There's really such a thing as the Junior League? And it's not where they sent Jay Kleven and Ike Hampton every fall to work on mechanics? I'll be damned. This is like finding out after years of watching Bugs Bunny that Al Jolson and war bonds actually existed. Or that people truly put Christmas trees in their living rooms. I thought that was just a TV conceit.

The Junior League? That must've been a My Cousin Vinny moment. Da Junior League? You were serious about dat?

The Junior League? Instead of the Mets and Braves? If you'd posted that circa 1994, I wonder if we'd be here today.

We would, because you did the right thing. No, not keeping your word to your future bride, though that was noble. Because you brought a radio, a simple act that seems beyond the scope of many who should know that such portable one-way communications devices exist, yet find themselves scoreless at inopportune junctures.

Remember that doubleheader we went to, the one in which Robin hit the grand slam in each game? The Knicks were in the playoffs (right around the time I decided all other sports were designed to drain attention from baseball, so I resented them and continue to do so) and there were folks nearby calling people on their newfangled cell phones at home to get basketball updates. And I'm thinking, dopes, why didn'tcha bring a radio? You deserve not to know what's going on. I tuned in the Knicks on my Walkman for a moment just so I could feel fleetingly superior to them.

My life's been better or at least better informed because I figured out as a yute (or youth) that there was a device I could carry around to stay in touch with the things the mattered: election nights, Casey Kasem countdowns and the Mets. If there's even a chance that a baseball game will break out, I will have a radio somewhere within ear's reach of desire.

Paeans to Baseball On The Radio always include smuggling transistors under the pillow or distant signals wafting over dark skies into Chevys barreling down lonesome highways. That's fine, but to me, it's a pair of headphones rescuing me from cluelessness and the distractions that comprise life. It's more utilitarian than romantic. Either way, it's vital.

The Orpheum Theatre in the East Village gets great AM reception. I wouldn't know that if I hadn't spent an interminable matinee there one Sunday afternoon in May 1995 being subjected to something called Stomp. The title refers to the noise the performers in this show make when they're banging on garbage cans and such. Banging rhythmically, to be fair, but that's pretty much the synopsis.

Stephanie and I were less graciously invited to this production than kind of stuck with the tickets by family. A month earlier there'd have been no conflict, the '94 strike having forced the delay of the '95 season. But once the schedule got underway, having been deprived since the previous August, I wasn't giving up a single pitch that I didn't absolutely have to. So I brought my Walkman to Stomp. Slipped on the headphones early and often.

Best decision ever. The Mets lost 5-3 at the Vet. Bobby Bonilla ran through a stop sign put up by Mike Cubbage. The Mets fell to 10-14 and deeper into fourth place, 7-1/2 behind Philly. Whatever. They were playing, I was listening. Now that's what I call a good show.

I wonder if Matt Hoey does anything like this, bring a radio to a school-painting party or an Off Broadway debacle. Surely by now you recognize the name Matt Hoey. He's the guy in the blue and orange Cat In The Hat hat who's first in line every winter when single-game tickets go on sale. In 1998, ESPN The Magazine ran this lovely montage of Opening Day at Shea. (My own mental medley reveals 87 degrees on March 31; Jones and Schilling firing blanks; Bambi Castillo winning the game 1-0 in the fourteenth; guy passed out near us with his friends building a tower of empty plastic beer cups on his unconscious body -- don't say you don't remember.) One of the pictures was of this Matt Hoey character being the first fan to pass through the turnstiles in all of baseball that year.

Annually since then, when the News does its "lunatic Mets fans who wait in the bone-chilling cold to watch their crappy team" story, Hoey's been interviewed, but nobody ever seemed to connect the dots that he shows up in print every February. It wasn't until this year's New Mets Fever that he became a celebrity along the lines of the idiot who bangs on a pot at Yankee Stadium for it. There he was on all the newscasts. There he was on the back page of Newsday Monday posing with a perpetually blissful Gary Carter and an increasingly cranky Darryl Strawberry. I even read about his dramatic weight loss. Good for Matt Hoey.

But three things struck me, squinting at the tickets he was clutching:

1) They were upper deck seats for a Mets-Yankees game. You mean this poor soul confronts the elements from Thursday through Sunday and they can't sell him anything better? Just for PR purposes, the Mets can't set aside eight loge reserved for Matt Hoey? You don't have to comp them to him, but make them available.

2) If Matt Hoey is a fan among fen, I'm a little disappointed that he used his position to buy Mets-Yankees tickets. Show you're really committed and ask for Mets-Pirates, best ya got. Better yet, ask for Mets-Expos. What? The Expos don't exist anymore? But I was going to be first in line for customs.

3) I'm suspicious of superfans, the ostentatious kind. I don't know Matt or Cow-Bell Man (whose jersey features the hyphen) or the Lone Ranger guy or the lady who twirled her arms or SIGNMAN (not to be confused with The Sign Man). I get the feeling that after a while, being Matt Hoey supercedes watching the game or following the team for Matt Hoey.

