What's all the hubbub about tonight, anyway?

We all know that New Year's is actually a moveable feast. It came on April 3 this year, it will fall on April 1 next time around. Properly, tonight is just another night in the waning of the Year of Our Mets 45. But plenty of deluded folks will spend tonight toasting and wearing funny hats and making resolutions about this thing called 2007 -- so many that we ought to take notice, lest we get confused and think everybody's gathered in Times Square to celebrate word that Pedro's rehab is months ahead of schedule, or confirmation that the Marlins just sent the D-Train north for Shawn Green and Anderson Hernandez.

I'm writing these words at a quarter to three on a Sunday afternoon, which means my internal clock keeps nagging at me. Hey! Jace! There's gotta be a ballgame on somewhere. Probably in the fourth or fifth inning by now but plenty of action left. Maybe all this silly football has pushed it up the dial someplace, but it oughta at least be on the radio. No? So we're the Sunday night game, then?

Alas, no. All over but the hot-stovin', I have to remind myself, seeking comfort in the fact that the days are slowly getting longer, that winter's entrance comes with the promise of its exit. It's nice to see Halloween and Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and Christmas arrive -- and since each key date off the calendar is one fewer between us and what matters, it's also been nice seeing them depart. So, welcome, Rest of the World's New Year's. Once you're behind us, all that's left is the Baseball Equinox, the Super Bowl, and Pitchers and Catchers, after which the days and nights will soon resume their right and proper patterns and rhythms.

Anyway, 2006 won't go down as a shining chapter in the American annals, staggering as it did under the weight of war and terror, division and anger. I won't miss any of that -- and 2007 seems likely to deliver plenty more, anyway. But I will miss what happened in our own little orange and blue world. Because 45 MR (Mets Reckoning), it was...well, it was amazin'.

It was the first look around the friendly surly but still somehow beloved confines of Shea knowing that its days are officially numbered. So much history, glorious and futile, triumphant and farcical. With a bit more to be written before moving over a few hundred feet for another chapter.

It was new faces -- of which not one but two of my signature moments were written by Paul Lo Duca. First there was the May afternoon that saw him slam the ball into the grass a la David Cone all those years ago in Atlanta. Then there was the October afternoon in which he slammed the gate on the Dodgers' postseason before it could really begin. It took me a minute or two to grasp that yes, Lo Duca had just tagged out Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew on the same deliriously unlikely play. It took me quite a bit longer to grasp that Lo Duca, utterly unable to hear his teammates on the field, had divined from some tenor to the deafening roar of the crowd that a second runner was inbound, or for me to notice around Replay #1,000 that after tagging Drew, Lo Duca sprang to his feet to see if he could erase Russell Martin as well. The first play was recklessly inattentive, the second astonishingly focused. I loved him for both.

It was old faces, too -- none greeted more enthusiastically than Mike Piazza, none regarded more ambivalently than Big Mike after he celebrated his return by smacking not one but two home runs off Pedro Martinez, then came to the plate as the potential go-ahead run in the eighth -- and hit an Aaron Heilman offering on the screws. That moment sparked a family feud on this little blog and throughout Metdom -- do you want that third drive to come down in Beltran's glove, or disappear over the fence? Like most good arguments, there is no right answer: I cheered in relief when it turned into a loud out, but I also knew that if it had been unreachable, few losses would have been less disappointing. Speaking of old heroes, my first must-see date for 2007 will be the return of one Cornelius Clifford Floyd, the 2006 Met I'll miss most, and the player who just might be the coolest man to ever play the game.

And it was old faces seen in a new light. Carlos Beltran's 2005 (sorry, Year of Our Mets Forty-four) was a disaster: disappointing at the plate and in the field, marred by injuries small, medium and terrifying, and greeted by shameful boos from shameless fans. 2006 didn't start out much better -- Beltran went into the first weekend of the year without a hit, and with that old familiar sound in his home ballpark. Then -- bang! Home run! A home run followed by an old-fashioned baseball morality play -- a moment that was a watershed for 2006, and maybe for Beltran and for this franchise. Beltran refused the request for a curtain call, which was just payback for his shabby treatment by the fans. Until the moment went on too long, and you knew that a) if he didn't come out, nothing he did might stop the boos; and b) there was no longer a dignified way for him to come out. And then Julio Franco found a way out of the trap, all but dragging Beltran to the top step. And with that, 2005 became past and April 6, 2006 became prelude -- the precursor to a legitimate MVP season, and a love affair with the fans that not even a despairing look at a knee-buckling curve from Adam Wainwright will derail.

