There was a time when the news of Steve Trachsel's unavailability to take his starts would have been greeted around here with hip-hoorays and ballyhoos. But then his torpor morphed into competence and his absence equals bad news. Being down one dependable starting pitcher is a pretty big matzoh ball hanging out there.

Pending a trade (Cameron and somebody for Oswalt who's presumably going to be making too much money for Drayton McLane soon? Diaz steps into right and wins ROTY? Just thinking out loud...), we'll get stuck with whoever doesn't pitch too badly over the next couple of weeks and then we'll be spun into believing, "Y'know what? Matt Ginter is just as good as Steve Trachsel."

If it sounds familiar, that was the Ricky Gutierrez/Jose Reyes dynamic of a year ago when our second baseman (aarrgghh) crumbled in pain. Trust us, we were told, you'll hardly notice the difference between the two. Gutierrez followed in the footsteps of the dreaded Rey Sanchez in terms of a low-rent replacement who can quietly and mindlessly pick up ground balls so well that you won't even miss the mouthy guy who used to be here, even if Rey Ordoñez was a three-time Gold Glove winner.

Matt Lawton wasn't exactly in that category. He was more a desperation mid-season move who didn't play too badly but was part of a bad trade nonetheless. (Rick Reed was in the midst of an All-Star season and loved being a Met; Lawton was, like so many American Leaguers we deal for, in the middle of a slump and didn't want to come here.) I wouldn't expect the world at large to recall Matt Lawton as a Met. But I found it jarring when John Discepolo, the empty suit who does sports on Channel 5, showed highlights of the Pirates playing the Yankees Wednesday and referred to the very same Lawton as a "former Twin".

Huh? You're in New York, pal. If somebody was a Met, he's an ex-Met. Shoot, Lawton was an All-Star last season with the Indians. He hasn't been a Twin since 2001. Stuff like that bugs me no end.

As we wind into the 80th through 71st Greatest Mets Of The First Forty Years, we have primarily guys who will be remembered, when they are remembered, as Mets. Except for the first guy.

80. Bret Saberhagen: The harbinger of Junior Circuiteers to come, a star who was just beginning to inch off the wrong side of the cliff five minutes before we got him, Bret Saberhagen still unfurled one breathtaking season for us in the four years he was here. In 1994, before the strike, Sabes was at his Royal best, going 14-4 and walking only 13 batters across 177-1/3 innings. Bret finished third in the Cy Young voting behind Greg Maddux and Ken Hill. It's probably the most-obscure tremendous season any Mets pitcher has ever filed, fitting in that it took place in the most obscure season the Mets have ever played. 1994 represented a tremendous bounceback from the disaster of '93, improving from 59-103 to 55-58, which works out on a pro-rated basis to 79-83. Given the strike, that relative, quiet success, like the rest of Saberhagen's Mets career, is moot.

79. Ron Hodges: Ron Hodges needed one inning to validate his place in the Mets pantheon. That inning was the thirteenth on the night of September 20, 1973. The details are familiar enough to be told in shorthand: Tie game, two out, Zisk on first, Augustine up, Augustine swings, ball off the top of the wall, ball into Jones' glove, relay to Harrelson, relay to Hodges, Hodges tags Zisk, three out, Hodges then drives in the winning run, Mets go on to win the division. If he had won the game against the Pirates for us, the Haggadah suggests that would have been enough. But instead of leaving on a high note, Ron Hodges, only a rookie in 1973, decided to stick around. And stick around some more. Ron Hodges stuck around, save for a single refresher in Tidewater, clear through to 1984, by which time Davey had replaced Yogi, Doc had succeeded Tom and Jesse, not Tug, was saving games. In between, the Mets played a lot of bad baseball, and Ron Hodges had watched a ton of it from the bench. Whatever percent of life is showing up, Ron Hodges grabbed every last decimal point of it.

78. Bobby Bonilla: Two-time All-Star. Hit 34 home runs in '93. His tenth-inning shot beat the Cardinals on Opening Night 1992, his second dinger of the game. Took Rob Dibble deep in the bottom of the ninth at Shea that August on Turn Back The Clock Night, causing the Nasty Boy to tear off his retro Reds vest and fling it to the ground as he stalked away in defeat. Appeared as himself on an episode of Living Single and was referred to as "Bobby Billionaire". When he was traded to the Orioles, he ran out to the bullpen during the game to shake hands with his now ex-teammates. That was classy. Um...what else? An All-Star twice...uh...34 homers one year...er...that shot off Dibble...