"Hey Matt? Didja see that catch Beltran made in the eighth?"

"Didja see my Dr. Seuss hat? My cousin said he saw it on TV when a foul ball went in the stands. I knew this thing would pay for itself in crowd shots!"

Every now and then somebody sponsors a contest to Show Your Mets Pride or something similarly intangible. Fans are encouraged to mail in pictures of themselves or their dogs in full team regalia. The winner is always some guy who's built his basement around one of Buzz Capra's used wristbands. I never quite buy that this person or a fella who sews his name over No. 41 on a $350 Mitchell & Ness jersey has something on me.

Wanna see a Mets fan? Don't look at the stuff. Look deep into the eyes. Look into the soul. Better yet, take a stethoscope to the ears. If you can hear, amid the clatter of dented garbage cans, faint echoes of Mike Cubbage grinding his teeth after Bobby Bonilla has demonstrated utter insubordination for the umpteenth time, you've found something better than Mets Pride. You've found someone who's not too proud to be a Mets fan.

Ah, spring training. Jose Reyes gets picked off twice, Kaz Matsui makes an error (scored a hit) at second, and everybody's pleased. On February 28, sure. On April 28, no.

I know it counts for nothing, but it was nice to see the real lineup (minus Cameron) assembled. Switching Cameron and Diaz, it looks like this (sub Galarraga for Mientkiewicz against lefties):

1. Reyes 5 BB/31 K in 220 AB, .271 OBA, .644 OPS
2. Matsui 40/91 in 460, .331, .727
3. Beltran 92/101 in 599, .367, .915
4. Piazza 68/78 in 455, .362, .806
5. Floyd 47/103 in 396, .352, .814
6. Wright 14/40 in 263, .332, .857
7. Cameron 57/143 in 493, .319, .798
8. Mientkiewicz 48/56 in 391, .326, .676

Anyone who's really good at baseball's new math will laugh at my pathetic efforts, but hey, I'm trying. That middle of the order's better than one might think -- Beltran, Piazza and Floyd had better years than their BA would indicate. The lineup seems better if you flip-flop Floyd and Wright, which I bet will happen by late July. Mientkiewicz (who had an .843 OPS in '03) will have a better year. Piazza might.

But the top, Jeez Louise. Someday must teach Reyes to draw a walk -- he's on pace for Bonds to outwalk him in a week, off-day included. This is a Ryan Thompson level of plate discipline.

Not to bring up phenoms past or anything. Remember Ryan Thompson's profile in New York magazine speculating that if he fulfilled his promise, he could be mayor? Back in our days on the AOL board, I bet someone I'd do some outrageous thing if Ryan Thompson saw Ball Three twice in one week. I'm pretty sure I won.

Still, Ryan Thompson did leave me with an entertaining memory, the following retelling of which is guaranteed to be 50% true: I was still living in DC and up here visiting Emily for the weekend. The Braves were in town, as were some of my DC housemates, who were going to the game with my friend Chris and his girlfriend. The perfect weekend, except I wasn't going -- Emily had signed me up to paint a mural on the wall of some elementary school as part of some Junior League thing, something I'd probably agreed to while not paying sufficient attention and then promptly forgotten about.

But the game! The Braves! Tickets! Uh-uh.

Off to the elementary school we go, me fuming and whining and insisting on buying a $5 AM radio from a street vendor so I could listen to FAN. Being me, I then vindictively insist on giving poor Emily game updates, picking of course only the parts that would be worth seeing from the stands.

So the game's grinding along, and the Junior Leaguers are doing their usual thing of souring new recruits on the entire idea of charity by being alternately officious and disorganized, sanctimonious and petty. (One proto-matriarch excoriated me with spots in her cheeks for painting the whale in their incompetent undersea mural cobalt blue instead of steel blue, or some damn thing.) Ryan Klesko drops a ball in the outfield to extend the inning. Then, with the bases loaded, Ryan Thompson (mired in a hideous slump even for Ryan Thompson) naturally manages to dig himself into an 0-2 hole against John Smoltz.

All Smoltz had to do at that juncture was throw Thompson a pitch he couldn't have hit with an oar -- fans always say crap like this, but I really think you or I could have struck Thompson out at that moment. But Smoltz was both mad at Klesko and young and stupid back then, so he threw one right down the pipe. CRACK! Grand slam, and I'm racing around the schoolyard whooping and trailing paint droplets and squawking Junior Leaguers, while cowed boyfriends look on in horror. And then Smoltz promptly hits John Cangelosi in the back, sending Cangelosi out to the mound to administer a savage beating to every part of Smoltz he can reach (i.e., feet to lower ribs) with Charlie O'Brien in hot pursuit.

We won the game. I learned to listen when asked about plans. (At least for a while.) Emily ditched the Junior League in favor of better charities. Ryan Thompson became a Cleveland Indian instead of the mayor. And my $5 radio lasted for years. In other words, it all worked out OK.