Not every crucial encounter between our center fielder and a Cardinals closer ended like that. In August, Beltran stepped to the plate with Lo Duca on base and the Mets down one in the ninth, setting up Gary Cohen's best call of the year and my personal moment of wildest, wildest joy in a season that offered plenty of them. "HE RIPS IT TO DEEP RIGHT! THAT BALL IS OUTTA HERE! OUTTA HERE! THE METS WIN THE BALLGAME!" If you ever, ever, ever play that call for me and I don't tear up or start beaming, please call an EMT.

That game ended with Beltran leaping into the arms of his teammates -- in this marvelous photo you can see Dave Williams and Carlos Delgado and Lo Duca and others competing to be the first to dog-pile him. (Steve Trachsel's golf-clapping at the rear now seems like an icy bit of foreshadowing.) 2006 was about a Mets team that seemed to genuinely like each other, as evidenced by Lo Duca, Delgado, Beltran, Jose Reyes and David Wright on the cover of SI and Tom Verducci's wonderful article on "the adventures of Captain Red Ass and the intrepid Mets." Contrast that with that other team in town, whose chief drama (also chronicled by Verducci) was whether or not the shortstop would ever release the third baseman from social purgatory.

That's just scratching the surface of an amazin', amazin', amazin' campaign -- 2:45 has turned to 5:00 (it oughta be time for a last word from the booth, or maybe extra innings), and somehow I haven't turned to David Wright willing a ball over Johnny Damon's head, or Jose Reyes' helmet being left behind as he rounds second yet again, or the sheer pleasure in Gary Cohen on TV and Howie Rose on the FAN and Keith Hernandez on Planet Mex, or Delgado's trillion-watt smile, or the giddiest West Coast swing in 20 years, or the long-awaited, finally arrived crumbling of the Atlanta Braves, or what might just be the greatest damn catch in the history of the greatest damn game.

That's OK -- there'll be time to think on all those things as New Year's Day 46 draws near, as well as time to wonder and then to witness what 2007 has in store. Can we surpass a season in which the margin between exhausted agony and a date with Detroit was a line drive that didn't tail, a breaking ball that broke perfectly? Will someone in orange and blue finally spring us from the Clubhouse of Curses? If so, will it be an old warhorse like Tom Glavine or El Duque? A young gun like Mike Pelfrey or Philip Humber? Or some hurler not even on our radar -- the John Maine of 2007, perhaps? Or will that have to wait for Citi Field, rising behind the outfield fence as 2007 goes by?

Before too terribly long we'll be deep in the business of finding out, and 2006 will be part of our long history, a chapter recalled by other wins and losses and players and plays instead of one still to be fussed over. I'll remember it as a year in which a lovable, formidable, indomitable team fought all the way to the final pitch of the final inning of Game 7 of the NLCS, with the outcome undecided until the very last second. As I've said many a time since then, in response to offerings of consolation, you can want more than that, but if you've learned anything from watching baseball, it's that you damn well can't ask for it.

Maybe 2007 will be the fulfillment of 2006's promise. Maybe it'll be a disappointing retreat from it. Either way, it's got a hard act to follow -- a campaign I'll always recall with a smile, an eventual sad shake of the head, and a struggle to sum up so many days and nights of amazement and excitement and joy.

Raise a glass.

As promised or perhaps threatened, here are what I humbly refer to as The Top 500 Songs of All-Time (1972-1999), determined solely by me and presented without commercial interruption in the WFUN-AM 790 Miami New Year's Eve countdown style I first encountered 34 birthdays ago today.

Less talk. More rock...

500. Dialogue (Part I & II) - Chicago (1972)
499. Shine - Collective Soul (1994)
498. Sail On - The Commodores (1979)
497. Behind Closed Doors - Charlie Rich (1973)
496. This Time - INXS (1985)
495. Hey Jealousy - Gin Blossoms (1993)
494. Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye (1973)
493. We're Not Gonna Take It - Twisted Sister (1984)
492. S.O.S. - ABBA (1975)
491. 'Til My Baby Comes Home - Luther Vandross (1985)
490. Walls (Circus) - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1996)
489. Steal My Sunshine - Len (1999)
488. Back Stabbers - The O'Jays (1972)
487. Gold - Spandau Ballet (1984)
486. Been To Canaan - Carole King (1972)
485. Hurricane (Part I) - Bob Dylan (1976)
484. Sucked Out - Superdrag (1996)
483. Let's Go All The Way - Sly Fox (1986)
482. St. Elmo's Fire (Man In Motion) - John Parr (1985)
481. Feels So Good - Chuck Mangione (1978)
480. Sultans Of Swing - Dire Straits (1979)
479. Radio Ga Ga - Queen (1984)
478. Swearin' To God - Frankie Valli (1975)
477. Southern Cross - Crosby, Stills & Nash (1982)
476. Call On Me - Chicago (1974)

