One so rarely gets exactly what one wishes for in these Subway Series games that when my unspoken request was granted, I should've been surprised. But I wasn't, considering the nature of the request.

There's Looper, struggling his Braden off, doing his best to make a save situation out of a four-run lead (closers, schmosers, I tell you what). There's the four-pitch walk. And there he is, still struggling with T. Martinez. And I thought, just give up a two-run homer here. You'll be up 6-4 but the bases will be clear and you won't have one of those horrendous Yankee carousels spinning all around you.

So Tino Martinez hit a two-run homer and made it 6-4. I got what I asked for. Why didn't that make me feel any better?

Oh right, this is Us and Them, again. Nothing is ever that simple when its Push vs. Shove. I'm not sure which one we are, but it's usually the less successful of the pair. I've been listening to the likes of Tim McCarver tell me for more than twenty years that a pitcher with a big lead is better off giving up a home run rather than putting runner after runner on base. It clears his head or something. It short-circuits the opposing team's momentum. Remember earlier this season the Mets were down four runs in the ninth in Philly and Cliff hit a three-run homer? That was considered bad form on his part because now that the Mets had edged to within one run, they had somehow let the Phillies off the hook.

Doesn't work that way with the Yankees, does it? Instead of Looper dancing through raindrops with a four-run lead and maybe first and second, he's got a two-run lead and that whole crew waiting in the wings to shove my wish straight up my cranial cavity. I swear if it weren't for the fact that this really does seem to be the year of the Yankee Collaps…I mean they're not quite doing as well as expected and that's the only reason they didn't pounce on him like the motherfuckers we know they are and can be when they truly focus on the task at hand.

How about them New Mets? Watching MSG's replay of the sweep game from July 4, 2004, I was stunned — stunned! — at how many Old Mets I'd forgotten were here less than 365 days ago. They're already like fifth cousins in the family album. Our heroes, mainstays and supporting players that weekend included people named Wigginton, Hidalgo, Spencer, Phillips, McEwing, Moreno, Bottalico and Parra to say nothing of the lingering Leiters, Francos and Zeiles. Where'd they all go? These guys beat the Yankees three straight. Wha' hoppin'?

Oh yeah, the rest of 2004. Well, never mind them except that we wished to replace that cast and our wish came true. We got New Mets out the yin-yang, and many of them made good things happen Friday night. Pedro needs no introduction. Our centerfielder reminded me of the guy we signed in January. Mientkiewicz suddenly has a game to match his name — neither will quit. Marlon Anderson can pinch-field a little. Nice New Mets we've got on occasion.

Nice reborn slightly older Mets, too. Did you ever dream we'd love Mike Cameron as a rightfielder? And that Cliff Floyd would deserve at least consideration, I'm not kidding, for a Gold Glove? Without flashing my fan credentials in too showy a fashion, I have to say that in 37 seasons of watching Mets baseball, I don’t think we've ever had a better defensive outfield.

I also wished for Tino Martinez to hit a home run off Braden Looper, so what do I know? I know to be careful with those wishes. This one actually had its intended effect with the assist of slick infield work (this is not the best defensive infield we've ever had, by the way), so maybe I'll make another wish.

I wish Sean Henn wasn't the starting pitcher Saturday. That's right, I said it. Unknown quantities give me the shakes. The rest of Metsdom is probably drooling in its Rheingold over facing this neophyte, but how many lefties that you've never or barely heard of, even those with 10.00 ERAs like Henn's, have cooperated with our fantasies of pitching down to their obscurity against us? It's a short list. For every Halsey, there's like ten Claussens and a hundred Nabholzes and a thousand Zerbes and I don't like it — especially because of his opponent, our knight in this battle of ignoble southpaws.

Tom Fucking Glavine is pissin' me off already and he has yet to give up a run today. Before Friday's game he was on with the WFAN afternoon hosts (Ego and the Idiot as a friend refers to them) and was asked about the possibilities of a trade before July 31. This is what Tom Glavine should have said:

“I'm a New York Met and I plan on being a New York Met and doing my best for the rest of my contract to help us win.”

