next hitter would be…well, you know who), I checked in with XM, whose signal is about a minute shy of real time.

Drawback popped up to deep short on DC's Z-104 just like he did on MSG. “The Nationals win again!” proclaimed a hearty Charlie Slowes. “Bang Zoom go the fireworks!”

I heard no fireworks. The only sound I heard was me snapping out of it.

I was no longer charmed by Bang or taken with Zoom. I had no use whatsoever for the Washington announcer or his partner whose last name happens to be Shea (yet actually referred to the excitement of “Nationals basketball” during the dreary wrapup). Any slight attraction to the first-place Nationals — whose only appeal is that they are not the second-place Braves — ended right then and there. All I could do in the aftermath of a bitter Mets loss was channel the spirit of Tanner Boyle:

Hey Slowes! You can take your signature call and your fireworks and shove 'em straight up your ass!

C'mon Mets. Let's go home.

It was one of those days: Emily's birthday (yes, she shares it with George Steinbrenner and the Republic), a friend in town, outings planned for the birthday girl and Joshua. Lots to do, in other words — and in the middle of it, a suddenly not-so-appealing date with the Washington Nationals, the who'da-thunk-it kings of the National League East, and practically unbeatable at home. Faced with a critical juncture of the puzzling 2005 season in the form of a battle with a team 10 games ahead of us, Emily and I tacitly agreed we'd do the smart thing: Today was not going to be held hostage by a sub-.500 team, not a day after we spent well over $100 and an entire afternoon watching said mediocre team get three hits off Dontrelle Willis.

Only. Well. Except. Walking across town to Shake Shack, I became acutely aware that it was game time. Game time, and I didn't know what was happening. I couldn't have brought a radio? A few Shackburgers and a caramel shake pushed the vague sense of guilt away, but then the 60-something woman at the table behind us started chatting with a couple in line about the Mets. “I can't stand that Offerman,” she brayed in that inimitable New Yawk way. “Why'd they bring him up?” The couple said they had a radio, and there was no score early. “That Ishii,” the woman said in disgust before swiftly moving on to Looper, who was “no good.” They should have stuck with Benitez, and look how we used to complain about him?

Clearly one of us.

“Benitez is hurt,” Emily interjected. We asked the couple what was the score again. Now out-fanatic'ed on two fronts, they had started to look vaguely panicky. It wasn't a debacle, at least not yet. We were able to determine that much.

On the subway, Joshua expressed his certainty that when we got home, he was going to further plumb the subtleties of “Maisy,” the vaguely British cartoon mouse whose cheerfully mundane doings rule our TiVo.

“Mommy and Daddy are watching the game,” he was told.

We tuned in to see the replay of Wright in a rundown, Reyes moving by fits and starts to third, and Woodward (initially almost unnoticed) doing something bad to his leg — far too much to take in at a glance, let alone when you've just arrived and are trying to get the basics of score and inning.

Washington 2, New York 1. Top of the seventh. First and third. One out. Not as promising as things had been a moment before we turned on the TV, but not hopeless by any means. Then Daubach strikes out. Groans. They've saved the worst for us, of course: We're just in time to see the team fold, to learn later what colossally typical blunder led to the rundown. Eleven out, what does it matter how many to play.

Only Cameron breaks his bat and drops a little flare behind second base. All tied up. Jubilation. “Did the man hit a home run?” asks Joshua. “No, but good enough,” I tell him. He tries on his storm-cloud face. Complicated, this baseball stuff.

Can Roberto hold it? He can. Then the ninth: Wright gets rung up on an evil Sunny Kim pitch, but Reyes beats out an infield hit — speed never goes into a slump and all that. Reyes obviously isn't leading off — what's up with that? He has to steal here. Can he? Kim is keeping him close. Can Gary Bennett throw? He wasn't a Met long enough for me to remember. Jose swipes the bag. Can the other Jose — the elderly, butterfingered one who shouldn't be on this team — bring him home? He can! Perhaps the woman from Shake Shack should think better of him, at least for today. Perhaps so should we.

But Looper awaits, so 3-2 Mets isn't going to cut it. We need some insurance — like, say, batting around a time or two. That doesn't happen, but Cameron doubles and the resurgent Beltran singles him home for a 5-2 lead. By now, a brief Emily errand has caused a TiVo pause of a few minutes' duration, so when Looper climbs the hill to face Vinny Castilla I'm hoping the game is, in fact, already over. (And baseball gods please note I don't mean in the Opening-Day-in-Cincy way.)