475. Twilight Zone/Twilight Tone - Manhattan Transfer (1980)
474. Love Takes Time - Orleans (1979)
473. Linger - The Cranberries (1993)
472. Forever Man - Eric Clapton (1985)
471. Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...) - Lou Bega (1999)
470. Sleeping Satellite - Tasmin Archer (1993)
469. Losing My Religion - R.E.M. (1991)
468. Men Without Shame - Phantom, Rocker & Slick (1986)
467. Black Coffee In Bed - Squeeze (1982)
466. A Matter Of Trust - Billy Joel (1986)
465. Easy Lover - Philip Bailey & Phil Collins (1984)
464. I'm So Excited - Pointer Sisters (1984)
463. Love Rollercoaster - Ohio Players (1976)
462. Oh, Babe What Would You Say - Hurricane Smith (1973)
461. Nobody Does It Better - Carly Simon (1977)
460. Good - Better Than Ezra (1995)
459. Painted Ladies - Ian Thomas (1974)
458. With A Little Luck - Paul McCartney & Wings (1978)
457. O.P.P. - Naughty By Nature (1991)
456. Reminiscing - Little River Band (1978)
455. Out Of Touch - Daryl Hall & John Oates (1984)
454. The Show Must Go On - Three Dog Night (1974)
453. Only The Lonely - The Motels (1982)
452. Constant Craving - k.d. lang (1992)
451. The Main Event/Fight - Barbra Streisand (1979)

450. Delta Dawn - Helen Reddy (1973)
449. Street Life - The Crusaders (1979)
448. (Just Like) Starting Over - John Lennon (1980)
447. Invisible Touch - Genesis (1986)
446. Tired Of Toein' The Line - Rocky Burnette (1980)
445. Rockin' Roll Baby - The Stylistics (1973)
444. Cherchez La Femme - Dr. Buzzard's Original Savannah Band (1977)
443. Here You Come Again - Dolly Parton (1978)
442. Bungle In The Jungle - Jethro Tull (1974)
441. The Fire Inside - Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band (1991)
440. Tight Rope - Leon Russell (1972)
439. Sit Down You're Rockin' The Boat - Don Henley (1993)
438. Army - Ben Folds Five (1999)
437. December 1963 (Oh, What A Night) - The 4 Seasons (1976)
436. Yes - Merry Clayton (1988)
435. One Of These Nights - The Eagles (1975)
434. Overkill - Men At Work (1983)
433. 99 Red Balloons - Nena (1984)
432. To Sir With Love - 10,000 Maniacs & Michael Stipe (1993)
431. Rocky Mountain Way - Joe Walsh (1973)
430. Baker Street - Gerry Rafferty (1978)
429. Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady - Helen Reddy (1975)
428. The Tide Is High - Blondie (1981)
427. Ain't No Woman (Like The One I've Got) - Four Tops (1973)
426. C'mon C'mon (We're Gonna Get It Started) - Sloan (1998)

425. Night Moves - Bob Seger (1977)
424. You Take Me Up - Thompson Twins (1984)
423. Tusk - Fleetwood Mac (1979)
422. Take Me Home Tonight - Eddie Money & Ronnie Spector (1986)
421. All Fired Up - Pat Benatar (1988)
420. It's Money That Matters - Randy Newman (1988)
419. One Step Closer - Doobie Brothers (1981)
418. I Shall Sing - Art Garfunkel (1974)
417. Hot Child In The City - Nick Gilder (1978)
416. Sunshine - Jonathan Edwards (1972)
415. Sun's Gonna Rise - Sass Jordan (1994)
414. Rush - Big Audio Dynamite II (1991)
413. Just You 'N' Me - Chicago (1973)
412. Strawberry Letter 23 - Brothers Johnson (1977)
411. On The Western Skyline - Bruce Hornsby & The Range (1987)
410. 12 Years Old - Kim Stockwood (1999)
409. Hooked On A Feeling - Blue Swede (1974)
408. I'll Play For You - Seals & Croft (1975)
407. Oh Very Young - Cat Stevens (1974)
406. Dance With Me - Orleans (1975)
405. Just Too Many People - Melissa Manchester (1975)
404. Photograph - Ringo Starr (1973)
403. Midnight Blue - Lou Gramm (1987)
402. Born To Be Alive - Patrick Hernandez (1979)
401. Handle With Care - Traveling Wilburys (1988)

