You and I haven't gone to enough games together this year. The next time we do we have to make sure we finally see him.

Win or lose, he's the main attraction. The big draw. The reason so many people look forward to going to Mets games lately. It may be the trendy thing to do, but I'm not ashamed to say I'm one of those people, and I'll bet you are, too.

Then it's settled: We have to go see the next game in which Eric Cooper umpires home plate.

Man, it's so exciting. I understand the Mets sold an extra 10,000 tickets in the last five days once the fans understood who was going to be in the middle of everything. Coop! He's the reason to buy a ticket.

Sunday was a Gold game, which means it cost $27 to watch Eric Cooper umpire from a mezzanine reserved seat or $34 from loge. If you could get an outer field box, it was $41. But obviously everybody who ponied up thought it was worth their hard-earned cash just to watch Eric Cooper call balls and strikes and argue with players.

The Mets must be kicking themselves. Gold? They're probably scouring the umpire rotation charts to figure out when Coop will be behind the plate again at Shea. Then they can institute a new tier. How's Azure sound?

Obviously, it would work. Unfortunately I couldn't watch the game but I could hear the excitement for the five or so innings I listened. Gary and Howie described the scene vividly as always: almost 44,000 on hand, who knows how many wearing those navy polo shirts with Eric's number 56 embroidered on the sleeve, the really savvy fans coming to the park with a chest protector under their tops and a handful of truly clever ones bringing a chip on their shoulders. Just like their hero.

Eric Cooper did not disappoint. Right from the start he made himself the story of the game. Squeezing the Mets' pitcher (I don't remember who that was) in the first; calling borderline balls as strikes when the Mets were up and then...the big one!

The Mets' catcher -- Piazza, I think -- who Coop retired on strikes (some people would say the Angels pitcher did it, but we know who the star of the game was), didn't like it and said something from the bench. Another umpire might have let it go, but not our Coop, no sir. He turned away from the action on the field and went after the Mets' catcher.

Ya gotta love it! Finally, somebody gets it. It's not about going to see the Mets or the Angels and it's certainly not about allowing either team's interchangeable players to play. In the first inning, Coop took over the game. He threw the Mets' catcher out.

Wow! I mean wow! There's a guy who understands the stakes, who understands baseball and what the fans pay to see. It's not about the catcher or the pitcher or ignoring what a frustrated player may say in the heat of the moment. It's all about Eric Cooper and he did not let anybody who thought so down. I could tell from the way the fans were shouting "COOOOOP!"

Too bad we didn't get a chance to see Eric Cooper umpire today. But it's a long season. Unlike the guy I threw out, we'll be sure to catch one of his games.

Yeah, that's who I wanna see.

Turns out I didn't miss the Monsta's Ball. After a singularly tasty meal at Shake Shack, our party (me, Emily, The Human Fight, HF Girlfriend Peggy) headed downtown to await Pete, who'd decided to drive in to meet us. Pete's choice was a way bar downtown, one that's virtually deserted early on weekend nights. Good for playing pool -- and, as I instantly recalled, a bar with about 10 million TVs. Despite recent disappointments, I heartily endorsed this choice; thanks to the rain delay, we arrived in the bottom of the second.

Keeping track of a game in a bar is difficult, though: Unless you're antisocial and glue yourself to the set, you can't really pay pitch-to-pitch attention. Without the sound, you miss a lot and constantly wind up surprised and pondering the injustice of it all: What the hell, Piazza was on second with nobody out! Stupid Mets!

Anderson's amazing trip around the bases -- my theory is Beltran's catch, being Finleyesque, used up the stadium's quota of Finleyism just in time -- focused our party's attention on what was going on at Shea. (Minus poor Emily, who'd headed home to relieve the babysitter. More on that in a moment.) So we settled in for a baseball colloquy, with The Human Fight (a big Red Sox fan who gnashed his teeth each time the Cubs-Bosox score was posted) and I comparing notes after each pitch: Do you send Reyes here? Even though he hasn't had a decent read on Donnelly all inning? What's Donnelly gonna throw here -- fastball or slider? 3-2 on Cameron -- send Reyes now? That error ain't Minky's fault -- Looper was late getting off the mound. Why was Wright playing so far in? How many goddamn catchers do the Whatever Angels of Whatever have? Etc.)

