Ain't it always this way? Garbage Time is upon us, and so we're playing some stone-cold thrillers.

But still...take THAT, Marlins! Take that for every time we got our hearts torn out by cat-faced killer Juan Encarnacion, or by some absurd Juan Pierre bounder, or even by Ryan McGuire. Take that for Carlos Delgado and his look-at-me agent. ("WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME ABOUT BEING THREE GAMES BACK IN THE WILD CARD! CAN YOU NOT HEAR I AM AT THE JOE COCKER CONCERT! HE IS SPASMING HIS WAY THROUGH 'FEELIN' ALRIGHT' AND YOU ARE INTERRUPTING ME!") Take that for Armando Benitez's one flawless season -- and for Antonio Alfonseca while we're at it. Take that for Miguel Cabrera driving the air out of our season's lungs when we were already gasping and clawing at our throats. Take that for the bags of Soilmaster and for your incompetent grounds crew and for Jeffrey Loria and for employing Jeff Torborg.

Take that!

This was a marvelous game through and through, from Carlos Beltran's trio of terrific catches (shame on the clueless for booing him in the 12th -- he came back from 0-2 to 3-2 and got under a pitch, which ain't no sin in my book) to Cliff Floyd gunning down Jeff Conine, to Willie keeping Braden Looper the hell away from the game, to Roberto Hernandez standing tall and Aaron Heilman standing taller, and so all the way down the line until Mike Jacobs sent us home happy.

And it was a fun game too -- the Marlins are battered and almost pulled one out despite playing with a supremely mismatched set of players. I mean, goodness: Luis Castillo can't run, Alex Gonzalez can't throw, Paul LoDuca looks like he can't walk (though as Kris Benson found out, he can trot) and Josh Wilson looks like he can't shave. A couple of weeks ago Mike Mordecai was managing the Jamestown Jammers, for Pete's sake. (Hey, the Marlins can have Miguel Cairo if they ask nice.) Extra-inning games have their own odd rhythm: You're sure they're going to go on forever, then can't quite believe it when they collapse into one outcome or the other. But that rhythm is odder in September, with the whole 40-man roster joining the band -- by the time the 11th or 12th comes around, it's improvisational baseball, and you never know who's going to get the solo.

Three at-bats were particularly fun. I love at-bats where you can challenge the person next to you -- your seatmate, significant other, child, friend, random work pal, whoever you got watching from the stands or the sofa -- to think along with the batter or pitcher. You wait until a fateful pitch needs to be delivered, then throw out the innocent question: So whatcha gonna throw/look for here? and wait for the lip to get bit. Here were my three:

1. Floyd in the 7th: Burnett came back from 2-0 with two absolutely deadly curve balls, leaving Cliff looking at 2-2. So, a third straight curve or the heater? Whatcha gonna throw here, A.J.? Cliff was guessing fastball, got it, and banged it off the fence to tie the game.

2. Cabrera in the 12th. Heilman had great stuff tonight -- lots of slithery movement, good location, not afraid of contact. But he got lucky to get to 0-2 on Cabrera, particularly with an 0-1 fastball that was too fat and too straight. So...whatcha gonna throw here, Aaron? The obvious call was a changeup off the outside corner, and that's what Cabrera was looking for. Nuh-uh -- fastball, on the corner. G'night, Miguel!

3. Jacobs in the 12th. Moehler fell a bit too in love with that inside corner, particularly after Jacobs was overeager on the 2-0 pitch and swung at an inside pitch he could do nothing with. Which made Laz Diaz's gift strike on the next pitch (the ball was clearly and obviously inside) a blessing in disguise. 2-2 -- whatcha gonna look for here, Jake? He figured Moehler would try to put the ball in that spot again, and that's indeed what Moehler tried -- only this time the ball was a bit higher. Bang! Ballgame.

There's a reason football starts with an "f". So do all the other sports as far as I'm concerned.

Don't get me wrong. I like football. In November, where it belongs. Get it the fuck out of September. October, too. Even if the Mets aren't in the post-season, baseball deserves October, not so much for the playoffs and the World Series but so we can spend a month mourning and reflecting on what he have just witnessed.

But no, it starts ramming itself down our throats in late July and by September, it's jumped offsides and into the valuable media space that should by rights be maintained 24/7/365 by baseball (24/7/366 in leap years). You can't even whistle it for encroachment.

Honestly, who but those who make their living in it (players, coaches, inveterate gamblers) spend the football offseason staring out the window waiting for autumn? "Oh boy, fall is coming! And winter, too! Soon it will be cold and rainy and maybe icy! Imagine the accidents! And the football!"

No, it's horrible. The only good thing about September is that baseball is still being played, occasionally meaningfully. It was meaningful Monday night in Chicago where the White Sox were choking away their massive lead to the Tribe and in St. Petersburg of all places where the Red Sox were not playing like idiots, damn it, and in Pittsburgh where Roger Clemens' ERA floated up to 1.89, a safe distance from Doc's post-Gibby low of 1.53 (we don't have much but we have that) and in the fucking Bronx where the fucking Orioles were their usual worthless pieces of...ah, you know the rest. Fuck them, too.

I hate fall previews. I hate anything that glorifies September and everything after. I don't care which dinosaur has a new CD coming out or what fucking movie Gwyneth Paltrow is in. I like TV a lot, but I can do without being told that it's the new fall season. There's nothing new about September, a dreadful, dreadful month.

Why the dread? I haven't had to go back to school in more than 20 years, so it can't be that. I prefer warmth over cold but I'm glad to be mostly rid of the humidity, so it's not the weather. No, it's gotta be what happens to baseball in September.

It dwindles and practically disappears. In its stead we get football out the yin and the yang and then those other worthless sports. You know why they have football, basketball, hockey, golf, tennis (which they have the nerve to play at our subway stop), kayaking and the Tour de France, don'tcha?

It's to make us think we don't need baseball. That's all they're there for, to make us look bad and feel stupid. Well fuck the lot of them. I remember six years ago leaving Shea after a drab Mets loss to the Phillies on a Saturday afternoon. I had some time to kill in Woodside, so I wandered down Roosevelt Avenue and came upon an Irish bar. You know what they had written on their outdoor chalkboard to lure you in? A schedule of soccer matches.

Fuck soccer. How on earth can another sport be ballyhooed in the very borough where the Mets lost a game that very day? How can life be allowed to go on so casually?

There is no direct Mets correlation to loyalties in other sports. I like the Jets and the Giants. I know people who like the Mets but can't stand one or both of those teams. Call me in November, and we'll have a nice chat about football. Call me in December and you could easily mistake me for somebody who gives a flying wedge about who makes the NFL playoffs and such. But leave me and my game the fuck alone in September when there's so little left of it to begin with.

Play ball!

On a gentler note, I was thinking how strange it is when our favorite Mets are remembered as something else altogether. The result of that thinking is at Gotham Baseball.