It is! We win! And immediately I'm swept up in all the usual Met madness I'd dammed away for six unseen innings: Back to .500. Hey, nine out. Sweep these damn Nats and we're six out, that's not so bad. Jose finally got dropped in the lineup, Willie's getting it. But Wright's still hitting behind Anderson, what's up with that? Ohhh, it's the L/R/L/R thing again. Can that really be more important than getting a high-value hitter like Wright more at-bats? Maybe some sabermetrics genius can take it apart and issue a ruling. What did those damn Braves, Phils and Marlins do today? And hey, when the heck is tomorrow's game….

Happy Dependence Day, everybody!

It's that time again. No, not time to flail helplessly against Livan Hernandez, Chad Cordero and the powerhouse National pitching staff that is poised to bury us 14 games deep into last place. It's time for yet another installment of the Faith and Fear Short-Season Awards.

For those of you just tuning in, at the end of the first month or so of the season, we ripped off paid homage to Joe Gergen's old bit in Newsday and rushed to judge the Mets based on a limited body of work. It went over so well, we decided to make this a fractional tradition after the second-sixth of the season and honor the best and worst of the Mets during that particular 16.666666667% of the schedule.

Having just witnessed the Mets play games 55 (6/4) through 81 (7/3), we now present the Third Edition of the Sixthies.

Freude Mets

1. Cliff Floyd: Hey now, you're an All-Star to us.

2. Pedro Martinez: Hey now, you're the whole galaxy.

3a. Charlon Woonderson: He's great no matter where he plays.

3b. Mars Andward: Him, too.

4. Jose Reyes: It must be nice to outrun your flaws.

5. Victor Zambrano: Can you believe Tampa Bay traded a bulldog like him for an unproven minor leaguer?

Schaden Mets

1. Kaz Ishii: Norfolk's beautiful this time of year.

2. Tom Glavine: So is San Diego, big shot.

3. David Wright: Take a deep breath and try not to think when you field.

4. Braden Looper: You pick the worst times, I swear.

5. Gerald Williams: Granted, he hasn't done anything. And he never will.

Most Runyonesque* Episode

1. This is the way old “Marlon” Anderson ran last month, running his home run home. This is the way old “Marlon” Anderson ran running his home run home in a Met victory by a score of 5 to 3 in the second game of an interleague series in 2005. This is the way old “Marlon” Anderson ran, running his home run home, when there was one out in the ninth inning and the score was Angels 2 Mets 1 and the ball was still bounding inside the Met yard. This is the way —

2. His mouth wide open. His warped old legs bending beneath him at every stride. His arms flying back and forth like those of a man swimming with a crawl stroke. His flanks heaving, his breath whistling, his head far back.

3. Angel infielders, passed by old “Marlon” Anderson as he was running his home run home, say “Marlon” was muttering to himself, adjuring himself to greater speed as a jockey mutters to his horse in a race, that he was saying: “Go on, Marlon! Go on!” People generally laugh when they see old “Marlon” Anderson run, but they were not laughing when he was running his home run home last month. People — 34,000 of them, men and women — were standing in the Met stands and bleachers out there in Flushing roaring sympathetically, whether they were for or against the Mets. “Come on, Marlon!” The warped old legs, twisted and bent by many a year of baseball campaigns, just barely held out under “Marlon” Anderson until he reached the plate, running his home run home. Then they collapsed.

4. They gave out just as old “Marlon” Anderson slid over the plate in his awkward fashion with Jose Molina futilely reaching for him with the ball. “Larry” Young, the Major League umpire, poised over him in a set pose, arms spread wide to indicate that old “Marlon” was safe.

5. Half a dozen Mets rushed forward to help “Marlon” to his feet, to hammer him on the back, to bawl congratulations in his ears as he limped unsteadily, still panting furiously, to the bench where Willie L. Randolph, the chief of the Mets, relaxed his stern features to smile for the man who had tied the game. “Marlon” Anderson's warped old legs, neither of them broken not so long ago, wouldn't carry him out for the top half of the next inning when the Angels made a dying effort to undo the damage done by “Marlon.” His place in the lineup was taken by “Braden” Looper, whose legs are still unwarped, and “Marlon” sat on the bench with Willie Randolph.

Other Life-Affirming Moments

1. The CliffMonsta battles Brendan Donnelly for about an hour and wins.

2. Pedro throws a no-hitter against the Astros…except for the two hits he gives up (a mere technicality).

3. Call-and-response exercise wherein Gary Cohen says “Fly ball to center. Should be playable for Bernie Williams…” and I ask “or is it?”

4. Carlos Beltran blasts one out in Oakland when somebody not named Pedro has started.

5. Mike Cameron doesn't go to the Skanques for some jerk who doesn't want to be here and we don't want him no way no how, unless maybe…NO! Screw you, Sheffield.

Why Life Needs Affirming

1. 2-7 against the American League West.

