It will be a big deal when it happens. Of course it will be. I could tell that by they way my heart had lodged itself in my throat by the seventh.

But sometimes I wonder why a pitcher winning a complete game in which he happens to allow nobody to record a base hit is such a big deal.

Because it's a no-hitter, stupid. And we've never had one.

Yeah, yeah, I know. I'm as haunted by it as any of us. I'm on it after the first pitch of the game is a strike. My highway's jammed with broken pitchers on a last-chance hitless drive. I'm certain it would instantly become a thrill on the order of our two world championships if it ever happens.

But why?

Because it's a no-hitter, stupid. And we've never had one.

I understand that. I understand how we've become — on a smaller, less tragic, more trivial scale — identified with not throwing a no-hitter the way the Red Sox were identified with not winning a World Series or the Cubs are identified with not winning a pennant. I understand, too, the taunting irony of all our great pitchers not throwing no-hitters for us but throwing no-hitters somewhere else. I understand Nolan Ryan and all he symbolizes. I understand that it's a gaping void in our history and that it would ease our pain to fill it.

But why?

Because it's a no-hitter, stupid. And we've never had one.

The idea is to win games. Advancement in the standings is never awarded by what's in the second column at the end of the line score. It's all about the R, baby, the runs. Every game we've ever won has included at least one base hit by the other team. I didn't throw a single one of those wins back.

Disappointed at times? Sure. I was raised (or raised myself) on the tale of Jimmy Qualls. Shea Stadium. Every seat taken. Fans planting themselves in the aisles. But everybody's standing. Twenty-five Cubs up, twenty-five Cubs down. The whole world aligning as it should. The Mets are on their way. And Tom Seaver is about to throw not just a no-hitter, but a perfect game.

Then Jiminy Who'zits, playing only because Don Young couldn't handle two fly balls the day before (not that anyone minded that), dumps one in between Cleon and Tommie. No perfect game. No no-hitter.

Seaver was disappointed. Who wouldn't be? But at all of 24 years old, he figured it out. When he saw Nancy, her eyes red, swollen with tears, he asked, “what are you crying for? We won 4-0.”

Nancy perked up and smiled: “I guess a one-hit shutout is better than nothing.”

I read that exchange when I was eight years old in a book called — get this — The Perfect Game. Ghosted by Dick Schaap, it's the story of the most important game of Tom Terrific's young life…

Game 4 of the 1969 World Series.

That was Tom Seaver's perfect game. At least that's what he said in the book and why would Tom Seaver have lied to me when I was eight? The Astros, it was noted by the greatest broadcasters in baseball Tuesday night, have a passel of no-hitters to their credit (including that way cool gang-blank of the Yankees in 2003) but would likely trade in the whole lot of them for what the Mets have:

1969.

1973.

1986.

2000.

Given a choice, I guess I would take four pennants, two world championships and zero no-hitters over the Astro alternative. But why have to choose? Why can't we have it all just once?

I'm beginning to believe we have a real chance to inscribe 2005 above the right-field wall and that we won't ever get a no-hitter. On a scale of One to Qualls, Pedro's certainty factor was hovering between Chin-hui Tsao and Benny DiStefano. His breaking ball was so sharp. His command was so absolute. The Houstons were so overmatched. I did the Times crossword during the fifth and sixth (must find something to do so as to act as if nothing unusual is going on) and could feel his adrenaline coursing through my pen while 26 Across — stuffed headrests — became DOWNPILLOWS; 33 Across — stuffed appetizers — became MUSHROOMS; and 49 Across — stuffed polling receptacles — became BALLOTBOXES.

All the clues said 45 on the mound had great stuff.

When Chris Burke did what he did, the no-hitter became evitable and that, I suppose, was inevitable. Houston had a hit and a run. We had ten hits and two runs. Now it was the game I was worried about. Well, not that worried. We still had Pedro. They were still the Astros. But we hadn't gotten to four games over all year and the Nationals were winning and life's priorities were coming back into focus.

So when we added a run and Pedro yielded nothing else of substance and we came away with the victory, it had been a wonderful night. If my eyes were red or swollen with tears, it was just the antihistamine talking. Winning's what matters. The no-hitter can wait.

