The short burst of excitement seems to hold the edge on long-term commitment today as we slide headfirst into the next ten of our Met immortals (or imMetrals). But before we do, there is the matter of Tom Seaver, who may or may not show up somewhere along the way here, coming out against the New Mets hype in Newsday Wednesday, warning one and all that:

“They’re definitely improved. Let’s see. I think they shot themselves in the foot doing that once already.”

He was referring to getting everybody’s hopes up in 2002, a most un-Terrific season. I appreciate Tom’s perspective and honesty. It gives lie to the idea unfairly espoused six years ago when he replaced Tim McCarver that he was being brought in to be a Wilpon shill, or a Shillpon. Then again, I wonder how much of his unimpressedness stems from his wondering why they didn’t turn to The Franchise to turn the franchise around.

There was a time Tom Seaver would stand on the mound, turn around and find the man who starts today’s segment of The One Hundred Greatest Mets of the First Forty Years.

90. Ken Boswell: On a team that didn’t score many runs, the early ’70s Mets were famously about pitching and defense. Their second baseman, Ken Boswell, set a record for going 85 straight games without an error in 1970. One would think his glove was his stock-in-trade, though contemporary accounts indicate defense was not his strong suit. In Joy in Mudville, George Vecsey characterized him as “heavy-handed,” at least in 1969. Ken did hit two homers in the inaugural National League Championship Series, so he could have been termed heavy-hitting at times.

89. Jay Payton: His prospects were once sky-high. Then like all Mets prospects of his generation, he got hurt. And Jay Payton wasn’t even a pitcher. But for the one year that he got it together, 2000, he was an integral part of a pennant-winning club. Gave the club its best center field defense since Pat Howell (speaking of short-timers). Got the key hit in Game 2 of the NLDS to rescue Benitez  and the whole team, post-J.T. Snow, singling in the unlikely Darryl Hamilton in the top of 10th. As Mets centerfielders who were going to be the real deal, Jay Payton was no Don Bosch.

88. Timo Perez: Imagine Mike Vail. Now imagine Mike Vail coming on like gangbusters the way he did in 1975 except now imagine that happening when it really, really counted. The reality would be Timo Perez and his immense role in securing two playoff series for the 2000 Mets. For two weeks, the former Timoniel was staggering. The Mets might not have beaten the Giants without him (or with Derek Bell keeping his balance on the Pac Bell sod). The Mets would not have beaten the Cardinals without him. Less than two months into his big-league career, Timo set a record for most runs scored in an NLCS (in just five games) and should have been awarded its MVP. Timo put us in the 2000 World Series. It’s a shame he took us out of it so quickly.

87. Shawon Dunston: Do you think anything of the Butterfly Effect? If you do, think about Shawon Dunston’s third at-bat in the fifth game of the 1999 National League Championship Series versus the Braves. It’s the bottom of the fifteenth inning. Atlanta has just taken a 4-3 lead and needs three outs to secure the pennant. Shawon Dunston stands at the plate representing the first out. On any one of twelve pitches, he could have registered that out. Instead, Shawon Dunston takes or fouls off everything Kevin McGlinchy dishes out. He won’t walk — he literally never walks in 51 games in a Mets uniform — but he won’t cooperate with McGlinchy. On the twelfth pitch, he singles to center. Shawon Dunston keeps hope alive. If Shawon Dunston never becomes a Met, he’s not up in that situation, he’s not on first, he doesn’t steal second, he doesn’t get sacrificed to third by Alfonzo, he doesn’t score on a bases-loaded walk to Pratt, he doesn’t watch in stunned disbelief as Ventura singles over the fence for the winning run. Neither do we. We have no Grand Slam Single. We lose in five. We have no Game Six. We have nothing to hold against Al Leiter because he never pitches that awful no thirds of a first inning in which he gives up five runs. We have no stirring comeback from 0-5 to 8-7. We have no recollection of Mike Piazza’s Cobra shot (“you’re the disease, and I’m the cure”) off cocky John Smoltz. We have no heartbreaking cough-up of an 8-7 lead. We have no life-affirming ninth run with Benny Agbayani rumbling across the plate to beat a throw from the supposedly flawless Andruw Jones. We have no second heartbreaking cough-up of a lead, this one 9-8. We may very well have Kenny Rogers as a lefty starter on the 2000 Mets because we have no wild streak in the bottom of eleventh of Game Six haunting him, in which case we have no Mike Hampton, but maybe we do have Ken Griffey because we redouble our efforts to get him after he turns us down since we still have Cedeño and Dotel as chits along with Benitez, who, it’s possible, never sticks around to face Paul O’Neill in the 2000 World Series, which we might not make if we still have Kenny Rogers but not Mike Hampton. If you don’t think anything of the Butterfly Effect, then never mind.

86. Dave Mlicki: That Dave Mlicki could go out on any given night and throw a complete game, 9-hit, 8-K shutout shouldn’t have been news. He had the talent if not the ability to harness it more often than he did. That he did align all his stars in one place on the evening of June 16, 1997 when the opponent was the New York Yankees and the venue was Yankee Stadium and the occasion was the first-ever regular season encounter between the New York Mets and the New York Yankees is to his everlasting credit.

85. Matt Franco: “He’ll never have to pay for a drink in this town ever again” is one of those sayings that I wouldn’t think has much modern-day resonance. It’s hard to imagine ballplayers really frequent bars with the common folk who adore them. On the afternoon of July 10, 1999, Matt Franco pinch-hit a 3-2 pitch off the impenetrable Mariano Rivera. With that single, Rickey Henderson and Edgardo Alfonzo crossed home plate, turning an 8-7 loss to the Yankees into a 9-8 win over the Yankees. From an eternally grateful witness whose total being turned to jelly in Section 46, Row T of the Shea upper deck, comes this hoarse-throated promise: Every vodka gimlet Matt Franco ever craves, his money’s no good here, pal.