That's not what Tom Glavine said. To paraphrase and read between the lines, it was more like, “Ya heard anything? I could be packed in 15 minutes. I am so outta here!” OK, technically he wasn't that inflammatory but there was a good deal of “well, it would really depend where I'd get traded” and pish-posh like that.

Of course if Tom Glavine were somehow traded, you and I and not a few of our fellow travelers would throw a bon voyage party the likes of which Shea hasn't seen since Roberto Alomar slid headfirst into his farewell cake. But that's for us to revel in, not him. He should be feeling awful, horrible, terrible shame at the way he has pitched as a highly paid New York Met. And if he can't feel that, at least he should fake that. I don't need to hear him go on about how San Diego wouldn't be preferable because it would take him so far from his family, but Boston, yeah, he could deal with that.

Glavine's de facto concession speech was plowed under by the marvy Mets win that followed (Pedro got himself a police escort to cut through pre-game traffic, so anxious is he to live up to his expectations), but I was reminded of it all over again when I resumed reading Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx is Burning late Friday evening. In Jonathan Mahler's well-conceived, well-executed book about New York circa 1977, he touches on the toll Catfish Hunter's arm miseries were taking on his pitching:

Not one to miss a turn — he already felt guilty enough about getting paid so much to work forty days a year — Hunter pitched through the pain…

Jesus, the man's arm was falling off but he was taking the ball and not making excuses. He was a diabetic, too, if I recall. Catfish Hunter was a real ace and a real Hall of Famer (too bad he was a Yankee). Pedro is a real ace and a real Hall of Famer. Maddux and Johnson and, though it stirs my acids to say it, Clemens all merit those distinctions. When Tom Glavine is talked about as a likely Hall of Famer, I seethe some. He benefited from a ridiculous strike zone for a decade and when faced with the least bit of adversity, he practically phoned it in. We're supposed to feel sorry for him somehow that QuesTec and a yellow cab caught up to him after he took the money and ran to a team in obvious decline? Now he's publicly speculating that he doesn't want to be bothered to go all the way to San Difuckingego if by chance an actual first-place team wants him?

Dear Tom: I hope the Mets do trade you and that it's to the Bora Bora Bores while they're on the first leg of a South Asian road trip that lasts three months, you pompous, disproportionately overcompensated ass.

But first beat the Yankees. That would be my more immediate wish.

So we set a National League record for sac flies in one inning, then tried to set one for near-death experiences by a closer in one inning.

OK, I'm going to try some spin: Braden Looper's struggles, horrifying to watch though they were, proved instructive in illustrating how far our young, by-turns-exhilirating-and-excruciating team, has come in a month. At least for one night.

Last month, you will recall, we lost two out of three to Satan's minions in truly aggravating fashion: In the first game TBKM and Minky made errors in the sixth; in the third game Pedro convincingly established that he was the progeny of neither pinstriped jackasses nor their braying mook fans, thank you very much — or at least he established this through seven, only to watch in the eighth as Wright and Reyes made dreadful errors, setting it up for the Matsui who can hit and Bernie Williams to beat us.

Fast-forward a month. First we get rescued by several great plays by Beltran, Cameron and Minky, though Floyd's simultaneously juggling an overager shortstop and a baseball perhaps hinted at nail-biting to come. Fortunately, the Hermit of Montoursville emerged from his bunker and saw his shadow, which meant six more innings of lousy pitches. (If Piazza and Floyd don't miss a couple of pitches, Mussina would have exited down about 9-2.)

And then Looper Time. Let's review. One-out walk to Posada, meatball to Tino, 6-4, remaining Yankee-fan mooks rising from their boozy fantasies of violence and successful petty crimes to bray at the night sky. And then a perfect bunt by Tony Womack, charged by our promising young third baseman, emphasis recently on “promising” as in “still some work to do.” This is David Wright whose gaffe lost a game to the Angels, who got a run erased with a dopey break for third, who passed up two put-outs against the Phillies on one play, whose thoughts of a double turned a single into a groundout. We love David Wright, but his growing pains have been rather stabbing of late. And so what does David Wright do on an absolutely unfieldable, put-it-in-your-pocket-and-glower bunt?