77. Roger Cedeño: Stealing 66 bases in an era when that level was rarely reached by anyone in the game is noteworthy. Doing so for a traditionally lead-footed franchise makes it all the more remarkable. For shattering Mookie Wilson's 17-year-old team stolen base mark, for batting .313, for making a sensational catch during a scintillating duel between Orel Hershiser and Kevin Brown in September and for his all-around contributions to a playoff team, Roger Cedeño should be remembered for what he accomplished as a Met in 1999. He won't be.

76. Frank Thomas: What a shadow this man cast over the Mets' record book. He hit 34 home runs in 1962 and nobody challenged him for the next dozen seasons. Nobody came remotely close; Tommie Agee was next with 26 in '69. Frank Thomas was a Colossus among power-starved Lilliputians. How weird were the Polo Grounds' dimensions anyway? The first Mets, for all their 120 losses, hit 139 home runs, a plateau that stood as the organization's pinnacle until 1986. It took the best team in franchise history to wipe away a mark set by the worst team in baseball history. Alas, for the Big Donkey, it was all over eleven years before that when Dave Kingman swatted 36 homers in 1975. Overall, Thomas' total has been equaled or surpassed by Met sluggers 14 times. But nobody else got to 34 sooner.

75. Gregg Jefferies: Who was the only player to receive Rookie of the Year votes in two separate seasons? Gregg Jefferies was the perpetual freshman of baseball, the child prodigy who never grew up, at least not on our watch. His promotion to the '88 Mets represented one of the most electric moments in team history. After 13 games, he was hitting .429 with 5 HR, 10 RBI and 13 runs scored while the Mets pulled away from the Pirates once and for all. Based almost entirely on those two weeks, he finished sixth in the ROTY voting. With eligibility remaining, he finished third in the same balloting a year later, but it was a much harder struggle to get that far. He couldn't play second or third, wouldn't be coached and tended to sulk when he didn't hit, which was surprisingly often. Jefferies' veteran teammates, not enjoying their finest hour, resented the hell out of Gregg's golden-child status. The 1989 home season ended with Roger McDowell, by then a Phillie, taking off after him, and the older Mets not looking terribly interested in defending their boy's honor. The kid blossomed later as the Cardinals' first baseman under (sigh) Joe Torre.

74. Terry Leach: With the institution of the five-man rotation throughout baseball, one of the more delightful terms, swingman, has gone away. The best swingman the Mets ever had was Terry Leach, particularly in 1987. He could pitch anytime and he usually did. Penciled in as a long reliever, Terry Leach kept the Mets afloat as a starter when injuries and/or rehab took down every glam pitcher the Mets had at one point or another. In a six-start stretch between June 1 and July 7, Leach pitched to the tune of a 1.67 ERA. He went uncomplainingly back to the bullpen once everybody got healthy and wound up compiling an 11-1 record for the year. Too bad for any number of reasons we couldn't repeat in '87, but particularly for Terry Leach. On Opening Day, after the Mets handed out rings to their remaining '86ers, Terry, who'd made only a cameo the year before, wandered over to the table where the rings had been displayed. He said later he was hoping there might be an extra one.

73. Tim Teufel: By not being Kelvin Chapman, Tim Teufel achieved his purpose. Chapman was the righty half of the second-base platoon in 1985, and when his usefulness expired, the Mets got desperate. Nominally a switcher, Wally Backman just couldn't hit from the right side. With Ron Gardenhire and Larry Bowa not providing short-term solutions, it was as much the inability to effectively pinch-hit for and replace Backman versus lefties that cost the '85 team the division. Teufel, brought over from the Twins in exchange for future genius Billy Beane, filled a specific need and filled it competently. He had one big moment in '86, winning an extra-inning game with a grand slam against Philly, and one huge blunder, the grounder that rolled under his glove in the World Series to cost the Mets the first game. Teufel gracefully fielded every question about it afterwards and by the time the Series was over, nobody much brought up that particular error or that particular ground ball.

72. Steve Henderson: It's one of those World War II movie scenarios, but thankfully we're not at war. The time is the mid-1980s. Everybody wants to pass as a Mets fan. But like in those pictures, the only way to determine who's on the up and up and who's an interloper is to ask a baseball question. And the only question that can prove one's legitimacy and thus allow one to gain entry to field-level seats is this one: Who is Steve Henderson and what did he do? The only applicable answer is: "On Saturday night, June 14, 1980, Steve Henderson stepped up in the bottom of the ninth with two out and two on and the Mets trailing six to four. They had been down six-one entering the ninth after falling behind six-nothing in the fifth. With Allen Ripley pitching, Steve Henderson -- also known as Hendu -- hit a three-run homer, winning the game, seven to six. It was Hendu's first home run of the year. He was mobbed at the plate by all his teammates, including the newly acquired Claudell Washington, who was so new his name wasn't yet sewn on the back of his jersey. This was no ordinary walk-off home run. It came in the midst of the Magic Is Back run in which the Mets were pulling out miracle wins regularly and creeping ever closer to .500 and maybe even a pennant race. On this night, we believed more than ever that, indeed, the Magic was Back and the Mets would no longer be laughingstocks. It was the unquestioned high point of an otherwise dismal era of Mets baseball and made me proud to be a Mets fan in a way that would carry me forward for several years until the Mets would actually be good again. Even though nobody who played for the Mets on June 14, 1980 was on the team when it took off in 1986, I will always remember it lovingly." Any other answer and you're a fraud.