84. Melvin Mora: Melvin Mora rode the Norfolk shuttle for the better part of 1999. There was virtually nothing he did in the 64 games he appeared in prior to October 3 to indicate what he was about to produce. Then, at the best possible time, leading off the bottom of the ninth in a must-have tie game against the Pirates, he singled. Moments later he scored the winning run on Brad Clontz’s wild pitch to extend the Mets’ season to a 163rd game. In the playoffs against Arizona and Atlanta, he did everything. He played each outfield position and threw a runner out from left, center and right. He was in the middle of rallies. He hit his first Major League home run in a championship series. Melvin Mora proved himself under the stormiest of circumstances and earned a place on the Opening Day roster for 2000 after which he continued to produce. The only thing he couldn’t do was play shortstop every day, which was too bad, since it was this one drawback that got him traded for someone who allegedly could.

83. Eddie Murray: As unhappy as he appeared and as bad as the team was, future Hall of Famer Eddie Murray drove in 193 runs in 1992 and 1993. The players swore by him as their sage and counsel. Did he lead by example? If his advice to them was “act like a sullen jerk if you like, but be sure to pick up the man from third with less than two out,” it’s apparent that his voice trailed off in dispensing the second half of his cherished wisdom.

82. J.C. Martin: If a Brave or a Yankee or, back then, an Oriole bunted and ran inside the baseline, leaving his wrist free to obstruct the pitcher’s throw to first and that throw glanced off that wrist and away from the first baseman allowing a runner to score from second and win a World Series game, we’d scream bloody murder. But since the wrist belonged to J.C. Martin and the errant toss was made by Pete Richert and the Mets won Game Four and it was 1969, we’re cool with that.

81. Kevin Elster: No shortstop in the history of Major League Baseball had played more games in a row, 88, without committing an error than Kevin Elster did in 1988-89. His record would later be broken and even while it stood, Elster’s achievement would be viewed by some with an asterisk since a number of those games were late-inning appearances for defense. But they were appearances and there were no errors. Elster also hit nine homers as a rookie shortstop on the last division champion in Mets history. By comparison, Bud Harrelson hit none in ’69 or ’73 and Rafael Santana hit one in ’86.

To avoid competing lists, I'll yield the field to you, keeping my 100

greatest Mets in my back pocket for a rainy day, which is all our team

seems to get these days. Funny how I never thought much of Steve

Trachsel (beyond “Why isn't that man throwing the baseball yet?”) until

back troubles turned him into Matt Ginter. Ulp!

Anyway, while the Greatest 100 unfold, I'm going to play the easy role

of G(r)eek Chorus, making appreciative comments about (and taking occasional pot

shots at) the players on your list.

My pot shots will not begin with Marvelous Marv,

however: Parking him at #100 is genius. In our old Bethesda, Md., group

house, the line “We was gonna give you a piece of cake, but we wuz

afraid you would drop it” got adopted as an all-purpose putdown, with

various nouns subbed for “piece of cake.” That's fame of a sort, ain't

it? Among the innumerable legends you didn't mention, my favorite is

how Marv had to pay taxes on his cabin cruiser because he won it for

hitting a sign, which was considered a test of skill, while Richie

Ashburn's cabin cruiser was tax-free because he got it for being named

the team MVP, which wasn't a test of skill because it was voted on by

others. Or something. Ashburn tied his boat up in a river and it sank.

Marv gets extra points because he'd been a Yankee. It was nice of the

Fates to provide us with an almost-mystically clear example of the

difference between the two teams so early: Marv's ineptitude was a

source of embarrassment and disgust for Yankee fans but made him

beloved by Met fans. Baseball is an imperfect affair; if you can't

laugh at it, well…you're a Yankee fan.

I can't abide the idea that Lenny Harris

is on any list of ours.  Nothing against Lenny, who by all

accounts is a prince among men, but he embodies the Neanderthal

conservatism of baseball front offices: In any sane world, such a

profoundly limited player would have lost his job to rookies seasons

ago. But Lenny keeps rolling on and on — he must be in camp somewhere

— adding to his pointless pinch-hitting record. And considering he's a

stone-handed, slow singles hitter, he's not even one-dimensional —

he's half-dimensional. Lest we think Steve Phillips never did anything

for us, the sturm und drang over his secretarial sojourns did keep Lenny from cluttering up a roster spot. Until we reacquired him. Grrr.

Similarly, I must withhold my endorsement of Duke Snider.

While I understand and appreciate the nod to our blue and orange

history, Joan Payson's insistence on stockpiling decrepit Giants and

Dodgers hamstrung this franchise into the 1970s, with Willie Mays the

ultimate vanity pick. But at least Willie played in a World Series and

had some memorable plays. Duke did nothing but be old and sulky, and he

gets docked additional points for going out as a Giant — Jackie

Robinson opted to put his feet up on a desk at Chock Full o' Nuts

rather than do that. Gil Hodges would fall into this category too, were

it not for leading us to The Promised Land as a skipper.

I'll always associate Carl Everett's

Met career with my beloved Motorola SportsTrax, a lovely gift from my

in-laws that kept me connected during innumerable unavoidable weekend

and night events during which a radio would have been frowned upon. I

was still breaking in the SportsTrax when I was forced to spend the

bulk of a nice spring Saturday at a management retreat at a downtown

hotel. During a break I was showing off the device and turned the sound

on in hopes of getting a beep or two that I might be able to translate.