He throws Tony Womack out by half a step.

Looper, given the Heimlich by one infielder, looks in puzzlement at the near-fatal chickenbone that just popped out of his throat and immediately crams another oversized portion of hot piping suck into his mouth: After starting Jeter off 0-2, he gives up a single. Then he gets unlucky: Robinson Cano chops one off the plate to Marlon Anderson, who as a fielder is a heckuva pinch-hitter. It's a Baltimore chop, another put-it-in-your-pocket-and-glower ball. Gary Sheffield is going to stroll to the plate as the winning run, torque that bat like a bullwhip, and do Something Terrible to us. You and I both know this.

Except Marlon Anderson sucks up an evil short hop, comes up, throws, and the ball thuds into Minky's glove before Cano slides in. Looper, Heimliched again, spits out another chickenbone, discovers to his amazement and ours that he's alive, and turns for the high five.

Whew. Every time I think I might have this game figured out, it shows me otherwise.

MSG has been showing “classic” Subway Series games all afternoon to get us pumped for tonight. I don't know if it'll work, but I'm pretty excited about what I already know happened.

We just beat the Yankees 12-2 in 2000. And we're about to sweep the Yankees in 2004.

You could do worse for daytime drama.

Clemens still sucks.

I can't believe we lost to the friggin' Mets today. If we can't beat the Mets, what's the point?

It's hard enough being Phillies fans the way we are (a mostly embarrassing and shameful history; no championship in a quarter-century; psycho skipper replaced by laconic loser; we're in Philadelphia, for crissake), but this is insult to injury. What is it about playing the Mets that brings out the worst in our Phillies? We're 3-6 against New York this year and almost every game we've lost I was sure we were going to win.

Like I said what's the point? What's the point of having an alleged Metkiller like Pat Burrell if Pat doesn't in fact kill those damn Mets? Where's Armando Benitez when we need him? What's the point of riding the back of the best rightfielder in the National League — one who has owned Braden Looper forever — if Abreu can't touch him? What's the point of having alleged studs like Thome and gnats like Rollins and an arm like Wagner if we can't beat the Mets?

Cripes, Tank can't do it all by himself.

Is this our life? Getting beat by guys we had no use for like Marlon Anderson and Roberto Hernandez? Losing to the Mets behind ex-Mets like Cory Lidle? (I'm beginning to think Lidle is still on their payroll like some sort of, I don't know, Manchurian Met). Are we destined to, no offense to our second baseman, always Chase and never lead? It's bad enough we're behind a team from Washington, but we can't even beat the last-place, friggin' Mets.

How on earth are they in last? I don't know what they're like the rest of the time, but man are they lethal when they play us. Piazza's always having a happy homecoming. Floyd hits bombs. Mientkiewicz is an All-Star. Reyes runs wild. Pitchers I've never heard of like Royce Ring and Heath Bell don't look so bad. Even that kid Wright, who makes all those dopey plays, can't stop them. That's what the Mets are against our team – unstoppable. Except for one lucky inning Wednesday night, we would've been swept.

The worst part? The way their fans show up here. More of 'em were here this week than were at Shea Stadium the last time the Phils were in New York. What's the point of having a great new ballpark if it's gonna be filled by Mets fans? Do you have any idea how long the cheesesteak lines were with all of them here on Thursday afternoon? If we can't enjoy our cheesesteaks and lose in peace, I have to ask once more…

What's the point?

Shove 'em on the SEPTA. Steer 'em to the Turnpike. Throw 'em in the Schuylkill. I don't care what ya do with 'em. Get the Mets out of Philly. They're murder on us.

OK, so that would have made a lousy song title. And it won't necessarily make for a hugely enjoyable season of winning baseball. But it's what we've got. And, perhaps inspired by your cry to “Stand pat!”, I found tonight that it's enough for me.