71. Roger Craig: Hardly anybody gets the opportunity anymore to test the "you've gotta be a pretty good pitcher to lose 20 games" theory. In 1962, Mets' ace Roger Craig lost 24 games. In 1963, Roger Craig lost 22 games. His ERAs were, respectively, 4.18 and 3.49. He went to St. Louis in 1964 and won the fourth game of the World Series by throwing 4-2/3 innings of scoreless relief at Yankee Stadium. Conclusion: Roger Craig was a pretty good pitcher.

Before moving on to ten more Greatest Mets, you've spurred me to take one more long look at a few of my first twenty.

* Stephanie referred to Kevin Elster as The Cute One. He was the first Met she publicly took notice of that way and, to date, the only one.

* Maybe if I'd been in a meeting and missed Carl Everett's grand slam of 9/13/97, I wouldn't have felt compelled to vault him onto The List. But I was watching from our living room, hopeless and in despair, explaining to the aforementioned missus that down 0-6, we're screwed, we're screwed, we're screwed, and this wonderful season, it's over, it's over, it's over. Entering the ninth, Stephanie, who hadn't been in the room most of the afternoon and was a fan mostly by osmosis, said unto me the three words any man would want to hear at that moment: "You Gotta Believe". That dramatic win was powered by my wife's faith as much as Carl Everett's bat.

* Myth: The early Mets were stocked with ex-New York Giants and ex-Brooklyn Dodgers. Fact: While nine ex-Brooks, à la Duke Snider, eventually became Mets, no ex-Jint was a Met until 1966 when Eddie Bressoud joined the cast and set a Met shortstop record for homers with 10 (tied by The Cute One in 1989). The only other NYG to be an NYM was that fella Mays. It is my duty as an occasionally dues-paying member of the New York Giants Historical Society to note former Giant catcher Wes Westrum managed the Mets and Joan Payson owned a piece of New York's first and foremost baseball dynasty. She was, famously, the only dissenting vote when its board voted to move to San Francisco. And Casey, of course, was ex-everything.

* I've had no use for women's soccer ever since Brandi Chastain nudged Matt Franco off at least one front page, maybe more. I had no use for women's soccer before that either, but her timing was as rude as your Wednesday fortune cookie.

* I saved just about everything that was printed down the stretch in 1999, at least the stuff I wanted to remember. That includes the Lisa Olson column on Shawon Dunston's valedictory, run in the Daily News that October 21. I'd gladly type in the whole thing right now, but I don't want to violate any copyright laws, so I'll just excerpt a gut-searing passage:

"'I am so proud to be a Met,' said Dunston, voice cracking. Darryl Hamilton looked up, and felt the tears on his cheeks. Someone else sobbed. Al Leiter wiped the water from his eyes. The passion play that was the Mets season had just completed its last, heart-wrenching act, the Mojo dissipating with a 10-9, 11th-inning loss to the Braves Tuesday night.

"Dunston pointed over at Mike Piazza, his limbs held together by sticky glue, and told him how thrilled he was to have the catcher as a teammate. Piazza's stony face rarely cracks, and now it took every ounce of energy in his aching bones not to melt into a quivering mess.

"Dunston motioned to Armando Benitez, staring at the wall. Only the Mets knew how much the stoic closer has been hurting these past few weeks, not because Benitez tells them, but because he can barely walk to the shower. Dunston looked at John Franco, who had just taken his sixth cortisone shot of the season so his shoulder would hold up one more time.

"'You guys made me believe again,' continued Dunston. 'You made baseball fun for me. I will never, ever forget what this team did.'

"Grown men aren't supposed to cry, but Dunston's words put a quick end to whatever cool machismo the players were clutching. The clubhouse doors opened and it was like a giant flash had gone off, resulting in eyes that were red and oh-so-stunned.

Dunston, the first pick in 1982, out of Thomas Jefferson High in Brooklyn, is one of those players who observes everything but tells nothing, which made this moment all the more precious. 'Fans look at Mike and all they see is $100 million,' Dunston explained. 'He's set for life. He doesn't have to go through that beating. But he acted like he's making $100,000. All he wanted to do was play.

