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.

Tell me about our new park. Please tell me something. Please tell me anything.

10. Mets' dugout certain to be roomier without unnecessary bat rack taking up space.

9. Home Run Apple replaced by the Single Raisin.

8. During games, DiamondVision will air complete DVD collection of The Sopranos, including bonus features, to satisfy fans' otherwise unfulfilled desire for lots of hitting.

7. With New York getting the 2012 Olympics, Torpid Baseball announced as an Olympic event. Early favorite for the gold plays right next door.

6. Philip Humber, cracking the low 80s since surgery, makes long-awaited Mets debut. Goes two and a third.

5. Contests much shorter with home team eliminating the formality of starting the bottom of each inning with fewer than two outs.

4. Julio Franco retirement rumors, though eventually proven false, spur fleeting visions of unseating Braves.

3. Drinking fountains dispense contents of unclaimed Uncle Jack's Steak Sauce prize packages.

2. Beltran terms quad “91, 92 percent. Could be 93 percent by August. I'll just keep playing on it and eventually it'll come around. I'm sure of it.”

1. To “suck” will be slang for doing really well the way “bad” means good in certain contexts. Thus, the Mets will no longer suck all that much.

I give up. No, not forever, but until this team gets its head out of its collective butt. Which will be … well, if you know, please tell me.

When your team can't hit, on one level it's hard to evaluate anything they're doing — in a way they aren't your team at all, but a bunch of impostors as startling and unwelcome to the players they're impersonating as they are to all of us. So what's the point of discussing them?

But still, ohmygod. Beltran looks completely lost. Piazza looks like he'll never again be anything close to what he was. Reyes is popping everything up and can't seem to hit from the right side. Cameron is on the shelf. Mientkiewicz seems to have forgotten how to hit. Matsui seems to have forgotten how to play baseball. Wright is killing himself trying to hit five-run homers — and almost literally killed himself today catching a foul ball. (Nice play, but discretion, valor, etc.) No matter how healthy he finally is, Floyd can't carry eight other dudes on his broad shoulders.

Nor is there much hope from our once-vaunted bench. Diaz went to AAA and somehow forgot everything he seemed to have learned early in the year, meaning his resemblance to Manny Ramirez is now chiefly mental. None of Matsui's replacements are exactly worth of hosannas — Woodward is a utility guy, Anderson can't field, Cairo is hobbled, and Jeff Keppinger and (dare I say it) Edgardo Alfonzo managed to get hurt, depriving us even of hypotheticals. Daubach can draw a walk but can neither field nor run.

The pitching? Better than that, for all it matters, but not that great. Ishii's continuing presence in the rotation is baffling. Glavine finds a way to pitch badly enough to lose more often than not. (If we want to find a bright side, it would be that the other three guys — including the much-maligned Zambrano — have been more or less above reproach recently.) Nobody trusts Looper to close out a game that matters. Bell has guts but gives up too many gopher balls. Hernandez has looked decidedly mortal after a strong start. Graves may find himself, but he hasn't been reliable since the '04 All-Star break. Heilman is being wasted in the pen. DeJean having a roster spot is a travesty, seeing how he's a horrible pitcher and a bad teammate to boot. Meanwhile, Jae Seo is pitching somewhere with dizzy bat races and lots of ads on the outfield walls.

Are we too injured? Too old? Too young? Too old and too young? Too unlucky? Enduring a difficult transition? Just a more-sickening version of your typical .500 team? I don't know. Maybe you do. If so, please tell me. Tell me about the worm turning, about Willie's patience being rewarded, about a division still within reach, about Trachsel returning and a glut of tradeable starters, about healing and regressing to the mean in a good way. Tell me about Brian Bannister and Philip Humber and Lastings Milledge. Tell me about our new park. Please tell me something. Please tell me anything.

WARNING!

Hard drive titled NEW YORK METS is unable to access offense at this time.

Default system requirement for NEW YORK METS offense is between 4 and 6 R.

NEW YORK METS offense byte remaining is zero.

NEW YORK METS offense will not run on this operating system.

Please restart NEW YORK METS offense.

Disk titled DAUBACH insufficient for restart of NEW YORK METS offense.

NEW YORK METS offense invalid in folder titled WEST COAST SWING.

NEW YORK METS offense requires immediate attention.

NEW YORK METS offense is out of memory.

Fatal system error.

Please try again Saturday night, 10:05.

Wow. So it is.

Look at the luminaries who bestrode the globe then for us. Hot Rod Hundley — did zip. Ryan Thompson — went 0 for 3, probably on about seven pitches for the afternoon. At least Fonzie hit a triple, which I guarantee we cheered wildly. (Bonilla hit a triple, which I doubt we did.) Doug Drabek started against us? Amazing. What, if anything, is Doug Drabek doing right now?