I had to inspired by something, because it sure wasn't tonight's game. What on earth was David Wright doing with that one-hopper he sorta fielded? Did he really think he'd caught the ball? Did he think the umpire had just suffered a bout of hysterical blindness? If only there'd been a dispirited runner from second chugging toward him, he could have set a record for most easy put-outs ignored. Jeepers. It's interesting how often you still see something new in a baseball game, but I'd rather not have seen that.

As for that seventh inning, well, I'm disappointed but I'm not down. Whatever Dr. Peterson did with Royce Ring, my hat's off, even if it took more than 10 minutes.* Ring made Abreu look foolish, and almost got Thome on an exquisitely nasty 3-2 pitch. (Almost — the ump made the right call.) As for Aaron Heilman, he was by turns overamped, unlucky and bad. Hey, it happens. His pitches still have zip and movement, and I'm still encouraged. Besides, I'll take Ring and Heilman and even our flyer on Danny Graves over no-future retreads like Mike DeJean any day. The kids are learning on the job — as is the still-esteemed Mr. Wright — and it's going to be rough at times, for them and for us. But I see potential. I see promise. And I'm curious — eager, even — to see how it all turns out, whether we get to the good part of the story later this year or in 2006 or whenever.

(You'll notice I'm not including Mister Koo on that list. Time to write Mister Koo out of this particular tale.)

Besides, what the hey, maybe we tired Billy Wagner out in the ninth. Right back at 'em tomorrow, bright and early. Even if it is Ishii.

* And maybe we oughta retire that joke. Watching Zambrano pitch is excruciating, like watching the family dog play in traffic, but y'know what? He's gotten pretty good at dodging cars.

Turns out Gerald Williams is good in the clubhouse. Doug Mientkiewicz said so on Mets Extra, pointing out how Geriatric Gerald was exercising all kinds of great influence on Jose, which obviously paid off in Philadelphia Tuesday night. Well, I thought, maybe that's worth something, if not an entire roster spot.

Ed Coleman, who likes to agree with whoever's talking into his microphone, concurred with Minky. “Right,” said Ed. “Last year, Gerald was riding Floyd and Cameron all the time.”

And that worked to what end exactly? Remember that play in this very same park last September when Cliff pulled a Benny and tossed away a live ball because he thought there were three outs? (There weren't.) Come to think of it, where was Gerald Williams last night at the Cit when Cliff had no idea where the ball was or little feel for how many outs there were in the first? Why wasn't Gerald influencing Cliff before the game? Surely someone who's that good in the clubhouse can be a positive influence on two Mets simultaneously.

Why am I picking on Gerald Williams? I'm sure he's a swell guy. I mean that I'm really sure. Peter Gammons had it several years ago that Gerald was “a man who didn't own a car until [2000] — nor even looked into buying a house, which he now [has] — because he used his money to help his 13 brothers and sisters and 26 nieces and nephews who, like Gerald, grew up poor in Louisiana and didn't have his gifts or determination to make the kind of money that baseball players do.” Hard to get down on a guy like that.

So make him a coach. Twenty-four years ago, Joe Torre brought in Bob Gibson as his “attitude coach”. It wasn't to much avail as the only Met pitcher with any attitude in 1981 was Dyar Miller (he slugged Joe Pignatano in a hotel bar), but let's give Gerald a clipboard and a whistle, and let Gerald give Cliff and Cammy and Jose and the whole bunch of 'em a truckload of attitude.

But find somebody else to hit and throw and catch and such.

I'll let you in on a little secret: I haven't given up on this team. Not just because they won a game they needed to win, but because they can't be as bad as they've played of late. The 2-9 stretch of recent bad baseball is inexcusable, but do you really think those are the Mets we'll see for the rest of 2005? We can play with numbers all we want, but I have some that I believe are relevant.

Eliminate (though they count) the first five games of the season. And hold in abeyance the last couple of weeks. Whaddaya got? Ya got a team with a 31-22 span in its portfolio. That's just about one-third of a season completed at a clip of roughly 95 wins when extrapolated across the entire slate.

The Mets were playing at that pace as recently as two weeks ago. That's a sample you can trust to a certain extent. That's evidence that the 2005 Mets are pretty good. That's cause for just a little patience.