But why?

“It's kind of a culmination of thoughts. First, it's just the gratification of knowing you hit the ball well. Then, you realize that you broke up a no-hitter and it's your first homer and it's off Pedro Martinez. When I got into the dugout, I really kind of had to sit down for a second.”

— Chris Burke

Tonight's culmination of thoughts: The flirtation with the no-hitter was nice, though we've become pretty used to disappointment on that score over the decades. But that's OK. After all, we got the electric stuff, we got the base hit to help his own cause, we got his awareness of the crowd and acceptance of it and eagerness to let it take him and bear him up to an even higher level, and we got the four strikeouts to finish the thing just when we were thinking dark thoughts about Grady Little and 100 pitches and Looper's failings. Silly us for worrying. That impossibly surgical fastball on the inside edge that ate Orlando Palmeiro alive in the ninth? It was a thing of almost terrible beauty,a piece of kinetic art to be gawped at, to leave you shaking your head in mute amazement.

Yep, young Mister Burke, he makes us feel like we have to sit down for a bit too.

With no Mets game Monday night, and the season premiere of Six Feet Under filling only an hour, I needed something else to watch. I flipped and I flipped and I flipped some more. Nothing on, not really. Until…

WHOA! Look at that! That's hot!

I don't remember ordering the Spice Channel.

Of course it wasn't porn. It was YES, which is like porn for Mets fans. It's a fantastic public service for us, especially when our team, tied for second and one game out of first at the moment, isn't playing. Instead of sending us to bed frustrated, YES takes care of our needs, if you know what I mean.

I tune in and the Yankees are playing the Brewers, which already seems a little unbelievable, but these things aren't known for their plot. It's the action we tune in for.

The score is tied. The Yankees have the bases loaded with one out. (The runner on first is called A-Rod — great porn name.) Their muscular stud who in a previous movie had to beg over and over for forgiveness for getting so large is up. And he grounds into a double play, 4-6-3. Inning over.

YES!

Next scene: A Brewer named Junior steps to the plate. He's facing — and I'm not making this up — The Big Unit. I don't even wanna know what that's all about. The “announcers” are going on about how intimidating The Big Unit is. All of a sudden, Junior swings and takes The Big Unit “downtown”. The Brewers lead 4-3.

YES! YES!

Final scene: It's the ninth inning. The Yankees have a runner on second with none out. Their first batter, an ingénue rookie, strikes out. Their second batter, a “veteran” who's “been around,” grounds out to short. Their last chance resides in the supple hands of their leading man, “The Captain”. He's portrayed as the handsome hero (who casts these things?). They tell us he always looks trouble straight in the mouth and always come through.

But not this time. The Captain lines out to right. Game over. Yankees lose.

YES! YES! YES!

I'm in a total state of ecstasy now. I can't believe how great this is. I figure I've enjoyed YES as much as I can.

But wait! There's more!

There's a whole show after the game about the game the Yankees just lost. And in it, there are these men in suits who go on and on about what went wrong. They send this woman with a microphone into the locker room to ask all the Yankees (who are taking off their uniforms) how badly they're feeling. And the Yankees oblige, shaking their heads, acting distraught and growing annoyed.

I can't believe I'm getting excited again.

This show goes for like an hour. The Yankees stare at the floor, make excuses and generally seem humiliated. It's really exciting. I don't think I can take anymore.

But after all that comes the money shot. One of their announcers appears on the screen and delivers what has to be the steamiest line in the history of this channel:

“In the back of their minds, the Brewers probably didn't think they belonged on the same field as the Yankees.”

YES! YES! OH YES!

That's what I was waiting for. That's what makes the YES Network a porn channel for Mets fans.

And just when you think you've gotten all the pleasure out of it that you can, they rerun the whole thing all night.

NEW YORK YANKEE COLLAPSE-O-METER

Through 57 Games

WOMACK TO WOMACK EDITION

1965: 26-31 (Final Record: 77-85)

1982: 28-29 (Final Record: 79-83)

2005: 28-29 (Final Record: ??-???)

