Wow. So it is.

Look at the luminaries who bestrode the globe then for us. Hot Rod Hundley -- did zip. Ryan Thompson -- went 0 for 3, probably on about seven pitches for the afternoon. At least Fonzie hit a triple, which I guarantee we cheered wildly. (Bonilla hit a triple, which I doubt we did.) Doug Drabek started against us? Amazing. What, if anything, is Doug Drabek doing right now?

On the other hand, Craig Biggio was an Astro and was beating us. Some things haven't changed.

I remembered that Pulse had put up a three-spot in the first. Nope, a fin. Interesting how my memory, for once, was more optimistic than whatever part of my brain it is that attempts to predict the future.

I may have this conflated with another game, but I also remember that there were two early-twenties couples below us in the faaaancy mezzanine seats (they got sunburned too), whom I first noticed because the guys joined in the little flurry of hand claps for the "Friends" theme song, which earned them my immediate and thorough disapproval. We made a minor parlor game out of trying to figure out which woman was with which guy, with scant evidence to work with: The women sat and chatted while the guys muttered to each other and quietly got drunker and drunker, until in the late innings they basically had their heads on the back of the seats in front of them. At which point Jose Vizcaino, in his infinite wisdom, decided it was time to bunt, even though we were down 7-2 or something similarly hideous.

That was too much for Friends Guy #1, who leapt to his feet, blind with rage, and started screaming, "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!! IT'S 7 TO 2! WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!!!!" For one thing, he was absolutely right -- why the fuck was Vizcaino bunting? For another thing, he had a fairly impressive ballpark voice for a guy who'd clap along with the Rembrandts.

(Oh, and this solved the riddle of who was with whom -- one of the women buried her head in her arms as her boyfriend/date became unhinged, racing down to the mezzanine railing to get three feet closer to Vizcaino, whom he kept berating as the Viz wandered around the batter's box, perhaps wondering, "Gee, why the fuck am I bunting?")

If so, it didn't take: Even though the tiny sliver of surprise was lost, Vizcaino continued to square. "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!!!" howled Friends Guy #1. By now I was giggling like a damn fool.

Then FG#1 put his head down on the concrete wall in despair -- only to lift it a couple of pitches later to stare up at the uncaring sky and wail, "STOP BUNTING!!!!"

If I've got the game right (and hell, after all that just humor me and say I do), that means there are two legacies of that ten-years-gone game: I still like to yell "WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU BUNTING???!!!" at Mets who commit this sin, then follow it with a belated moan to "STOP BUNTING!!!"

That and our solid decade of muttered commentaries, pissy/elated/philosophical/elegiac day-after emails and high-fives and bear hugs in the seconds after the rarer-than-they-should-be Met triumphs intense enough to transform a day. Every one of those exchanges has made the joyous games more joyous, the agonizing games more bearable, and the insufferably boring games actually interesting, even the ones where we wondered if Trachsel had frozen solid on the mound. So thanks, partner. Happy anniversary right back to you.

Now what say we celebrate by beating the crap out of some Mariners?

What were you doing ten years ago today? I'll tell you what you were doing ten years ago today.

You were meeting me for the first time. And me you.

Happy anniversary, co-blogger. Our first game together was June 17, 1995, exactly a decade past. Time really books the Concorde, don't it?

The occasion, you will no doubt recall, was the heralded Major League debut of one Bill Pulsipher, the lefty who was going to lead this team into the 21st century. Him and Isringhausen and Wilson, of course. They would come later. Pulse was here first. We had to see him. We had to see him now.

It was appropriate in that Bill Pulsipher was like some coat of arms to the loose confederation of Mets fans who were making themselves known to me via America Online in 1994-95. I'll never forget the two sensations I felt when I discovered there was an electronic medium in which one could write one's feelings about baseball and have other people read them and write back almost instantly.

1) Wow, there are other Mets fans in the world.
2) Wow, all these other Mets fans are investing a lot of faith in minor leaguers most of them have ever seen before, especially Bill Pulsipher.

But a prospect's a prospect, especially to a team that was mired in fourth place and on a five-year losing streak. So Pulse it was that hot, sunny day. My, it was sunny. It was so sunny that I came home with my worst ballpark sunburn ever. From that day forward, I always packed the sunscreen.