The West Coast swing (Dirty Thirty to Date: 1-5, 24 to go) was dreadful as was the latter half of the homestand that preceded it. But what caused that shortfall? Injuries and a slump. Slumps don't last forever. Injuries are part of the game; if you can't overcome them, you're screwed anyway. But let's assume that injuries heal within a reasonable timeframe.

Where does that leave us? It leaves us with six legitimate reasons that the 2005 Mets won't descend into Howeville:

• Beltran

• Wright

• Reyes

• Cameron

• Floyd

• Mientkiewicz

Carlos is better than he's shown. We know that. We know he popped up more than Orville Redenbacher's corn in Oakland and Seattle. But we're seeing a little better Beltran the last couple of games. Do you really think the Beltran who's been hobbled is the Beltran we're stuck with for the next three months let alone six-plus years? Do you think Wright, save for some inevitable bumps in the road, isn't unstoppable? That Reyes, under somebody's (Williams', Willie's, Wise's) tutelage won't keep evolving? That Cameron once healthy won't be a player? That Floyd isn't sound as long as we keep him out of Philadelphia? That Minky's gonna be any more godawful than he's already been? There's such a thing as bottoming out, you know.

That's six positions where the Mets are too strong to go down for the count like they did last year. Avoid that ignominy, and it's a good season right there. Ignore the comparisons between this juncture in 2004 versus now. We had a better record a year ago? Great. Want to take last year? Want Wigginton at third, Hidalgo in right, McEwing at all? You can have 'em. The real tipping point will come in the middle of the next Washington series, specifically after 83 games. After 83 games in 2004, the Mets were 43-40. That was the high-water mark. If we're scuffling after 85, 95 games this year, well, we're not much better. But I think we are.

Where are we not better? Mike is in inexorable decline. Can't do anything about that. Mike makes a ton of money. Even half a season of Mike costs $8 mil. Nobody's gonna wanna touch him at that price or trade a prospect of note for him. If he doesn't get it together like a No. 5 hitter should, nobody will be interested. And if he does, if he shows a sustained flash of vintage Mike, why would we want to get rid of him? Personally, as long as he doesn't bat .102 and field .201, I'm content to ride it out with him for the rest of his contract. He's Mike. That's gotta count for something in this life.

Second base is a mess. Somebody's bound to come off the DL sooner or later. No easy answer at the moment. But no team is perfect.

Lotta talk the last coupla days about whether the Mets should be buyers or sellers. Here's a third way: Stand pat. Have just a little more patience. This is a decent to maybe better team that's been put together for 2005. If you can patch a hole, wonderful. But why the perennial need to move this guy for that guy? (Unless it's to drop DeJean, an event to which I add my BRAVO!) I swear I don't understand baseball fans, ours or others, sometimes. We wait all winter for this game we love to rise from the ashes. We navigate through spring to get to Opening Day. And then when the season is in full bloom, most of us are angling to do trades and worry about signings with next year in mind. Next year can wait. The 2005 Mets ain't so bad and ain't so dead.

There's a lot that needs to go well the rest of the way. Limit stupidity to acceptable levels. Take nothing for granted. Like Floyd in the first inning Tuesday night. Or Mike on Saturday night. Egads, Piazza lollygagging his way to home plate as Wright was being tagged out at third has to be the inverse of Marlon Anderson's trip around the sun. What do you call it — an inside-the-park nap? It was a bizarre play built on a bizarre carom, but where is it written that it's unbecoming for a player to keep running until he touches home plate?

And for gosh sakes, set your watches back or ahead or laterally three hours when the next distant road trip comes along. No kidding. Those games were practically season-killers and they cannot be repeated every time we leave the Eastern time zone.

Proof of our current undeadness at the present time lies in the best part of the paper: The National League standings. Put aside the first-place clubs and examine the best of the rest. Four teams have 33 losses. Two more, including us, have 36. Two others have 37. And it's June. That's eight teams within four games of one another for the final playoff spot with three months and change to go.