"'Kenny (Rogers), he's so hurt, but how would we know it? He said, I don't care about my arm. I'll throw whenever. I didn't hear about money, guys talking about how (they could be) fishing, golfing. Even during the seven-game losing streak. All I saw was a team that would do anything to win.'

"He saw a team that raged, raged against the dying of the light, and when the flash finally went off, when Rogers, working like a heart surgeon afraid to make the wrong move, walked in the winning run, Darryl Hamilton curled up like a turtle in center field. Straight ahead was Ordonez at short, hands to his side as if he were expecting another play. Hamilton is not ashamed to admit he was crying. He thought of all the trepidation he felt when he was traded to New York, how he expected to hate it, and how wrong he was.

"'What a great three months I've had,' said Hamilton. 'It was really neat to hear Shawon speak from the heart like that. It'll give us something that'll carry us through the winter and give us the determination to pop the champagne next year.'

"What a great three months, what a great series, what a great game. When Piazza, limping like Kirk Gibson, hit that home run in the seventh to make it 7-7, Dunston jumped up and screamed, 'We're going to the World Series! We're going to play the Yankees!'

He was a little kid again, in love with the game. He believed the same way John Franco did when Leiter trudged into the dugout after getting shelled in the first inning and, with the Mets in a 5-0 hole, put his arm around Leiter and said, 'We're going to win this thing.'"

I got a fortune cookie today, ate it and the fortune said this: HEY STUPID -- IF YOU THOUGHT TRACHSEL WAS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PLAYOFFS AND NOTHING, YOU WEREN'T MAKING THE PLAYOFFS ANYWAY.

How rude!

In less-weighty news, Angel Pagan, Ambiorix Concepcion, Mike Jacobs, Matt Lindstrom, Blake McGinley and Juan Padilla took that famous 300-yard walk. Wayne Lydon got relocated last week and escaped my notice. And Danny Garcia got released, ensuring he'll beat us at least once whereever he lands. I assume his being a redass, if I may go Harazin on you for a moment, finally became a liability in Met eyes.

With the present suddenly murky, off to the past for solace in the form of Players 81-90. I always loved Jay Payton even when he did little to earn that -- I itched to put his baseball card in the Holy Books for years (and many surgeries), celebrated his every success when he finally did arrive, and managed to remain blind to his faults after he stayed a while. (See also: Pulsipher, Bill.) To me, the oddest thing about Payton is how he played his best under huge pressure in the 2000 postseason -- he rarely looked as good on a lazy June night against, say, Cincy. Oh, and that catch in San Francisco. He was as surprised and delighted as any Met fan watching on TV, and he should've been.

I have trouble believing Timo Perez and Melvin Mora weren't actually the same person -- scrappy fill-in arrives late in season, does next to nothing in regular season, then comes alive in postseason. Sure, Timo was crowned King of Merengue, while Melvin battled Taiwanese gamblers, became the father of quintuplets and actually became a good baseball player, but ... well, never mind, that is quite a difference. In retrospect Mora was there for the first real, undeniable hint that Roger Cedeno couldn't actually play baseball: Remember how he basically had to threaten Cedeno into that key double-steal against John Rocker and the Braves? As for Timo, well, run dummy. Since the cameras are off, you know Derek Jeter is snickering like Muttley about that one even now.

(Excuse me while I destroy something. I mean, goddamnit.)

Shawon Dunston forever earned a place on any list of Mets not just for that wonderful weeklong at-bat, but for his farewell address in the Mets clubhouse after our death rattle against Atlanta. (Winning run: Gerald Williams, which is reason enough to get rid of him.) I can't find Lisa Olson's account of Dunston's speech from the Daily News, which is a lovely piece of writing, but I remember for weeks afterward I would read it and quietly weep to myself. (Bonilla and Rickey won't remember that speech because they were playing cards.)

As for Matt Franco, I remember not only his marvelous, life-affirming hit (and so what if it was Strike Four), which came on the same day as Brandi Chastain and the sports bra of triumph, but also his dinger to beat Pedro when his nombre was Expo. Remember how Pedro sat in the dugout in disbelief until they literally turned off the lights on him? Now that he's a Met that's a beautiful example of his passion for the game, but at the time it was just grounds for a good haw-haw. As for Matty's Atlanta tenure, let us never discuss it.

Kevin Elster was cool, but he should have a pretty massive asterisk on that now-gone fielding record. The man had the range of a stone pillar, albeit a pheromone-sodden stone pillar women would rub themselves against while growling in their throats. I'm probably just jealous. He also has one of the odder careers ever, leaping out of the baseball grave in '96 with the Rangers and then again in '00 with the Dodgers. Hey, can he pitch?