The second I did this the thing went apeshit, whistling and beeping so

euphorically that we all backed away from it as if it were a hand grenade.

“I think that's the grand-slam noise!” I said happily after looking at the score. It was. And it was Carl Everett.

The other SportsTrax Everett Event was the game against the Expos

you've mentioned. I was attending a ludicrously swanky wedding in

Newport, R.I., that I knew would turn into a grisly boozefest, so I

left the SportsTrax in the motel room along with everything else I

didn't want to lose. (What the hell, it was 6-0.) When I returned at 5

a.m., half-blind with drink, covered with grass stains and missing

significant tux components (it was a good wedding), I looked at the

final score in disbelief and concluded the SportsTrax was

malfunctioning. Nope. Carl Everett had malfunctioned the Expos.

I'd type more about Clobberin' Carl, but an Allosaurus

just wandered into the apartment looking for carrion, so I think I

better hide in a closet or something. Carl may not believe in them, but

I'm taking no chances.

100. Marv Throneberry: Though he passed on in 1994, I imagine Marv Throneberry still doesn't know why we asked him to be on this list. He's not here for the 16 homers he hit in '62 nor for the 17 errors he made playing first. Well, more for the latter than the former, but c'mon — try to imagine us without him at the heart of our primordial ooze. Second maybe to Casey in forging the identity of this team and buying us some time to become if not respectable, then remotely professional. The fans made him and he made them fans. Without Marvelous Marv and the legend that trails him like so many bags missed en route to a triple (or so many pieces of cake we'd give him but wuz afraid he'd drop), face it: We're the Colt .45s sans mosquitoes. For being Marv Throneberry, he is permanently ensconced at No. 100 for all time.

99. Lenny Harris: We've never had a Met win a 300th game or collect a 3,000th hit. But we did have Lenny Harris breaking Manny Mota's all-time career pinch-hit mark on the final Saturday night of the 2001 season. Maybe it represented a release of tension and disappointment following the short-circuited drive to the NL East title that September. Maybe it was because he really was that thing they call a clubhouse leader. But when he singled off of Carl Pavano and reached first, his teammates — led by Piazza, of all people — rushed out of the dugout to pound him and love him for a good two minutes. Sure it wasn't Ripken passing Gehrig or Rose passing Cobb or Aaron passing Ruth (we get the point), but when Lenny trumped Manny and the scoreboard flashed 151 like it was 2,131, 4,192 or 715, it didn't seem ridiculous.

98. Rico Brogna: A delightful surprise is as surprising as it is delightful. So it was in the summer of 1994 when a little-known minor leaguer obtained in a little-noticed minor league deal came up and shocked the world, or that thin slice of it that was paying attention to the Mets. Rico Brogna came from as close to nowhere as anybody ever has to establish himself as the real deal for Mets fans. For a franchise reeling from the second-strike-and-yer-out drug-test relapse of Doc Gooden, Rico was the breath of fresh air that blew the Mets toward .500 over the final seven weeks of that truncated season. He hit and fielded and behaved like a veteran. Another good season followed before injuries cut his tenure short. While the team improved without him and he was succeeded by somebody (John Olerud) who produced better numbers, Rico never quite stopped being a Met. He consistently received warm ovations after coming back as a Phillie and even a Brave.

97. Duke Snider: Mr. Met has two daddies. One was a Jint from Upper Manhattan, the other a Bum from Brooklyn. Duke Snider was the Dodger uncle who lent a patina of 1950s them-was-the-days luster to the new kids in town when he returned home in 1963. It's said that it was strange (for him and for the fans) seeing him call the Polo Grounds home, yet the Ebbets Field slugger and future Hall of Famer hit his 400th homer there and represented the Mets in the '63 All-Star Game before departing and finishing his career as, of all things, a San Francisco Giant in 1964.

96. Carl Everett: For four months, Carl Everett pulled off a neat trick. As a fourth outfielder, one never permanently handed a starting job, he was the best outfielder on the 1997 Mets and a large reason for that team's renaissance. He was never quite the same after the murky events of early August that took place in the Shea family room (which led to the authorities holding his and wife's children for, allegedly, their own good). It was obvious his days were numbered from there on in. But that September, in an otherwise quiet denouement to his Mets career, Carl Everett blasted maybe the most incredible grand slam in team history. Barely hanging on in their noble if doomed quest for their first Wild Card, the Mets trailed the Expos 6-0 entering the ninth (Dustin Hermanson carried a no-hitter deep into the game). They had trimmed it to 6-2 and had the bases loaded with two out when Everett stood in to face the generally unassailable Uggie Urbina. He hit a foul home run. And then, a pitch or two later, he hit a fair home run. Just like that, it was 6-6. The Mets won in eleven and staved off Wild Card execution a bit longer. It was the signature swing of an underappreciated season.

95. Joe McEwing: A utilityman should be able to do it all. That's Super Joe. When he came to the Mets in 2000, it was a gift (Tony LaRussa loved him so much in St. Louis he kept a pair of his spikes on his desk, as Fran Healy's mentioned one or two thousand times). We got a guy who could play every infield and every outfield position competently. We got a guy who could pinch-hit. We got a guy who could fill in. We got a guy who had his own dance in and around the batter's box and, for a while, his very own batting-practice pitcher named Randy Johnson. During the malaise that was the first half of the 2001 season, a local columnist commented on the Mets' lackadaisical approach to the game, excluding Joe McEwing from that assessment because Joe McEwing gets to the clubhouse at about dawn. In their first 40 years, the Mets had a few other notable utilitymen: Hot Rod Kanehl, Teddy Martinez, Bob Bailor. What separated Joe from those guys was effort that truly didn't show up in the box score. After September 11, when many Mets helped load supplies onto trucks in the Shea parking lot, who volunteered to drive the forklift? Super Joe, that's who. He really did do it all.