That's a scramble. Only St. Louis is a gimme for October. Only Cincy and Colorado are prohibitively done. Thus, we're not out of it by any means. We've got some starting pitching and a bullpen that is morphing into something mildly trustworthy. Nobody will give Omar any credit for this because GMs are to be scorned (immediately) for their team's drawbacks and not praised for their assets, but whatever became of Mike Matthews, Felix Heredia, Manny Aybar and Mike DeJean? They have been quietly molded into Royce Ring, Heath Bell, Aaron Heilman and Danny Graves — four depressing journeymen are gone. In their place stand three vital, improving, young arms and one project worthy of a flyer.

Is there, despite the presence of Gerald Williams on the 25-man roster, hope? Enough of it to get by on. And real fans need only hope and a pocket schedule. Everything else is presumptuousness.

(Note to unsated readers: Six, seven days a week of me here not nearly enough? Really? Then check out Gotham Baseball every Tuesday for even more.)

So Reyes, hearing Cameron's footsteps in the leadoff spot, goes three for five with two runs scored and Bieseresque havoc created. Mientkiewicz, hearing Daubach's footsteps at first base, blasts a double and a homer and scores two runs of his own. Daubach, hearing Minky's footsteps possibly returning to first base, hits a pinch-hit homer to approximately Delaware. Nothing like the prospect of a hanging to concentrate the mind, they always say.

Kudos to Ring, Roberto and Looper for timely relief, particularly Ring, who was terrific. Perhaps if he stays this terrific it'll keep Mister Koo the hell away from the mound. As for Looper, he was resilient and kept getting ground balls, shrugging off the fact that bad things kept happening and that he was facing a sea of lefties, who are hitting approximately .500 off of him. Abreu, who came up as the tying run, was a you-gotta-be-kidding-me 9 for 16 off Looper. Ulp.

Then again the whole ninth inning was one big ulp. First Lieberthal, the only righty Looper's likely to see, doesn't bother moving his elbow out of the way of an inside pitch. Not your traditional leadoff walk, but still a Really Bad Omen. Endy Chavez flies out, the first time in living memory he hasn't beaten the pulp out of us. That's good, right? Rollins hits a potential double-play ball to Reyes — that hits the lip of the infield grass and bounds over Jose's shoulder. Ugh. Now I'm gnashing my teeth and trying to figure out a way to blame it all on Gerald Williams. The despicable Kenny Lofton hits another grounder to Reyes, who's forced to take a weird route to the bag and avoid Marlon Anderson, who's trying his hardest to get in the way. Two out, but gawd, the dugout looks like a POW camp. And who can blame them? There's Abreu, ready to kill us. I can just imagine the ball lofting up and over the right-field wall, the replay of Looper turning around and looking up, then the replay of Willie trying to do his best Torre in the dugout and remain expressionless. Then Looper will strike out Thome on three pitches (because that always happens) and I'll have to endure at least two Ice Williams “at bats” before we lose, 10-8, sometime after midnight.

Only Abreu hits yet another grounder. But wait! He's hit it to Wright, who is backing up on the ball. You can practically see the sprockets and gears jamming and flying out of his ears. Ack, David, stop thinking! Wright seizes the ball like a drowning man and flings it toward first — low! In the dirt! Scooped out by Mientkiewicz! (No way Daubach, Woodward or anybody else makes that play, by the way.) Mets win! I still feel vaguely like throwing up, but Mets win!

Good one about the Mets recalling Gerald Williams. You're funny. I almost believed it, too. I particularly admire the way you somehow engineered it so the entire New York sporting media would go along with the joke. I saw this news everywhere. Whad'dya do, get inside my hard drive or something? Well, whatever. Hats off to you. I got a big kick out of it. But I know it's not true because these are The New Mets and they wouldn't dare recall Gerald Williams and set us back one season and like a thousand light years.

The Good News

1. There is no way we lose tonight.

2. Kaz Matsui placed on the DL. His bruised knee is suddenly serious. His bats, on the other hand, have been blissfully bruise-free for months. (Rimshot.)