Pete (a Met fan ages ago, now not a sports fan at all) is perennially optimistic, given to the enthusiastic embrace of signs and portents, and intrigued by strange plays. He was fascinated by Anderson's inside-the-park home run and wanted to know when I'd seen one before. "Don't remember -- a long time ago," I said, still astonished. (Now I do: Tim Bogar's inside-the-parker during Bobby Jones's debut, which ended in the head-first slide that ruined Bogie's career.) In the 10th, with Beltran and Piazza having infuriated me, Pete stayed serenely sunny: The inside-the-park home run made it obvious that the Mets would come back. I pointed out that we'd already used up a massive portion of good baseball karma -- the next time I see the center fielder kick a ball past the right fielder will be the second time -- but no matter, Pete was confident. If anything, Cliff's just-foul bid for heroism increased his confidence -- never mind that the Human Fight and I had lapsed into anticipatory disappointment and kept explaining that a guy who hits a home run just foul in a long battle with the pitcher almost always makes an out in some lame fashion.

Well, Serene Sunniness 1, Experienced Pessimists 0. They could have shown that replay for two more hours and I would've still been on my bar stool waving my hands around like a goddamn fool. A happy goddamn fool.

That was the kind of game that keeps you watching 10,000 lost causes: In June 2009 I'll remain to the bitter end of some aggravating loss because in June 2005 Cliff Floyd hit one just foul and then hit one considerably fair. Of course I'll be watching anyway, but you know what I mean.

Postscript: As today's game got started I remarked to Emily that I wasn't sure I could properly pscyhe myself up since I was still exhausted from last night's fandom. "Why, what happened?" she asked -- she'd gone to bed when she got home, and the game ended too late for the Sunday paper. Painting the word picture was almost like winning it again.

It's Cliff Floyd's world. We're just living in it.

Our left fielder, our cleanup hitter, our heart, our soul, our leader, our de facto captain, our barometer of what's what, our very own Monsta took care of business that desperately needed attending to Saturday night.

Cliff Floyd is in business...business of kicking Brendan Donnelly's ass. And let me tell ya:

Business is booming.

As was Cliff's bat in the tenth when he prevented a three-game losing streak from growing to four. Prevented us from falling further behind the pack. Prevented us from falling five out of first, exactly where we were at the end of the last Turner Field debacle.

One man do all that? Not exactly. He had help.

• JoRey, who turned 22, got on and rattled Donnelly (in what had to be the twentieth minute of Cliff's ultimately decisive at-bat) with that anything-but-gratuitous steal of third. Happy birthday to us all.
• Cameron, who didn't strike out in the tenth.
• Benson, who continues to pitch (7 innings, four hits, no walks) up to his contract.
• Beltran, who continues to hit like a pauper but field like a prince. He robbed at least one Molina of a home run that would've made it 4-1, which by the way the Mets have been dealing with offensive adversity lately would've been the equivalent of 40-1.
• Heilman, who is the new Roberto Hernandez. Two innings of relief that would be clutch from anyone, lifesaving from a guy who, if memory serves, had never been called on to do that before.

Yes, it was a team effort to get us to sweet, sweet victory. A lot of guys contributed. I think I've covered all of them. I'm almost sure I have. Lemme think...close game...good pitching...nice catch…first pinch-hit inside-the-park home run in Mets history…THAT'S IT!

It's Marlon Anderson's world, too. I don't know if any of us want to live in it, though, given that we'd all be out of breath and banged up by the time we'd traveled all the way around it. Omigosh, what a sequence. Gets to 3-and-1 against probably the best reliever in baseball. Finds a pitch to stroke to right-center. Finley, the deadliest center fielder we've ever encountered (Pratt or not), doesn't make a fantastic catch. And then he kicks it. And he kicks it past The Greatest Player Who Ever Lived who was coming over to back up Finley. And there's the ball, rattling around in right field. For all the talk of how big an outfield Shea has, it's also forgivingly symmetrical. It's no wonder nobody'd circled the bases without going over the fence in sixteen years.

Yet there's the ball, not being picked up. And there's Marlon, running hard every gosh darn step of the way. He easily has a triple. Easily. If he can get to third, he'll be there with one out...and right, he better keep going. No way a Met brings a runner home from third. I sure hope Manny Acta is thinking the same thing.

He is! Marlon has this look on his face that says "Really? Well, if you insist." And his unremarkable body keeps chugging. Finley has the ball. He hits the cutoff man. Marlon's run 340 feet...350 feet…357…358…he slides...another Molina awaits.

Here's the throw, there's the play at the plate...

Holy cow, I think he's gonna make it!

Stop right there. It's 2-2, the Mets with the second run that's eluded them since the second inning, attained in the most unimaginable, unbelievable fashion they could concoct.

After that, it would be cruel to lose it. Cruel and usual. Boy did they try to make it four losses in a row. But not this Saturday night, fellas. Not with Cliff resolving all differences at home plate. See that pileup at the end? Even Trachsel was out there jumping around. It gave new resonance to the all-purpose advice of superagent Ari Gold.

Got a losing streak? Let's hug it out, bitch.