We met cute, as they say in the movies. I said look for the guy in the New York Giants cap. You said you'd have on a Capital City Bombers lid. Later, we each admitted, we weren't sure what the other guy's headgear would look like, but we figured it out. It wasn't like there was a stampede of Pulseheads between us so we couldn't find one another. Paid attendance: 20,000 and change. Hence, I apologize as I did ten years ago today for finding us such relatively lousy seats in the left field mezzanine. I was the older, more New York-based of us. I was supposed to know how to buy two tickets. Oh well. At least we got some sun.

So did Brett Butler. Pulse was who we came to see but it was Brett Butler who I remember standing out for all the wrong reasons. There are no errors in the box score, but I recall Butler having a hard time with a fly ball in the sun. And a hard time up with runners on. This was the day the crowd en masse turned on Brett Butler, the man who came to New York with the stated goal of teaching Carl Everett and Ricky Otero how to play center (he actually said that), but by June 17 was working the phones to get himself traded back to Los Angeles.

Years later, incidentally, a letter crossed my desk from a celebrity speakers bureau. It offered me and my organization a chance to have baseball great Brett Butler share his inspirational story with us. Only $20,000. (I passed.)

Pulse gave up five in the first but unlike today's coddling managers, Dallas Green left him out there in the heat to find himself, and in Pulselike fashion, he almost did. Gave up only two more runs over the next six. Bill Pulsipher was allowed to pitch seven innings in his Major League debut after giving up five runs to the Astros in the first inning. That was crazy or brave or both and perhaps a cause of his arm miseries to come. (The night before, the Mets lost a 16-inning affair in which Bobby Jones pitched ten, so Green presumably had a short bullpen, let alone a shorter fuse for those who preached pitch counts.)

Well, the Mets didn't win that day. It was Houston, 7-3 -- my seventh consecutive loss as a Shea-going fan, so in that sense, nothing unusual. But I do consider June 17, 1995 a milestone in my life as a fan. It was the first time I went to a Mets game with somebody I met through what seemed like such revolutionary channels, but by no means the last. Because we hit it off, I continued to e-chat up other Mets fans, many of whom became and remain good friends, none of whom have revealed themselves to be knife-wielding stalkers or craven swindlers yet.

More to the point, I've enjoyed our relationship no end in virtual reality as well as real reality these last ten years. I will tell you now in front of, oh, dozens of readers that there's not another soul whose ramblings, ruminations and recriminations regarding the New York Mets I look forward to as much as yours. I couldn't have a better blogoshpere roommate or company for all the Pulsiphers, Pratts, Paytons, Piazzas and Pedros who have come along since.

This Internet thing you were raving to me about in 1995 as I scoffed that it would never last -- it may turn out to be something after all.

The Mets ended their 32-year winless drought in Oakland, to say nothing of a more pedestrian three-game losing streak, Thursday afternoon. I dared to confirm it on television, even. But why take my word for it when we had a special correspondent on hand to bear witness?

My oldest friend in the world (oldest in the Kranepool and not the Stengel sense) Joel Lugo is an expatriate New Yorker and world-class song parodist now based in Northern California. He, his brother Anthony and his nephew Joshua decided it would be great fun to meet the Mets in unfamiliar surroundings. He filed this report Thursday evening so I don't have to.

Just got home from the 24-hour traffic jam that is the whole of the San Francisco Bay area.

It was a glorious day at Anti-virus Stadium...glorious that is if your idea of a perfect day is spent getting cold and wet in Shame Stadium West watching the Mets continue the slow eating out of my kishkas. At least until the fellers finally decided it was time to score a week's worth of runs in one inning and change my dreary, wet afternoon into a happy, wet afternoon.

I can report that Mets fans comprised approximately 20% of the fans in attendance, wearing Mets apparel from the '70s, '80s, '90s and present.

In baseball action, it really made me homesick for Shea when the many Mets fans in attendance joined me in loudly cursing the awful performance of the aptly named Mr. Graves. He was getting hit so hard I thought he was pitching underhanded for a while. Dear God. Sure glad we included an option year in his contract.

My Met compatriots' faith in Mr. Looper was also not off the charts, as he once again got the outs he needed while looking like it could easily have gone the other way. All in all, a nice comeback win and hopefully an awakening of their long slumbering bats.

I'm gonna get under the blankets now and thaw out.