94. Jason Isringhausen: The New York Mets, when they won their first two championships, were built on young, internally developed starting pitching. It was thought a third flag was being stitched when word trickled north from Norfolk that not one, not two but three great young arms were on their way to Shea. The second of them was attached to a kid who had nothing left to prove in the minors in 1995, Jason Isringhausen. Izzy. And was he ready? In the second half of that season, Izzy went 9-2 with a 2.81 ERA and the Mets rose from last to a second-place tie, sparking every reasonable hope that in 1996 Izzy, Bill Pulsipher and Paul Wilson would pitch the Mets into legitimate contention. Well, we know that Generation K became a symbol of regret more than achievement, but for a few months, Izzy made it reality.

93. Rod Gaspar: Actually, Rod Gaspar doesn't belong on this list. That honor should really go to Ron Gasper, for that's who Frank Robinson called out on the eve of the 1969 World Series. The Orioles were heavy favorites and a little fed up with all the attention being showered on the Miracle Mets, already in progress. No wonder F. Robby dared New York to “bring on Ron Gaspar!” When informed by teammate Merv Rettenmund that “it's Rod, stupid,” the great man replied, “OK, then bring on Rod Stupid!” Ol' Whathisname, Gaspar, was next seen crossing home plate to win the pivotal fourth game of that Series, the one that put the Mets up 3-1 and made the Miracle all but inevitable. Rod Gaspar actually started in right on Opening Day and got two hits. Gil Hodges managed to get him into more than two out of every three games in 1969. In years like that, it's the Rod Gaspars who make the Frank Robinsons seem pretty silly for ever doubting them.

92. Joel Youngblood: One of the surlier Mets in distant memory, particularly when Joe Torre tried to make a third baseman out of him, Joel Youngblood, give or take a few plate appearances, was leading the National League in batting when the players went on strike in 1981. After settling, MLB rushed an All-Star Game into Cleveland and Joel Youngblood was named the Mets' only representative. He pinch-hit for Fernando Valenzuela, popped up and left. Too bad. If he were inserted in right, he might have had a chance to show off his arm and make everybody forget about Dave Parker. The man had the greatest outfield arm in Mets history. Ellis Valentine's was awfully good, too, which wouldn't make Blood happy since Ellis took away a good bit of his playing time, but Joel got to show his off more as a Met. It didn't work as well from third as it did from right, which is something Joe Torre would have figured out if he were, you know, any kind of manager at all.

91. Bernard Gilkey: In the new breed of trades for dollars' sake, Bernard Gilkey was a steal. The Cardinals were cheap and asked only for three go-nowhere prospects in exchange for Gilkey's salary. Bernard gave the Mets, over one year, their only real power-hitting outfielder for a generation (post-Strawberry, pre-Beltran, one hopes). His 1996 numbers were wholly unMetlike: 30 HRs, 117 RBIs, .317 BA. That all of baseball was exploding offensively escaped the front office's attention and Gilkey was rewarded for his single, hellacious, free-agent campaign with a four-year contract worth about $19 mil. Naturally, he tanked thereafter and the Mets couldn't wait to dump him by '98. Still, he did have that one helluva year.

Let's see…Trachsel's out…there's no obvious replacement…McEwing's role has been usurped…he's versatile…

I think I know who our new fifth starter is going to be.

Instead of dwelling on the suddenly unsettling immediate future, this seems as good a time as any to delve into past glories. Though when you're talking about the Mets, glory is a tenuous concept. For example, no Met has even won an MVP.

Some fans see a lack of awards like that and ask “so? ” I dream awards that never were and ask “so what else?”

Following the 2001 season, the Mets' 40th campaign, I looked up (on the indispensable Baseball Reference) who had come closest to being Most Valuable. I was surprised to learn that 35 different Mets had garnered at least one MVP vote at least once. One search led to another and before I knew it, I had made it my mission to create a list of (drumroll please)…

The One Hundred Greatest Mets Of The First Forty Years.

After 40 seasons, there had been 668 players who had worn the blue and orange and white and black and Mercury, so choosing 100 of them made for an almost perfectly neat top 15% of all Mets. At the very least, these Mets were greater than 85% of their peers. For those who are still active, feel free to use this nugget at contract time.

What makes somebody one of The One Hundred Greatest Mets Of The First Forty Years?

Well first we take all the players who spent the defining balance of their careers in a Mets uniform and, while wearing those sacred garments, towered over the game like few others — men recognized by one and all as immortal in their time and for the ages.

And then we find 99 more guys.

I started with the MVP vote-getters, the Cy Young and Rookie of the Year winners and candidates, Gold Gloves, league leaders, team record holders, All-Stars and stuff like that. That made for about 70, most of whom I kept. The other 30 or so were recognized for some combination of achievement, longevity, memorable moment, contribution to winning and ur-Mets significance.