“I'd hate to think that at this stage of my career I was being traded even-up for Dooley Womack.”

–Jim Bouton, 1969

“I've played on a lot of bad teams…”

–Tony Womack, 2005

MLB's schedule-makers — who may be a bunch of rats pressing levers in the dark, if Memorial Day is any indication — have started the second round of interleague play with a small slate: The Braves are playing the Angels, while the Phillies got stuck playing the lone lame NL-only game and got beat by the D'Backs. I'm not a math expert (Math is hard!) but our division being what it is, I assume the Phils are now in last and would have been in first if they'd won, with the Braves facing a similar Door No. 1/Door No. 2 choice.

Anyway, the rest of the NL Beast is off (just as well for us — it's raining pretty Biblically right now), so here are some links to get us through the off-day:

* Joel Sherman of the Post has a nice article on Runnin' Reyes, though I gasped, threw salt over my shoulder and knocked on wood till my knuckles were bloody when he called JR the role model for staying healthy. (The crowd hid its collective face last night when Jose hit the brakes after his guaranteed triple turned into a ground-rule double, sensing a pulled hammy there would be typical Reyes buzzard's luck.) It's a nice mix of good writing about things we knew (recreating Jose's 11-pitch at-bat against Schmidt, which juiced the fans nicely) and good reporting unearthing things we didn't know (Willie wasn't pleased that Jose kept fouling off pitches that weren't balls).

* Newsday's Ken Davidoff covers a lot of ground, including the booing of The Beleaguered Kaz Matsui, Met fans getting ahead of themselves and Randolph's curious double-switch. (More about that in a minute.) Though he undermines the Easy-on-Kaz case by noting that TBKM swung at an eye-high pitch with the bases loaded and a 3-and-2 count, killing our 8th-inning rally and leaving us with too far to go in the ninth. “Nearly all of these Mets should be given some slack,” he writes, then adds: “All right, maybe not Matsui.” Ouch.

* Kaz wouldn't have been pinch-hitting at all in the 8th if Willie hadn't double-switched out David Wright, something I totally missed in the upper deck and had to rely on the Bergen Record's J.P. Pelzman to explain. I'm glad I missed this. It would have made me really surly.

* Ricardo Gonzalez at hella cool site MetsGeek was kind enough to include us in a Mets bloggers roundtable.

* Matthew Cerrone at hella cool site Metsblog passes along a report that Eddie Guardado could be on the block, with Omar looking for a left-handed reliever. Yes yes y'all, is what I'm thinking.

Pedro and Roy Oswalt square off tomorrow night. Baseball like it oughta be!

I think I've got the baseball equivalent of an ice-cream headache.

Seven hours is a long, long time to spend at Shea Stadium, even if it was a very pleasant time. We (me and Will, noted earlier in these pages for Cardinals fandom and being struck by legumes) were in the upper deck, but a remarkably convivial part of the upper deck, considering it was 90 degrees and the quality of the baseball being played down there below us did not elicit universal praise. I fervently cheered The Beleagued Kaz Matsui each time he came to the plate, though I admit that was more to avoid provoking wrathful comments from Laurie than from conviction. (Hey, Kaz really is trying. He even made a nice play going to his right.) But other than booing Kaz, this was a peaceable crowd — mostly happy, occasionally clever (“Where's Bernstein?” demanded one wag when Chris Woodward entered the game), willing to entertain irony (two college kids did a very serviceable Macarena, and one guy asked his buddy if Marquis Grissom was really French — I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt on that one), friendly to rowmates, and glad to engage in the advanced mathematics of the NL East standings. One of the better Shea crowds of my acquaintance, in fact. And in the upper deck, no less.

Since everyone knows what happened and I'm exhausted, some tidbits:

* This was the Day of the Pitchers. Between Ishii, Tomko, Benson and Schmidt, pitchers went 4 for 7 with 5 RBI on the day. Somebody get Elias on the phone.