3. Mike DeJean released. Hopefully we also set fire to his personal effects. Let us never, ever speak of him again.

The Bad News

1. Mister Koo takes DeJean's place on the roster. Minaya said we'd need left-handed relief against the Phillies, Yankees and Nationals. Well, yeah, Koo is left-handed.

2. Gerald Williams recalled. Yes, Gerald Williams. Gerald Williams, the embodiment of the complete and utter pointlessness of the 2004 Mets. Gerald Williams, living monument to the blinkered, Taliban-level conservatism of baseball front offices. Gerald Williams, who cannot possibly mean anything to the future of this baseball team. Gerald Williams.

Are they trying to torment us? I no longer claim to have the slightest use for Matsui, and I know Keppinger's hurt, but I could name 16 to 20 outfielders from the farm system I'd rather see than Gerald Williams.

I take it back. There is a way we can lose tonight. Quite an accomplishment, Omar.

Pissy Next-Day Addendum: Ice got the call, says Omar, because Valent wasn't doing too well and because Ice is a defensive replacement, can be used to pinch-run and has “experience in the clubhouse.”

Oh, c'mon. I'm a believer in clubhouse chemistry — I think Pedro has been a major upgrade over Cliquemaster Al off the field as well as on it — but this is ridiculous. Lenny Harris was a great clubhouse guy. So was Mo Vaughn. It didn't help much — winning on the field would do a lot more to make a happy clubhouse than the warm feeling everyone might get from the sight of Gerald Williams. (And if the idea is to tutor Victor Diaz, I'm all for it — sounds like a fine project for summer nights in Norfolk.)

Can Gerald Williams (.223 AVG, pathetic .273 OBP, one steal at AAA) possibly be the best on-the-field answer? What about Ron Calloway (.359 OBP, 12 steals), who might possibly have a future as a fourth outfielder, as opposed to the Iceman. What about Prentice Redman? Angel Pagan? What about nearly anybody else? What on earth were they thinking?

I know the intonations in Gary Cohen's voice better than I know my own father's. Then again, despite my affection for the man whose DNA I share, I don't hang on Dad's every word for three hours at a clip most every night for six months.

Given that it was Father's Day in the United States on Sunday, our family got together for one of its infrequent lovefests. Us, Dad and his longtime ladyfriend and my sister and her husband met at an Italian joint of universal convenience. Time: 6 PM. Inning: The sixth, as it turned out. The top of it. The Mets' rally was in progress as we parked, an event unknowable no more than 20, 25 minutes earlier when we left home.

In our party of six, I was the biggest Mets fan. Stephanie was the second-biggest Mets fan. There was no third-place finisher. This is what makes my family an enigma wrapped in obliviousness where I'm concerned. Nobody else likes baseball. I do. It doesn't matter 158, 159 times a year, but here it did. There was a decision to be made.

Do I bring my tiny radio to dinner?

Usually, the answer is simple. Yes. Of course. What are you, insane? There's a game in progress. It would be rude for me not to listen.

But this is my family. There's one member, I won't say who, who makes a face when I pull out my earbuds to catch a score. It can be for the briefest moment, but I wind up on the receiving end of what in Yiddish is called the punim. It refers to a certain kind of face that one makes to reflect a certain kind of mood. I will leave it to your deductive powers to ascertain what kind of mood is involved and the effect the face has on one's ability to endure an evening of it.

Being caught up in the Mets, even a lousy Mets team in an increasingly lousy Mets season (also known as being caught up in the Mets), I don't generally care. Well, I do but I don't, not really. Make all the punim you want, I've got a game to follow. Except last year's Father's Day was an utter and total disaster. It had nothing to do with the Mets who had polished off a sweep of Detroit well in advance of the family affair, but the horror show still lurked in my mind. I spent much of Sunday afternoon cursing out Tom Glavine, but when I wasn't doing that, I was imagining what would go wrong this year for Father's Day and what it would take to set things off.

So I made a decision: Leave the tiny radio home. Live without knowing for an hour-and-a-half what's happening. Get through this family obligation in one piece and then turn on the car radio and get the score. The way the Mets have been playing, I should've viewed it as a reprieve.