I also gave a little weight to Hall of Famers who spent at least one full season as a Met, a policy I will drop when I (presumably having not matured or altered my priorities one iota) revise the list after the 50th year of Mets baseball. We'll call that the Alomar/Glavine But Hopefully Not Martinez Exception. The thinking on HOFers is there's something to having those guys on your all-time roster and it can be argued that their Mets careers had at least a little, tiny something to do with their HOF selection. But the list strives to consider only what Mets players did as Mets players, in case you're looking for great Mets managers whose Mets playing days could be termed negligible.

Cutting off eligibility at the first 40 seasons appealed to my surprisingly meticulous nature. Besides, nothing achieved by anybody in 2002, 2003 or 2004 would've changed anything anyway, inclusion or ranking. Like Cooperstown, I'll wait a decent interval before considering the impact of anybody who's joined since 2001. (I felt players who joined the Mets in the years just prior to 2001 were fair game when this list was compiled given that one could pretty well gauge a player's impact on the '99 and '00 postseason teams.)

In ranking the One Hundred, I tended to be more impressed by a brief tenure that was punctuated by a singular feat in the spotlight than I was by several seasons of loitering. I also tried to emphasize the positive — that is, assign a player his place on the list for what he accomplished and don't penalize him for his lesser performances or generally unpleasant nature. And I really tried to take a cold eye to this and not make it a list of my favorite players, though some personal preferences probably seeped in.

So much for the Price Waterhouse stuff. On with the countdown, part one coming later today.

A ballplayer would have to have committed some awful, irredeemable transgression in his past baseball life to not be accepted into at least a temporary state of grace for the period in which he has chosen to embrace the light, a.k.a., the uniform of the New York Mets. Manny Aybar can get guys out for us? All is forgiven. (Just don't linger on cold nights, OK?)

Tom Glavine continues to operate under a cloud of karmic suspicion, due to not only his mega-Braveness, but because of his continued prickliness toward former replacement players (one in particular who pitched his heart out for us) long after everybody else in baseball had put that stuff behind them. I've tried to forget all that as he stands on our mound and does his best to earn us victories, but I can't quite shake the disdain. Paramount among the thousand or so reasons I desperately wanted us to prevail in Game Six was to set up a Game Seven in which the matchup would've been Reed vs. Glavine. I know who would've won that. I just know.

He's said all the right things, he's evaded the bait every time he's asked “Tom, do you regret…?” and he's pitched not altogether horribly. But peel away his civilized mien and, I'm pretty sure Tom Glavine is still a Brave and still an ass. He's never been Glavo or Tommy or, God forbid, Tom since he's been here.

When the no-hitter got away from him while I sat in the Broadway Theatre manipulating my Walkman during the first act of a Sunday matinee of Bombay Dreams last May, I was 99% shattered and 1% relieved that Kit Pellow saved the honor of the first Mets' no-hitter for somebody, anybody else.

Generally speaking, though, who you were in a past baseball life, as long as you are now a Met, doesn't concern me. Chris Woodward was a Blue Jay. Chris Woodward started at short and got two hits at Shea against the Mets on June 9, 1999, one of the wildest nights I ever spent in the confines of what John Kruk once referred to (in giving directions to a lost cabdriver) as the big blue thing. That was when David Wells returned to New York for the first time since he was traded by the other team that plays nearby and he shut us out for eight innings. He had his own cheering section of female David Wells wannabes, which is as frightening as it sounds. Leading 3-0, however, he couldn't get out of the ninth and the Mets rallied to tie it, going on to win in 14.

Aside from staying past midnight, rising for a fourteenth-inning stretch and witnessing Rey Ordoñez collect a game-winning hit, the game was marked for eternity by the infamous Bobby Valentine mustache-and-glasses disguise. Didn't know that until I saw the highlights later. But in the heat of battle, I hated the Blue Jays and by extension must've wished only bad things on Chris Woodward. But Sunday afternoon, as he emerged as superer than Joe McEwing, I heard myself call out to him, “WOODY!”

I assume that's his nickname. He was a Blue Jay, after all.

Pedro Martinez' past lives aren't going to be held against him either. Yeah, I remember the inside pitch to Mike and certainly held it against Martinez for the balance of that weekend, but Luis Lopez taking him deep seemed like swift and suitable retribution. Hey, we owned Pedro Martinez, he says with a chuckle. Before he was an icon, he was merely an awesome Expo with an awesome whammy on us, so it was quite a milestone in the coming-out party that was the 1997 Mets when Matt Franco took him deep in the eighth to secure a 2-1 win for Bobby Jones over him in early June.

We won't hold his failure to hold a lead against us in a past life against him either.

As for the beginning of this present life, you asked about my first game. It was July 11, 1973 versus the Astros. It was a 7-1 loss. Here are 10 things you don't really need to know about it:

1. I'd been watching games on TV since 1969 but as my parents weren't big fans, nobody acted to take me to a game.

2. They relented and got us tickets for the previous September but I got sick and my pediatrician, whom I've never forgiven, said I couldn't go. The Mets beat the Phillies that day while I watched and sulked in bed.

3. The kosher Camp Avnet of Long Beach was my ticket to ride. They piled us all into buses and took us to Shea on a gloomy summer morning. I didn't want to go to day camp, but the record clearly indicates that if I hadn't, I'd never have gone to my first game.

4. Our counselor, Marvin, saw a bunch of us waiting for the bus with our gloves and told us to go put them back in our cubby holes. “You'll just lose 'em,” he said. To this day, I've never brought my glove to a game because Marvin said I'd just lose it.

5. When we got to the big blue thing (then the big speckled thing), the first thing I did was buy a yearbook. That was my assignment, having heard Lindsey, Ralph and Bob urge me three times every game to add one to my baseball library. The cover featured every 1973 Met who had ever been an All-Star. One of the All-Stars was Jim Fregosi. I looked up from the yearbook at the scoreboard where it was announced Jim Fregosi had just been sold to the Texas Rangers. I wondered if they'd put a revised edition on sale immediately. They didn't.