On the other hand, Craig Biggio was an Astro and was beating us. Some things haven't changed.

I remembered that Pulse had put up a three-spot in the first. Nope, a fin. Interesting how my memory, for once, was more optimistic than whatever part of my brain it is that attempts to predict the future.

I may have this conflated with another game, but I also remember that there were two early-twenties couples below us in the faaaancy mezzanine seats (they got sunburned too), whom I first noticed because the guys joined in the little flurry of hand claps for the “Friends” theme song, which earned them my immediate and thorough disapproval. We made a minor parlor game out of trying to figure out which woman was with which guy, with scant evidence to work with: The women sat and chatted while the guys muttered to each other and quietly got drunker and drunker, until in the late innings they basically had their heads on the back of the seats in front of them. At which point Jose Vizcaino, in his infinite wisdom, decided it was time to bunt, even though we were down 7-2 or something similarly hideous.

That was too much for Friends Guy #1, who leapt to his feet, blind with rage, and started screaming, “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!! IT'S 7 TO 2! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!!!!” For one thing, he was absolutely right — why the fuck was Vizcaino bunting? For another thing, he had a fairly impressive ballpark voice for a guy who'd clap along with the Rembrandts.

(Oh, and this solved the riddle of who was with whom — one of the women buried her head in her arms as her boyfriend/date became unhinged, racing down to the mezzanine railing to get three feet closer to Vizcaino, whom he kept berating as the Viz wandered around the batter's box, perhaps wondering, “Gee, why the fuck am I bunting?”)

If so, it didn't take: Even though the tiny sliver of surprise was lost, Vizcaino continued to square. “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!!!” howled Friends Guy #1. By now I was giggling like a damn fool.

Then FG#1 put his head down on the concrete wall in despair — only to lift it a couple of pitches later to stare up at the uncaring sky and wail, “STOP BUNTING!!!!”

If I've got the game right (and hell, after all that just humor me and say I do), that means there are two legacies of that ten-years-gone game: I still like to yell “WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!!!” at Mets who commit this sin, then follow it with a belated moan to “STOP BUNTING!!!”

That and our solid decade of muttered commentaries, pissy/elated/philosophical/elegiac day-after emails and high-fives and bear hugs in the seconds after the rarer-than-they-should-be Met triumphs intense enough to transform a day. Every one of those exchanges has made the joyous games more joyous, the agonizing games more bearable, and the insufferably boring games actually interesting, even the ones where we wondered if Trachsel had frozen solid on the mound. So thanks, partner. Happy anniversary right back to you.

Now what say we celebrate by beating the crap out of some Mariners?

The Mets ended their 32-year winless drought in Oakland, to say nothing of a more pedestrian three-game losing streak, Thursday afternoon. I dared to confirm it on television, even. But why take my word for it when we had a special correspondent on hand to bear witness?

My oldest friend in the world (oldest in the Kranepool and not the Stengel sense) Joel Lugo is an expatriate New Yorker and world-class song parodist now based in Northern California. He, his brother Anthony and his nephew Joshua decided it would be great fun to meet the Mets in unfamiliar surroundings. He filed this report Thursday evening so I don't have to.

Just got home from the 24-hour traffic jam that is the whole of the San Francisco Bay area.

I'm gonna get under the blankets now and thaw out.

You ain't missing nothing, pal. Though if I'd been wearing a tie to watch last night's game, at least I could have used it to choke myself until I passed out. While unconscious, I might have dreamed of nicer things. Like a team that can hit.

OK, that's a bit of an overreaction. Victor pitched very well, injuries scuttled Willie's planned lineup changes (Cameron to lead off, Reyes to hit second — hey, it's a start), and things were closely fought. Zambrano almost turned Kotsay's comebacker into a double play instead of a fielder's choice — and I don't mean that in a Glavinesque plays-you'd-like-to-see-made way, as it was a hard shot. Then Floyd was helpless on Crosby's little flare that brought in Scutaro with the first run. Diaz looked ghastly on a couple of routes to balls, but made the plays. Wright, Mientkiewicz and Reyes combined for a brief little comeback in the 7th to even things once again. Ring was terrific in erasing Chavez in the 8th and made an awfully good 3-2 pitch — just off the plate, alas — to Kielty in the 9th. Even if one could argue he shouldn't have been facing the righty in that spot.

Of course, when you score two runs, it's horseshoes and hand grenades. No need for a memo or a follow-up visit to the therapist, just a loss. How sad is it that the bright side of last night's game is that it was “just” a loss?

Benson/Glynn in a couple of hours. I wonder what the lineup will be. I wonder what the lineup can be.