* The fan of the day was the early-20s woman in the row below us who sat placidly for eight innings with her friends, then came to life when “Welcome to the Jungle” was played, dancing sinuously along with a look of rapt adoration and after that reacting to every play with hand gestures worthy of a somewhat-deranged symphony conductor. In fact, she looked vaguely like Axl, except for the lack of cornrows, 'do rag and Kleenex boxes on her feet. There was no evidence she was about to release an album either.

* They played the 1969 season highlight video between games, complete with promotional spots from Borden, which at the time offered extremely funky primary-colored yogurt containers. (Though one of the flavors was mandarin orange, which seems like a bad idea.) I misted up when Cleon dropped to one knee. “I was raised on this stuff,” I explained to Will. “It's like my Beowulf.” He laughed and nodded, no doubt thinking of his own tales of the deeds of Bob Gibson and Lou Brock.

* No offense to Todd, but Randy Hundley was a major dick. Bunting down 4-0 to try and break up a perfect game. I'd forgotten that. I hope there was a head shot some time during 1970 to make up for that one.

* One of Tom Seaver's Borden-related duties was to carry around a calf at some silly promotion on the field. Can you imagine the hue and cry if some member of our starting rotation strained something carrying around a heifer? What a bad idea.

* The observant members of the crowd booed Joe Torre when he appeared as a '69 Brave.

* Pedro was wildly cheered while running sprints in the outfield between games, when he appeared on the Diamondvision, when he was spotted leaning on the dugout railing, etc.

* The fireworks after home runs have got to go. It's so Turner Field. And playing “San Francisco (You've Got Me)” by the Village People was fairly low-rent too. Besides the suggestion of a sneer, it's a really crappy song.

* The looks at what was happening around the majors were actually relevant — and not just because suddenly the doings of four other baseball teams are of major relevance daily.

* This game would be a lot easier to take if every loss that makes you squinty and sulky was followed within 90 minutes by a 12-1 shellacking.

All right! Huge win! Wow! After all that baseball and all those runs, that must mean we're…

…right where we started when Sunday began.

How boring. If we had swept the Giants, we would've moved into a first-place tie. If we had been swept (heaven forefend), we would've dropped to last. And if we didn't beat the Cubs while the Pirates won that makeup game against San Diego — Whoops! 1973 flashback in effect. Sorry 'bout that.

Anyway, we're no longer a game behind Atlanta. Instead we're a game behind Washington. And we're no longer a half-game ahead of Philadelphia. We're a half-game ahead of Florida. And we're no longer tied for third with Florida. No, we're tied for third with Philadelphia.

The key is tied for third, a game out of first, ending Sunday the same as we commenced it, except maybe a little older, a little wiser, a lot tireder, my head at least as stuffy as it was 24 hours earlier.

But never mind me. Tell me about your day, dear.

Courtesy of the indispensable Ultimate Mets Database, I have confirmed a hunch:

The Mets should never play doubleheaders against the Giants at Shea.

Before Sunday's miserable first game, the record against the Harlem Deserters in home twinbills since 1964 stood at 1-5-3. Throw in the Polo Grounds and it's 1-6-5. With any luck, it will be 1-6-6 before midnight. Talk about your lofty aspirations.

The one sweep for us was in 1979. The last pair of losses (and the last SF @ NY DH prior to as we speak) was the bizarro Home Opener of 1997 when we were strangely scheduled to open on a Saturday because we were strangely scheduled to open on a Friday but strangely switched because we didn't want to compete with the other local team's home-o (where they were raising their first flag in 18 years; screw them). Then it rained Saturday, necessitating an Opening Double Day on Sunday. Sapped of almost all pageantry, hardly anybody showed for the first home games — and home losses — of the season.

August 24, 1984 stands out in my memory (thus fueling the hunch) because I was driving back to college for my senior year, rueful that I had to miss a twinbill in the midst of what was our first pennant race in forever. Fortunately, I could pick up WHN as far south as North Carolina. Unfortunately, I could pick up WHN as far south as North Carolina. Loss. Loss. Total loss.