6. Tommie Agee hit a home run for the Astros. Jerry Koosman took the loss for the Mets. Willie Mays played first for us.

7. To beat traffic, we left before the game was over. That rubbed me the wrong way.

8. As our camp was kosher, we could only eat the box lunches that we brought along. I ate Camp Avnet salami on what turned out to be a very warm, very humid day. When I got home, I threw up. That rubbed me the wronger way.

9. More times than I would have imagined, I've been at midweek afternoon games in the heat of summer to find that among the many Metropolitan Area day camps welcomed on the big board is a contingent from good old Camp Avnet. I always applaud when I see the name.

10. On July 11, 1993, the 20th anniversary of my first game, I went with Rob Emproto to my only regular-season Sunday night affair. It was Mets vs. Dodgers, Gooden vs. Candiotti. The Mets held an early 1-0 lead and were threatening for more. The Dodgers brought in a rookie of whom I snidely remarked he's probably only on the team because of his brother. The ever-aware Rob told me “this guy's probably better than his brother.” And with that, young Pedro Martinez slammed the door shut on the Mets and Gooden, with the Dodgers winning 2-1.

The way things are suddenly going for him, no past-life heroics are going to save Doc Gooden now. I'm thinking his Mets HOF induction just got lost in the mail.

Your pal Manny Aybar's arrival on the mound (God bless WPIX)

reminded me, again, of the weird feelings when former enemies big

and small join the Forces of Good.

It's easy to forget Pedro was briefly a member of the Forces of

Darkness, drilling Piazza in June 1998 and afterwards pulling out one

of his under-the-mango-tree ruminations about being a

poor boy with class while Mike was a millionaire without it. The brief

contretemps has blotted out memories of the actual game, which is too

bad: Pedro lasted just four innings, giving up 1,254 feet worth of home

runs to John Olerud, Bernard Gilkey, Luis Lopez and Alberto Castillo —

the latter two leaving me bounding around the office in astonished,

giddy delight. Some large man named Vaughn countered with two homers

for the Bosox, perhaps opening eyes that should have stayed shut. Then

Pedro was a head-hunting menace to society; now he's the genial prince

of the clubhouse. (Actually, between baseball's great mi nombre es Pedro ad and his habit of head-hunting Yankees, I forgave him long ago.)   

The elephant in the former-enemies room is, of course,

Tom Glavine. You and I are exactly like several hundred thousand

other Mets fans in remaining lukewarm at best on Glavine after

two seasons. All those years beating the tar out of us carry

a certain psychological weight — particularly that 1-0 strangulation

in Game 3 of the '99 NLCS, which we got to watch side by side

in glum misery. There's his failure to beat the tar out of

clubs in the same way wearing our uniform. There's his status

in the freelance-GM clique of the clubhouse. Geeks like us

still mutter about brother Mike's fantasy-camp tenure in

orange and blue, with the associated blather about great family

atmosphere. No, it is safe to say we have not warmed up to Tom

Glavine. And you get the feeling we're not alone: From the press

coverage this spring, you'd barely know Glavine was on the roster.

[Side note: Chris Woodward probably just made the team. Time for

the McEwings to start scouring the St. Louis real-estate listings.]

When I think of Glavine, I admit to still seeing him as an

impostor. With Atlanta he and Maddux epitomitzed the

strain of Brave arrogance I particularly loathed: disdainfully silent

and distantly supercilious toward competitors and even in their

own clubhouse when they objected to something. (Chipper and Bobby Cox

were and are different, given to shooting off their mouths in a

moustache-twisting way, but I always found that easier to take — at

least they acknowledged we were on the field with them.)

I've tried, but I still feel that way about Glavine. I'm

sure this is unfair. It's not Glavine's fault that we signed him

when he may have begun his natural descent as a pitcher. It's

not Glavine's fault that he's been backed by a

defense that might as well have been put together from the rest of

the Glavine clan. It's not Glavine's fault that he was invited

into the circle of Mets allowed to interfere with decisions better

made upstairs. Regardless, I can't shake the feeling.

Here's the thing, though: If Glavine had had a better defense and

won 15 games a year, would I feel differently? If he'd no-hit the

Rockies last year — as I, for once, firmly believed would

happen — would I feel differently? I think I would. Fandom is a fickle

thing, and mere facts need not apply: If Pedro's 3-8 at the break

and we're last in the league in hitting and defense, something

tells me we'll be grousing about him hitting Piazza back in '98.

I showed Joshua (with the benefit of pen, paper and a Met hat)

that the weird symbol on our cap is in fact two letters on top of each

other. He got it and said he wanted to watch more baseball. Attaboy!

On the other hand, he was nonplussed why a team cool

enough to be named after tigers wouldn't have tigers on their uniforms.

I had no explanation for that.

Hey, what was the first Met game you attended?

[End note: Yeah, Chris Woodward definitely just made the team. Sorry, Super Joe.] 

The 1989 Mets opened the season with exactly one player who didn't play

at some point for the 1988 Mets: Don Aase, who won a spot in the

bullpen after starting spring as agate type.

Don Aase can be recalled for three accomplishments.

1) He displaced Tommie Agee atop the all-time alphabetical roster. If

we don't sign Henry Aaron IV somewhere down the road, we're stuck with

him there.