Except that at the exact moment we were parking, Woodward was getting hit with the bases loaded and Wright was scoring on a wild pitch and suddenly it went from 6-1 to 6-3 with two on and one out and Victor Diaz (so damn due) up. Earlier, when Heilman had come on to relieve The Manchurian Brave, I was thinking one of my rare positive thoughts, that this would be the Foxwoods Resort & Casino Turning Point of the Game because Aaron would shut the door on the Mariners and the Mets would begin to chip away.

I didn't exactly buy it, but now it showed signs of happening. Aaron was untouchable. The offense was simmering, if you could call an HBP and a WP a simmering offense. I left the tiny radio home and now had to get out of the car. I would be completely uninformed, unless…the restaurant! Restaurants have bars and bars have TVs and TVs over bars show important sporting events on weekends.

Ya mean like the U.S. Open? Nobody seemed to be watching the golf and I was tempted to ask for a quick channel change during a commercial or something but I decided that such a request would violate the spirit of the punim. No Mets information readily available, I gave myself over to small talk. As was, our sextet had to wait a good fifteen minutes for a table. There was time to pull an “oh, I left something in the car” to find out if Diaz had indeed blasted the triple I anticipated on his behalf and then how he scored the tying run on a daring steal of home.

But I didn't. In fact, I put it out of my mind as best as I could. Given the Mets-Mariners dynamic of Friday and Saturday, that wasn't as difficult as I'd forecast.

We got our table. Everybody was cordial to everybody else. Several subjects were discussed. Baseball was barely one of them. (My god, am I related to these people? I was born in Brooklyn. Maybe I was switched with the Hodges baby.) Food came. Food went. Tolerable time was had by all. Hugs and kisses and, essentially, see you in December. For this family at this stage of its development, that's about as heartwarming as it gets.

All right then, it's a couple of minutes before 7:40. There's likely a 20:20 update on the way. Just give me the score. Tell me what happened and I'll be satisfied, win or lose.

But the string of commercials I heard when I turned on the radio didn't sound FANnish. It sounded Metsish. Hey, Mets Extra must still be on. And it was! Gary came on to introduce the highlights. Hey, maybe he's only getting to them now because the Mets blew by the Mariners and the bottom of the ninth had to be played (Looper saving Heilman's win). Yeah, that's probably it.

But in Cohen's voice, I could tell it wasn't good. Damn familiarity. He recapped the parts I knew about right up to the sixth when the Mets scored their third run.

Diaz didn't do squat, but Reyes, Gary said, somehow managed to get on base and make it 6-4. Oh?

Then he told me that Beltran had his best at-bat in ages and poked a single through the infield and made it 6-5. Oh?

Now, he told me, Floyd was coming up. Maybe I don't know Gary's voice that well after all. Maybe he's going to surprise me and tell me that Cliff brought home the tying run. The go-ahead runs, too, with his second homer of the day.

But Floyd popped out to end the inning.

At least Heilman had kept us in the game and must've continued to do so, right? Except, according to Gary, DeJean came on to pitch the bottom of the sixth.

WHAT? DeJean? Mike DeTorch? What on earth? I know Aaron hasn't stretched it out in recent weeks, but this is A.L. rules, Willie. What on earth are you thinking? I mean what on earth were you thinking? This game, mind you, had already taken place.

Gary's tone betrayed nothing, but he was giving a few too many details about the Mariners' sixth. Hmmm, why is he going on with such exposition about a three-and-two count to Adrian Beltre with two out and the bases loaded? Is it to heighten the tension regarding DeJean's heroic performance in this tightrope of a spot? Did our beleaguered, roleless middle reliever do a job and strike this guy out?

No, of course not. I knew that. I knew Gary's even bringing it up meant Beltre did something good for Beltre — like stand still and get walked. By DeJean. Now I was all “NO!” and “C'MON!” and “NO!” some more. I continued to absorb the recap as if it were actual in-progress action. Worse yet, I couldn't change the outcome no matter how hard I retrorooted. Not that I can change the outcome in real time either.

Mariners 11 Mets 5. Before Gary Cohen had said three words, I knew the score if not the totals.