The little-known Can't Hardly Sweep The Giants At Shea Curse began, of course, with perhaps the most famous doubleheader in Mets history. May 31, 1964. Particularly the second game. Willie Mays played short. Gaylord Perry threw ten shutout innings…of relief. Al Jackson pinch-ran. Ed Kranepool, after playing all of a doubleheader in Buffalo the day before, was called up and played all of this doubleheader, too. So? So, the second game lasted 23 innings, nearly 7-1/2 hours. It was mentioned on What's My Line?, which aired live, that the Mets and Giants were playing a doozy. With that, What's My Line? lost a large swath of viewers in the New York area.

And the Mets lost both games. Of course.

If I had warned you of any of this, would it have kept you away today? Tonight?

Didn't think so.

So we can't move into first. Let's just stay out of last.

Shake it off, boys. Go get 'em in the nightcap.

Ever heard the term phantom tickets? It refers to tickets printed for games that were never played. For example, a ticket to the 2004 World Series at Yankee Stadium would be a phantom ticket because the 2004 World Series wasn't played at Yankee Stadium because the Yankees had a three games to none lead on the Red Sox in the 2004 American League Championship Series but then lost four straight and didn't make the World Series.

(Gratuitous enough for ya?)

While I keep meticulous records of every game I've attended, I have no idea what the Mets' record is in my phantom games — those contests for which I've held tickets and failed for whatever reason to show. These might also include times somebody held a ticket for me and I had to send my regrets. Or games I was sure I was going to buy tickets for and didn't. It's too amorphous a category to track.

But I can say that Saturday made me 2-0 this year in games whose tickets turned into $30 bookmarks. Got waylaid by a summer cold at the exact moment summer broke out around here. Summer colds are the worst (unless they're winter colds or colds any other time of year).

While I felt like a creaky phantom myself every time I deigned to do so much as raise my thumb to the remote control yesterday — this is no ordinary cold — my hearing was sharp enough to make out the voice analyzing the game on Fox.

I already felt physically ill. Listening to Jeff Torborg, the phantom of the manager's office, made me physically iller.

Earlier this season, I was discussing the state of things with a well-informed Mets fan. He was going on about Art Howe having been obviously and totally the worst manager in the history of the Mets. I interrupted him.

“What about Jeff Torborg?”

“Oh yeah. He was worse.”

It's been more than a dozen years since he made out a Mets lineup card, but I can't get over my hatred of Jeff Torborg. This is hatred of an actual and personal nature even if I've never met the man. I feel I would have to be restrained should I ever find myself in an elevator with Jeff Torborg. Keep me away from him for the good of all involved.

Art Howe? Nice guy. Overmatched. Shouldn't have been here. (Kansas City actually considered him? Aim high, brothers.) I resented Howe taking over for Bobby V. I was frustrated that he did such a poor job. It bothers me that a quote like Jason Phillips' from several weeks ago in SI…

“Move a runner over or string out a five-, six-, seven-pitch at-bat, maybe hurt a [starter] later on, get into their bullpen early. Those things have gone unnoticed on a lot of teams I've played for, but here when you have a good at-bat, even if you make an out, [Jim] Tracy's the first one to say, 'Hey, man, great job.'”

…reflects so accurately on Howe's turning being unengaged into a Zenlike thing. But I never hated Art Howe.

I hated Jeff Torborg. I still do. I hated him when he mysteriously got jobs with Montreal and Florida. I gloried in the Fish revival under McKeon because it made Torborg look all the worse by comparison.

I'm still mad that on an October day in 1991, upon hearing the news that the Mets had hired Jeff Torborg, I said, “oh good.” Like Al Harazin, I was blinded by the one good season he had had with the White Sox. It would turn out to be his only good season. Much like Steve Phillips a decade later on so many occasions, it never occurred to Harazin to ask, “gee, if this guy is so good, why is he so available?”

It wasn't the lousy record the Mets compiled under him. Almost every Mets manager has a losing record lifetime. It was the sanctimonious prickdom of Jeff Torborg that got under my skin and stayed there. It was the non-accountability of Jeff Torborg. It was there yesterday when Thom Brenneman noted we had just passed the anniversary of the beginning of Lou Gehrig's Iron Horse streak. Brenneman made some light, time-filling remark about how you sure would've liked to have had that guy on your teams, huh Jeff?