2) He gave up a positively Pendletonian ninth-inning blast to a Dodger

on August 20 which cost the Mets not just a game but all the momentum

(15-4) they'd built up since acquiring Frank Viola at the trading

deadline, momentum they never recovered. The offending L.A. slugger? A

veteran second baseman named Willie Randolph who hadn't hit one out all

year.

3) My late mother, in her final season of Mets-watching, continually

referred to Don Aase as Ass-Man. She did the same thing for Paul

Assenmacher.

Before 1989 was out, the Mets would go through one of their most

dramatic in-season shakeups in franchise history, dispatching Aguilera,

Dykstra, McDowell, Mazzilli and Mookie to the hinterlands. That's more

than 20% of the '86 Series team disappeared in a 43-day span. In the

context of setting a roster, the regular season was little more than an

extended spring training. Some years are like that.

Yet I'm sure I was interested in spring training in 1989 regardless of

the rather sedate competition for jobs, whereas I'm a little light to

date on being fully engaged in this year's maneuvers.

As I lay awake the other night to mentally pencil in the 25-Man, I was

stunned to realize significant blank spots remain beyond the starting

eight, starting five and closer. I've been so focused on drooling over

millionaire Carlos Beltran and his ward David Wright that I've been

willing to pencil in “Others” for most of those slots.

That won't work for much longer. So now I'm snapping out of it and

paying attention to who's here. There's a real dichotomy, I've finally

grasped, in Camp Willie. There's the old scrubs and the new subs. My

hunch is the newbies will carry the day.

It's good that there are several seemingly fresh and viable options for

fourth and fifth OFs and second utility IF and even backup C, because

more is better. But I have no attachment to the various Woodwards,

Robinsons, Calloways, Castros and whichever non-locks are floating

around, and I haven't seen enough of any of them to adopt one or more

as a cause.

On the other hand, I was disappointed to conclude that Eric Valent was not guaranteed a place on the 2005 Mets.

A team coming off 71 wins shouldn't guarantee anybody a spot. But come

now — Eric Valent didn't manage to pencil himself in to “it's his job

to lose” status? Look at the back of his card:

* Thirteen homers as a part-timer

* Competent outfield and first base credentials

* A lefty

* The cycle in Montreal

* Out of options

* His bizarre appearance with Todd Zeile on Cold Pizza to promote a men's fashion show

All that must deposit some goodwill in the bank.

I was delighted to see Pat Borzi in the Times, one writer

who so far finds his own stories, rediscover Valent the other day. I

was happier when Eric was in the lineup Friday night while Gary and

Howie doted on him. They're the ones, in between bashing Richie Hebner

(who can't ever be bashed enough), who reminded me of the thirteen

dingers in 2004. Has anybody told Willie about those?

As much as I'd like to reserve him a spot, I recall now that Eric

Valent is what happens when spring training works correctly, that a guy

can actually come out of nowhere and become somebody at somebody else's

expense. He seemed to show up in virtually every game I caught last

March. And I always wondered the same thing. Who the hell is Eric Valent?

An ex-Red, an ex-Phillie, but I have to admit he escaped my notice.

Then when Roger Cedeño was mercifully exchanged for Wilson Delgado, a

spot opened up and Art Howe woke up long enough to grant it to E.V. It

was, to damn with faint praise, perhaps the best move he made in his

two years as manager.

Wayne Housie is also what happens when spring training does its thing.

The first Opening Day I ever attended was 1993, the Rockies' inaugural

game. I'd waited almost a quarter of a century for the opportunity to

see our boys take their place on the first-base line and be introduced

one by one. As it's done in numerical order, the first reserve to have

his name called was No. 2, Wayne Housie. You could hear 53,127 fingers

scratching 53,127 heads. Wayne Who's-He? Whoever he was, he didn't make it to July. (And the Mets barely made it to May, but never mind that.)

For every Valent who qualifies out of the gate for meal money and

proves a delightful surprise, there are Housies and Aases who remind us

what a 25th man really is — the guy they take because otherwise they'd

be a guy short. Whoever emerges, the battle for the end of the bench

needs some juice, and soon.

OK, I admit it. I bailed out when it was 10-1. To watch a TiVoed Gilmore Girls. (I should really say “to get good and drunk” or “because something needed welding,” but it would be a lie.)

Leaving aside the fact that it's fricking spring training, my only

defense is that thanks to Cablevision, I couldn't see the game, and

there's not a lot to be learned from hearing what future Binghamton Mets are doing. If I could have seen Blake McGinley, rest assured I would have stayed glued to live TV. At least until it was 14-4.

Still, it did leave me feeling somewhat better about the 112-odd games

that may be lacking visuals this year. Howie Rose and Gary Cohen were

in great form, at one point letting the scrimmage going on downstairs

share time with a lengthy, increasingly agitated review of the shameful

conduct of Richie Hebner, the world's least-happy Met. Hebner

(forever known for working as a gravedigger in the offseason) played

his one miserable campaign for the Mets 26 years ago,

but Howie sounded as outraged about his Robertoesque showing as he

must have been at the time. I'm willing to bet that most other teams'

broadcasters can barely remember briefly employed first basemen from a

quarter-century ago, let alone work themselves into a lather over their

malingering. Getting to share a game with Howie and Gary is a pleasure.

Even when it's 10-1.

Speaking of barely remembering, I confess I had completely forgotten

our loathing of Manny Aybar, though I did recall two other things:

Junior's return was one of those rare nights I guessed the next day's

tabloid headline (it was “Junior Whiffey”), and Jackie Robinson Night was its

polar opposite, as it was the lone good pitching performance I can

remember by Toby Borland.

