Calling Dr. Peterson, calling Dr. Peterson. New project possibly arriving at the emergency entrance...

Jason Phillips for Kaz Ishii? I like it and I don't like it. I like that, if it's true, the Mets aren't settling for the Ginteriffic choices in their midst. I don't like it because:

* Apparently Ishii's been walking the West Coast while the civilized world sleeps;

* A correspondent suggested Thursday that "there are only two kinds of starters you can obtain in trades at this time of year: (a) injured ones and (b) bad ones." I don't know if he's right, but that sure sounds like us;

* Jason Phillips is teasing us in with his monumental spring and I've been buying it;

* Next to Reyes, Jason Phillips emerged out of the muck of 2003 as my favorite Met of the moment. That wore off last September when during the Victor Diaz game (before it was the Victor Diaz game), the most glacial man in the bigs -- Magadan 3.0, if you will -- was on third in a bases-loaded situation. With one out, Gerald Williams lifted a deep fly to left, the kind of ball on which even Jason Phillips can score. Except Jason Phillips had gone halfway and was in no position to tag up. Mets left the bags drunk. Oh, and the night before? He was tagged out on a throw 10 feet to the right of home. I swore off Jason Phillips once and for all after those feats of baseball inertia. But I can't stay mad at the guy for long. Still, an established starter for a backup catcher? Shoot, do it.

As for filling the backstop caddy void, crap, Vance Wilson's looking pretty good right now. No, I take that back. I also take back the thought that flashed through my head when I saw Al Leiter threw four scoreless innings Friday. "Man, that wouldn't be too bad to have now." No, it would be. "Hey, Yusmeiro! We don't listen to that stuff in The Show. Gimme that iPod and I'll download some Ray Conniff Singers for you. Then I'll take you to get your hair cut just like mine." No thank you.

Not many loose ends dangling from Nos. 80-61. The moment I typed in the name Ed Charles I thought of that picture, too. In the summer of '89, Newsweek found cause to run it. Stephanie sent it to me and it hung over my desk for several years. And I'll bet  I know the shot of Seaver and Gentry. They're surveying the damage done to Shea after The Big One, right? I know a guy who was living in Arizona six years ago and was working at a discount cigarettes outlet. One of his steadiest customers was the very same Gary Gentry. He had a standing order for cartons of Marlboros. I hope nobody winds up surveying the damage done to Gary Gentry's lungs.

Your wife has filed an official and reasonable protest over the inclusion of Bobby Bonilla in any list using the words "Greatest" and "Mets". I'll tell you what I told her: Take 668 Mets (the number of 'Ropolitans through the first forty years) and start whittling it down to a hundred. What should happen is that it's agonizing to pare and trim and make life-or-death decisions. That's not what happened at all. This franchise has been larded with Bautas and Bucheks and Boitanos. You get through crossing those off and even a charitable reading of Mets history leaves you with like 125 guys. From there, it was really a matter of symbolism versus accomplishment, and as much as I liked Shinjo's wristbands and the Stork's nickname, I couldn't really pass on a two-time All-Star even if he was an all-time jerk.

Tsuyoshi and Theodore and everybody else whose claim to Met greatness is they had that certain something that resonated in our tribe will continue to be represented by M.E.T., Marvin Eugene Throneberry, the patron saint of the fairly futile but lavishly lovable.

"Think about baseball" is what they tell you you should do when your thoughts are where they shouldn't be. In those situations, Dave Magadan leaps to mind. It may be the only leaping he's ever done. I don't mean to downgrade his appeal off the field to others, but the only thing about him that struck me as steamy was his bat that June.

Jason Phillips may replace him in this role if Mo Vaughn hasn't already.

Hey! It didn't rain! And we played a game! It ended in a tie, but anything that can be managed in between downpours is cool with us right now.

On to the 60's....

It's a shame Dave Magadan isn't remembered more (meaning, of course, "isn't remembered more by people other than geeks like us"). The man hit .328 in 1990 despite the fact that he was slightly faster than continental drift, looked weirdly like Bruce Springsteen, and hung around long enough to collect nearly 1,200 hits -- Tommie Agee, by comparison, hung 'em up with 999, which always struck me as faintly tragic. On the other hand, he owned a crappy bar in South St. Petersburg where in 1992 I decided "Friends in Low Places" was the greatest song in history and let my drunk pal Pete convince me it was a good idea to let a temporarily homeless college girl  stay in my parents' house, from which she stole a variety of small, expensive things. (What's that? These poor decisions might have been my fault? Who profited from the beer that fueled these bad decisions, then? Huh? Huh huh huh? That's right -- Dave Magadan.) Maybe Frank Cashen signed Mike Marshall after drinking seven warm Buds and scratching on the 8 ball at Magadan's.

Speaking of Ed Charles, he was from St. Pete too, and over the years he's been called upon countless times by local scribes needing some column inches about old times. He's always delivered, speaking movingly of being in a crowd of black teens who ran after Jackie Robinson's train as it headed back north and, once it was out of sight, pressed their ears to the rails to feel its vibration. That's love. And he'd talk of how racism marooned him in the minors for the best years of his youth, summing it up with "Baby, that was a hurtin' thing." It's hard to imagine anything could counterbalance that, but I like to think that whatever he felt as Grote lifted Koosman into the air helped. If there's a blog running down the 100 Greatest Portraits of Pure Human Joy, the Glider dancing near the Shea Stadium mound better be in the top 10.

Poor Gary Gentry. A picture of him and Tom Terrific hangs in our hallway, serving as a warning, I suppose, that there are forks in young, talented roads. (It could also just be a cool photo.) Back when Izzy and Pulse and Wilson were being measured for their Cooperstown plaques, the arguments among the faithful concerned which Met they were the Second Coming of. Seaver? Koosman? Matlack? As it turned out, all three were the Second Coming of Gary Gentry.

I've always had a weakness for powder-keg players, so of course I loved Dennis Cook. When things started going awry for Cook -- as they did fairly often, it must be remembered -- it became a three-way race between He'll Get Out of It (#1), Bobby Will Finally Go Get Him (#2) and He'll Fly Into a Rage at an Opposing Player, an Ump, a Vendor, Etc. (#3). #3 was the winner a fair amount, which was oddly calming -- Sure, a minute ago I was beating my forehead against the coffee table and biting myself, but Jeez, Cookie's turning purple! Shouldn't the trainer get out there? And of course he was deaf in one ear and so instructed each class of first basemen that they needed to scream at him to get his attention. And as a Ranger he drove his rusting pickup to the ballpark one February, bluetick hound and beer in the back, to greet fans waiting in line to buy tickets. As fan relations go that's not quite handing beers out to all comers from your Winnebago, but it's damn close. Come back, Cookie -- we miss you.