“I sure had a lot of Wally Pipps on the teams I managed,” Torborg snarked in reply. He sort of took it back, but it was typical. They never gave me the players. The players never did what I wanted them to do. If only they had followed my rules.

The man couldn't manage a cardboard box if you sealed all the flaps for him. And for the record, Wally Pipp had a pretty fine career.

I didn't listen to Jeff Torborg for very long. With few exceptions this season, it's been TV sound down, radio sound up, delay be damned. I've gotten so used to watching this way that when I actually settle for the television announcers, I don't expect the action to match their words. When one of them says “Beltran fouls off the pitch,” I assume the pitcher is still in his windup.

It's a small price to pay in order to enjoy Gary and Howie. There's also the bonus delusion of thinking that when Floyd flies out on the radio while on television he has yet to swing, that maybe when he does make contact on screen, something different will happen.

Watching/listening to Roberto Hernandez face Fonzie tested my ongoing loyalties versus my dormant ones. Circa 2003, in the anything goes 'cause nobody cares era of Howe, I probably would've been with Edgardo. Not Saturday. Not anymore. If he's wearing another uniform, he's an opponent. Come home Fonzie and be Rusty II. It appears you're built for it.

Nothing's more important than the laundry right now. Too much appears to be at stake to get caught up in sentiment or sort through personalities (TMB! TMB! Every time the Man from Manchuria legitimately contributes to our '05 pennant drive, his past gets a little cloudier.) Entering Sunday, every team in the East is a contender. Or a pretender. It won't last. It can't last. This was more or less the case a year ago well into July. It didn't last. But while it does, whatever's there for the taking needs to be taken.

There are no prizes for being in first place on June 5. But it beats being in one of the other four places. Besides, this is haymaking time. These are the home games against teams that, while they must all be respected, can be played against. The Dirty Thirty — those out-of-division, out-of EDT games — remain and they still scare me. To be in any position to withstand them, we have to win one and then another.

And that's just for Sunday. Let's play two! Let's win one! And then worry about the other.

Edgardo Alfonzo vs. Roberto Hernandez, 8th inning. Alfonzo's the tying run, two outs, 1-2 count. Hernandez keeps trying to put him away; Alfonzo keeps fouling pitches away, waiting for Hernandez to miss with a pitch he can drive. And I'm wondering at my loyalties. I'd switched to the radio at that point, but I could practically see Alfonzo anyway. Because after all, we'd seen at-bats like this for years: Alfonzo wasting pitches, working the count back to even and then to his favor, determined to tire the reliever out.

Not this time: Roberto got him. I pumped my fist, swallowed a bit — and apologized to Edgardo. Is it too much to ask that one day, Alfonzo will return to us as an ace pinch-hitter? Edgardo becoming Rusty Staub II would make me very, very happy. Heck, Edgardo becoming Lenny Harris II would make me pretty darn happy.

Speaking of divided loyalties, we've also seen plenty of Tom Glavine games just like that one: a homer, a bunch of hits, but just one run, and you're left wondering how you lost. I don't think I'll ever get over my cognitive dissonance about The Manchurian Brave, but the cognitive dissonance disturbs me a lot less when TMB wins.

The rest? An early-summer game like many another, which isn't to say it wasn't a wonderful time. Nice to see a little luck for Piazza, who's certainly endured its absence. Also nice to see Willie keep the pedal on the floor: Cliff Floyd and David Wright may not be your archetypal double-steal combination, but they certainly caught Matheny napping. I was irked at Moises Alou's Cadillac around the bases, until I remembered he was 49 years old (young for a 2005 Giant) and realized that was probably as fast as he could go.

Then there was the team of Brennaman and He Who Shall Not Be Named. They sure did gush about Carlos Beltran's poor decision to bunt with runners on first and second and nobody out in the 5th. They shouldn't have. The base-out matrix — which has to be coolest part of sabermetrics (as well as being mercifully easy to grasp) — is pretty clear on this: On average, 1.573 runs score when you've got runners on first and second and nobody out. Second and third and one out: 1.467 runs. (There may be a more-canonical version of the base-out matrix — which I first discovered in Alan Schwarz's awesome The Numbers Game — but regardless of the values, the pattern and the lesson are always the same.) You could say Carlos was bunting for a base hit (which would have put us in a situation yielding 2.417 runs on average), but with his bad leg that doesn't seem like a good play either. Indeed, Beltran was out by a whisker.