My favorite return by a hated foe is still Bobby Bonilla as a Marlin.

(Somewhere in the bowels of Shea a machine just clunked out a check to

Bobby Bo for more than you and I will make in two months, by the way.)

I was at Shea with Chris, a.k.a. the Human Fight, and the sparse crowd

was hungrily booing Bonilla whenever it could get a fix on him during

warmups. In his first at-bat, Bonilla lashed a ball foul — one of

those drives that looks impressive but is only hit hard because it

can't possibly stay fair. The ball clanked into the seats a few sections

outside the foul pole, and there were so few people there that everyone

could watch the most-enterprising kid in the stands jog 40 feet and

start hunting for the ball. When he found it, he held it aloft for a

moment — and then hurled it onto the field. I'm sure Fran would agree

the reaction was electric.

Later in the game the crowd was too tired and dispirited to boo Bonilla

with much volume anymore, but it did find an alternative: a low,

hooting chant that spread slowly but inexorably through the park…

you suck you suck you suck you suck you suck you suck

…at which point Chris turned to me and said, “This may be the purest expression of hatred I've ever heard.”

Joey Hamilton got released after being arrested for DWI. If you're out

there, Todd Hundley, rest easy. His tower has been buzzed.

Barring hail, frogs, locusts, murrain and whatever other plagues Cablevision brings on viewers, a pretend Mets game will air on MSG Friday night. Seeing as how darkness was one of the Top Ten Plagues of The Week brought forth on the Egyptians by The Big Guy (God, not Chris Berman), I wonder why the hell they play so many spring-training games at night.

I've heard the reasoning, that the regular season is predominantly night games, so the players need to get used to the dark. To which I say hogwash. The most embarrassing individual Opening Day (Day, not night) performance I can remember was Keith Miller looking lost under fly balls in center in 1990. Maybe he was a victim of all those damn night games in St. Lucie. After Opening Day, does anybody truly attribute anybody's performance to what happened in spring training?

Besides, nobody — nobody — gets goose-pimply at the idea of soaking up some of that Florida moon. And when the frost is still on the parking lot as it is around here, a night game sends a diluted message of hope. I'm all for having baseball on TV at night, even in March, but play it during the day and tape it for evening airing.

That reminds me of perhaps the strangest arrangement I can recall in Mets broadcast history. Ten years ago, in the midst of the false spring of replacement baseball, WFAN was obligated to run a certain number of exhibition games. What they did was tape-delay 'em. By a lot. I have a clear memory of making my way south down some newly discovered secondary road in Nassau County at around midnight with Murph and Gary dutifully describing the futile motions being gone through by a lost battalion of Replace-Mets, but allowing that at least it was brilliantly sunny out. Whoever our scabs were playing had Doug Corbett pitching for them. Only thing is, Terry, Doug Corbett retired in 1987.

We've all got our personal archvillains — mini-Chippers and tiny Rockets whose mere existence in our midst set us off into a flurry of BOOOOOOOOOs. Then you're disappointed to learn nobody else in the stadium shares your antipathy and you have to explain to your seatmate why you've apparently lost your mind the way Kenny Rogers lost the plate late one evening in Atlanta. One of those guys for me is the mysteriously present Manny Aybar. I should hope you know why.

OK, if you've forgotten, I'll remind you. It's April 25, 2000. It's the Reds at Mets. It's Ken Griffey, Jr.'s New York National League debut. And it's colder than a Mitchell's hit (you know, Kevin Mitchell, his hit against the Red Sox in Game Six, which they must've found pretty, uh, cold). I'm there with you and Emily because we deemed this a historic occasion. We thought that because of Griffey, but instead we wound up debating whether this night was more frigid than Jackie Robinson Night. Even if it wasn't, it was no night to sit around and wait for some idiot relief pitcher to take his time “warming” up and then pause for Trachselian lengths between every pitch.

That idiot relief pitcher was Manny Aybar. And every time Manny Aybar's name is announced, no matter the temperature, I rub my hands together and loudly curse the day he was born. (His mother was in labor for 54 hours…had to be.) Finding out he is at least fleetingly one of ours sends shivers down my spine.

One of my many peeves regarding Mets fans who aren't me is their tendency to throw ex-Mets overboard without a second glance. Bobby Jones returned as a Padre in May 2001 to the most tepid applause imaginable. The same man who seven months earlier pitched a one-hit shutout to clinch a playoff series (it was cold as a bastid then, too, come to think of it) was now just another Padre to these people. Don't even get me started on the failure to properly adulate Fonzie with flowers and chocolates in 2003. What's just as ignorant is the inability to pick out of a crowd them that done us wrong. A few weeks after the Aybar/Griffey chillout, I was at a game against the Diamondbacks when Russ Springer strolled to the mound for Arizona. I booed. My companion, while jotting the pitcher's name in his scorebook, asked “what do you have against Russ Springer?”

Oh, nothing. Except on a Tuesday night the previous October at Turner Field, Russ Springer took the ball in the top of the eleventh and retired John Olerud, Shawon Dunston and Robin Ventura in all too easy order, preserving a 9-9 tie and telling me in all too clear terms that whatever Mr. Rogers did in the bottom of the eleventh, 1999 was probably at its end. That's all.

If that's not worth vilification, I don't know what is.

[My thanks to big-time agent David Sloane and the continual amusement he has provided so many of us with his bizarre representation of mighta-been Met Carlos Delgado. It was in his honor that every other headline posted here this week was the title of a Joe Cocker song. For more on what Joe's up to, visit cocker.com]