Just a bit of hell to get us through a Sunday, eh? In this case, two is enough.

FOSTER: His take on why he wasn't playing in '86 was, as Rey Ordoñez might put it, stupid, but if he hadn't said a word on race and maintained his spot on the roster into the World Series, George Foster would not have been beloved or even benignly considered for years to come. Presumably he'll get a break from the crowd if there's a 20th anniversary Old-Timers Day this season; class reunions, after all, don't throw down over rock vs. disco once everything they grew up with devolves into a vaguely pleasant oldie. George Foster sealed his fate by sucking ostentatiously in his first season. There was no turning back. He was never going to be forgiven in captivity for 1982, specifically for confirming and then proving anew the nagging feeling that everybody we get who was ever any good falls apart once he gets here was, in fact, a certainty. He wasn't the first and he won't be the last but he was the most obvious example. He made us doubt who we were and that, more than any misspeak, is why the fans never granted him more than fleeting approval when he performed decently from '83 to early '86. It also didn't help that he inhabited the role of Executive Left Fielder during his tenure. Everything from his mode of transportation (who can forget the stretch limo that was pelted with rocks and garbage on a daily basis?) to his corporate demeanor on the bench to his "I'm not a details man" approach while wearing a glove screamed -- no, make that whispered -- Mr. Foster can't rise to the occasion right now. He's in a meeting.

HAMPTON: Y'know, I've never gotten this one. I didn't much care for the No. 52 Greatest Met of the First Forty Years while he was here (I think it was the football helmet), but he literally pitched us to a pennant, one of only four flying from our flagpoles. That had to have a little lasting currency versus his have-it-all-ways alibi for splitting. Don't get me wrong: I was at his return start in 2001 and his encore appearance in 2002 with the Rockies and I enjoyed his losing to the Mets on both occasions as much as anyone. But I thought he deserved one faint round of applause for his NLCS dominance of the Cardinals before we got around to booing his lucrative head off.

Enough distastefulness. How about an antidote to hell? How about something heavenly?

How about some Roger Angell?

I was negligent in realizing that Roger Angell's post-World Series wrapup was about to run in The New Yorker last week. It's in the November 21 issue. Pending on how quickly your newsstand restocks, it may still be lying around (couldn't find his article on their site, though a precursor thankfully popped up). For cryin' out loud, go get a copy. At the very least, settle for his 2004 and 2003 editions.

Absolutes are dangerous assertions, but Roger Angell is the absolutely greatest baseball writer who has ever lived, having attained the title the moment he answered his calling in 1962. His take on the season just past, with an emphasis on the White Sox' triumph but also a killer graf on our team, should be required reading not just for baseball fans but for human beings. You can say that every year about every one of his instant retrospectives. Fortunately, most of what he's written on baseball has been anthologized. If you're new to him or even if you're old to him, I suggest Season Ticket or Five Seasons or The Summer Game or Game Time to keep you warm. Each has an ample helping of Mets coverage if you're going to insist on being parochial. If you want to inject yourself with a tasty dose of 1986 (and who doesn't?), his essay "Not So, Boston" will have you rolling between Bill Buckner's legs all over again.

Even expertly parodied, he stands out as genuine. We're all pretenders. Roger Angell is the real thing. Hell would be not having him to read.

Properly, we're at the third circle of Met Hell. But the more I think about it, this should really be the second. It's reserved for those whose Met tenure was damaged above all else by poor exits, which now doesn't seem quite as bad as having a perniciously lousy reputation. (Sorry. But hey -- you take a journey through the netherworld and see if you're not a bit discombobulated.)

George Foster: Foster was a key cog in the Big Red Machine who hit 50 home runs when 50 home runs meant something, a feared slugger whose calling cards were his black bats and dagger sideburns. Met fans rejoiced when he arrived in February 1982 -- but that soon curdled into discontent. Foster hit .247 with 13 HRs and 70 RBIs in '82, decidedly ordinary numbers that made him a target of boobirds forever after. He did show flashes of his old self, helping lead the Mets into contention in the ressurection summer of 1984, but his bat had clearly gone slow, and his cautious-to-a-fault play in the outfield enraged fans. In July 1986 Foster was benched in favor of the combination of Kevin Mitchell and Mookie Wilson (a platoon created to accommodate the arrival of Lenny Dykstra), then benched himself during the epic July 22 fight with the Reds, remaining in the dugout during the wild brawl sparked by Ray Knight cold-cocking Eric Davis. That lost the clubhouse; he then lost the front office by grousing to the Westchester News that his benching was racially motivated. The Mets released him on August 7. Foster had never been a fan favorite, but he made a dreadful mistake; had he not played a highly questionable race card, it's likely he'd be remembered now as a guy who got old at the wrong time, unfortunate but hardly a hanging sin. Instead, he's remembered above all else for his toxic exit. That's not fair, but Foster has nobody to blame but himself.

Mike Hampton: Look, New York isn't for everybody. New Yorkers can accept this -- heck, it's a parlor game for lots of us to fantasize about living somewhere else, somewhere you can drive a car 10 miles in less than 45 minutes and not have to spend every waking hour wired for combat. If you've been here long enough to see the place and wind up saying, "It's just not for me," we'll understand. We may think you're a rube, but we'll understand. Just don't be a phony -- we don't like that. Mike Hampton could have been beloved in New York. A little lefty who pitched like a football player (and even wore a football helmet one day in the dugout), his 2000 season was a nice comeback story: He lost his first three decisions and scuffled along until a long walk in San Francisco and a heart-to-heart chat with none other than Tom Seaver shook him out of his doldrums. And how: He wound up with 15 wins and blitzed the Cardinals twice in the NLCS. And he could field, and he could hit -- Hampton was legitimately dangerous with a bat in his hands. A bulldog pitcher who could crack home runs and had been put back on the straight-and-narrow by The Franchise? Sounded like a match made in Heaven -- and we threw a celestial amount of money at Hampton after the 2000 season in an effort to get him to stay. But he didn't. For one thing, the Rockies offered him an obscene eight-year, $121 million deal. That was OK -- we're New Yorkers, and making money isn't exactly something we decry. For another thing, Hampton and his wife just hadn't liked New York City. That was OK too. What wasn't OK was that Hampton kept coming up with reasons Colorado was better -- it had great schools, it had better weather, it was closer to home, it had fantastic feng shui, those big round Os sounded better rolling off the tongue, it was a rectangular state, it had a younger mountain range, blah blah blah. That was not OK, not at all. Tell us you didn't like New York and got handed enough dollar bills to make a pile of George Washingtons that would reach the moon, but don't turn into a real-estate agent for fricking Mork-and-Mindy Land. As it turned out, Hampton discovered good schools and ruler-straight borders weren't much of a comfort when pitching in a stadium that lacked a key ingredient for sinkers to bite, namely air. After two horrid years in Colorado, he wound up as an Atlanta Brave through some spectacularly complicated transaction involving the Florida Marlins and several Swiss banks, and after undergoing Tommy John surgery he'll next pitch in 2007 -- which, insanely, will only be the second-to-last year of that ludicrous contract. On the other hand, his departure netted us a draft pick, which we used on a fella named David Wright. If only all rude exits ended so well.

Next up: The fourth circle of Hell, home of minor Mets who committed major offenses.