It's nice to know Carlos is an unselfish player, but there's such a thing as not being selfish enough. Outs are precious.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm back to scoreboard watching. Let's go, Pirates and Nats! I want to see first place, even if we have to share it.

Our ripoff…uh, adaptation of Newsday's old Short-Season Awards proved so popular, that we're bringing it back. “Borrowing” from Joe Gergen's strike-era (1980-81) concept, we recognized the best and worst performances of the season's first 25 games, which was roughly the first sixth of the season.

Well, another sixth has gone by, so let's get fractional and hand out the honors/dishonors for all Mets action between Games 26 (5/2) and 54 (6/2). When we get an idea, we like to run it into the ground.

Best Mets…EVER!

Ever, as in 29 games.

1) Mike Cameron: Cam-a-lama-ding-dong! What idiot was telling himself “if only we could pawn off Cameron on somebody, then we'd get somewhere”? Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to avoid every mirror between here and the kitchen.

2) Kris Benson: After shaking off the rust, he's pitching like he can't wait to plow through the hitters, get home and hit the sack. Wonder why.

3) Pedro Martinez: Prepare an extension.

4) David Wright: Know what's fun about him? He's getting better right in front of us. He's not perfect…yet.

5) Miguel Cairo: Skanque becomes Savior.

SNO Mets

SNO = Severe Negative Overreaction

1) Doug Mientkiewicz: Oh, if only we had signed Delgado, we'd score more runs. (Parallel universe: Oh, if only we had signed Mientkiewicz, we'd allow fewer runs.)

2) Kaz Matsui: I know! Maybe if everybody boos him every time they see him, he'll do better! It worked for Doug Sisk.

3) Carlos Beltran: He didn't drive in a single run all those days when he was he too hurt to play. Bum.

4) Cliff Floyd: The human spoiler. He spoiled us.

5) Victor Zambrano: What has he done for us lately? I mean before that?

Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy

1) Koo called safe when he was out.

1a) Koo in a position to be called safe.

1b) Koo eyeing home on a bunt as he rounded third.

1c) Koo doubling.

1d) Koo doubling off of Randy Johnson.

1e) Koo swinging against Randy Johnson.

1f) Koo standing in the batter's box.

2) Cameron lies down in right — and CATCHES the ball!

3) Zambton Comes Alive.

4) Glavine resembles Glavine against St. Louis.

5) Mike demolishes Milwaukee.

It Sucks To Be Mets

1) Wright called out when he was out in Atlanta. But c'mon, ump.

2) Koo (et al) blowing last Yankee game.

3) Hernandez not being perfect against Cardinals.

4) Junior Bleeping Spivey “stealing” second.

5) Congratulations, Jae — you're demoted!

Who's That Stranger?

1) Mike DeFelice: Designated for oblivion.

2) Eric Valent: Come back sometime, will ya?

3) MSG/FSNY On Time-Warner: The war is over! Until next year!

4) Scott Strickland: No, that's all right. Really. We're fine.

5) Felix Heredia: Sure we wanted you to go away, but not with an aneurysm.

Die [Opponent] Die!

1) Braves: Always the Braves. Always.

2) Skanques: 6-6 since the Collapse-O-Meter's last appearance.

3) Fish: They're probably better than us but they don't show it.

4) Phillies: Brett Myers still haunts me.

5) Cubs: Keep Derrek Lee away from us.

Seemed Important At The Time

1) Koo Starts The Ninth.

2) Looper Doesn't Start The Ninth.

3) Hernandez Removed In The Ninth.

4) Jose shouldn't bat leadoff. Unless he triples and steals a lot. Never mind, then.

5) Aaron Heilman.

Amazin' Zeitgeist

1) We're Great!

2) We Suck!

3) We're Great!

4) We Suck!

5) We're .500.