2. Jose Offerman, first baseman.

3. Fucking Looper in the fucking ninth inning in the fucking Bronx. FUCK!

4. Except for the Sunday night half of the doubleheader against the Giants, we haven't won a home game all year on a Sunday. The “day of rest” thing isn't meant for you, fellas.

5. Upon closer inspection, the Times Piazza pin is a little blurry.

Key Transactions

1. ANNOUNCED: New York City will support an Olympic bid that will allow a new Mets ballpark to be built whether the Olympics come here or not. Or so they say now.

2. RELEASED: Aaron Heilman, from the mound at Safeco Field too soon when he could have done us some good.

3. DESIGNATED FOR ASSIGNMENT: More than half of the Opening Day bullpen. Woo-hoo!

4. RECALLED: Carlos Beltran's legs and his ability to use them.

5. INELIGIBLE TO PLAY: Mike Piazza's right arm, but it keeps insisting on making throws anyway.

Phrases I Thought I Might Get To Use But Didn't

1. I can't wait until they release him and turn him into Mike DeGone.

2. Abreu sliced through Manny like he was a stick of Hotel Aybar Butter.

3. With a name like Mientkiewicz, he must really know how to stretch.

4. Thankfully, Omar wasn't addled enough to sign Danny Graves.

5. It'll be a tough homestand, but at least we get four games in Washington after it's over.

*A classic play deserves a classic description. Damon Runyon penned this account of Casey Stengel's game-winning inside-the-park homer in the 1923 World Series when the Giants took on the Yankees. Eighty-two years hence, only the salient facts have been altered.

“Joshua, do you know you saw Dontrelle Willis pitch back before you even knew you loved baseball?”

“The D-Train? Really?”

“Yep. It was early in his career — we were still getting used to the D-Train thing then. That Reed Richards leg kick still made our eyes pop. And back then we hadn't gotten it through our heads that he could really hit, too.”

“Wow, Dad. How many wins did he have back then? Hey, did I see his 100th win?”

“Nope. He was just 23 years old. You saw … let's see. Win Number 37. You were more interested in ice cream and pushing the seat up and down and the bag of the woman in the row behind us, because it had giraffes and lions and birds on it. You were only two and a half. But Dontrelle beat us in just 2 hours and 20 minutes, so it was the first time you stayed for an entire big-league game. That was nice of him, at least.”

“It wasn't my first game?”

“No. You don't want to know about your first game, trust me. Ask Uncle Greg about it some time.”

“I was two? So this was at Shea, not Federated First Union Bankshares Field?”

“Yeah, it was at Shea. Boy, do I not miss that old rattletrap.”

“I know, I know. I've heard the stories. So how many did Dontrelle strike out?”

“Just seven. But it was a three-hit shutout. We barely touched him all day.”

“Not even David Wright got a hit?”

“Not even David Wright. He was young then too, you know. Lined out to end the game. It was kind of a crazy ninth inning — Dontrelle hit Mike Cameron, fanned Carlos Beltran, Mike Piazza hit a hard bouncer that Dontrelle snagged, and Wright lined out. But even though it was only 3-0, you knew we didn't have a chance.”

“That was Piazza's last year as a Met, right?”

“Right. Wish we could have gotten him a ring, but the Nationals just ran off and hid, and we yo-yo'ed around .500 all year. You know, come to think of it, Piazza was the first player you cheered for. The crowd was yelling 'Let's Go Mets' in the ninth and you looked out at the field and said, 'Get a hit, Mike!' Your mom and I were very proud of you.”

“Dad, if you get all Harry Chapin on me, I'm outta here. Shutout by the D-Train. You must have been booing like crazy.”

“Me? Boo Dontrelle? No way. Nobody could boo Dontrelle. Baseball could use a dozen more just like him.”

“Who started for us?”

“Victor Zambrano. Pitched pretty well, but got the loss.”

“The guy we traded Scott Kazmir for?”

“Yep.”

“Why do we always make these stupid trades?”

“That's a good question. Still, you have to understand Victor actually turned into a pretty good pitcher. He gets a bad rap.”

“Right, dad. And what's his name…Jim Fregosi was a great third baseman.”

“Broke his finger in spring — oh, never mind. You know, you saw a few great players that day. Here, look at the box score.”

“Reyes and Wright, that's pretty cool. And Miguel Cabrera! But wait…oh, I guess that was before he won the Triple Crown as a Yankee.”

“Yeah, goddamn it. I remember one day that summer we were watching the game on TV and you turned around and announced, 'We don't like the Yankees.' We figured you'd turn out OK after that.”

“What'd I tell you about getting all sentimental, Pop?”

“Sorry.”

“It's OK. Thanks for showing me that old box score. It was pretty cool to look at.”

“My pleasure. Hey, you realize you got a chance to see Jose Offerman and Gerald Williams play, too?”

“Who?”

“Nothing, kid. Bad joke.”