400. Fall Down - Toad The Wet Sprocket (1994)
399. Abra-Ca-Dabra - The DeFranco Family (1974)
398. Praise You - Fatboy Slim (1999)
397. Brimful Of Asha - Cornershop (1998)
396. Freedom 90 - George Michael (1990)
395. I Can’t Cry Anymore - Sheryl Crow (1995)
394. Invisible - Alison Moyet (1985)
393. I Love You Always Forever - Donna Lewis (1996)
392. Mamma Mia - ABBA (1976)
391. Jack And Jill - Raydio (1978)
390. Mornin’ Beautiful - Tony Orlando & Dawn (1975)
389. Self Esteem - The Offspring (1994)
388. Hysteria - Def Leppard (1988)
387. Rock The Boat - Hues Corporation (1974)
386. Put Your Hands Together - The O’Jays (1974)
385. Dreams I Dream - Dave Mason & Phoebe Snow (1988)
384. Rocky Mountain High - John Denver (1973)
383. Lido Shuffle - Boz Scaggs (1977)
382. Bitter - Jill Sobule (1997)
381. Waiting For A Star To Fall - Boy Meets Girl (1988)
380. Love Song - The Cure (1989)
379. (I Believe) There's Nothing Stronger Than Our Love - Paul Anka & Odia Coates (1975)
378. Change The World - Eric Clapton (1996)
377. Goin’ Down - Greg Guidry (1982)
376. Livin’ Thing - Electric Light Orchestra (1977)

375. One Week - Barenaked Ladies (1998)
374. Chuck E.’s In Love - Rickie Lee Jones (1979)
373. Automatic - Pointer Sisters (1984)
372. I’m Coming Home - Johnny Mathis (1973)
371. All This Time - Sting (1991)
370. Your Smiling Face - James Taylor (1978)
369. Laid - James (1994)
368. Friends - Bette Midler (1973)
367. Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne - Looking Glass (1973)
366. Me And Mrs. Jones - Billy Paul (1972)
365. Paloma Blanca - George Baker Selection (1976)
364. Longfellow Serenade - Neil Diamond (1974)
363. It’s Still Rock And Roll To Me - Billy Joel (1980)
362. It’s A Miracle - Barry Manilow (1975)
361. Sowing The Seeds Of Love - Tears For Fears (1989)
360. I Live For Your Love - Natalie Cole (1988)
359. Only Yesterday - The Carpenters (1975)
358. I Want A New Drug - Huey Lewis & The News (1984)
357. Don’t Let Go - Isaac Hayes (1980)
356. Soldier Of Love - Donny Osmond (1989)
355. Why Can’t This Be Love - Van Halen (1986)
354. Drowning In The Sea Of Love - Joe Simon (1972)
353. Don’t Go Breaking My Heart - Elton John & Kiki Dee (1976)
352. The Language Of Love - Dan Fogelberg (1984)
351. Pressure - Billy Joel (1982)

350. Kung Fu Fighting - Carl Douglas (1974)
349. Head Over Heels - The Go-Go’s (1984)
348. This Is It - Kenny Loggins (1980)
347. Me And Julio Down By The Schoolyard - Paul Simon (1972)
346. You Make Me Feel Brand New - The Stylistics (1974)
345. Cruisin’ - Smokey Robinson (1979)
344. Living For The City - Stevie Wonder (1974)
343. This Little Girl - Gary (U.S.) Bonds (1981)
342. Doctor My Eyes - Jackson Browne (1972)
341. Be Near Me - ABC (1985)
340. Superfly - Curtis Mayfield (1972)
339. Breakout - Swing Out Sister (1987)
338. Some Kinda Wonderful - Sky (1998)
337. Back When My Hair Was Short - Gunhill Road (1973)
336. The Only Flame In Town - Elvis Costello & Daryl Hall (1984)
335. Sometimes A Fantasy - Billy Joel (1980)
334. Alive And Kicking - Simple Minds (1985)
333. More Than A Woman - Tavares (1978)
332. Hope Of Deliverance - Paul McCartney (1993)
331. Grease - Frankie Valli (1978)
330. Island Girl - Elton John (1975)
329. Life In A Northern Town - Dream Academy (1986)
328. Love Machine - The Miracles (1976)
327. No Myth - Michael Penn (1990)
326. Is She Really Going Out With Him? - Joe Jackson (1979)

325. Kodachrome - Paul Simon (1973)
324. Ghetto Child - The Spinners (1973)
323. Rebirth Of Slick (Cool Like Dat) - Digable Planets (1993)
322. Valerie - Steve Winwood (1987)
321. Be Thankful For What You Got - William DeVaughn (1974)
320. Night In My Veins - The Pretenders (1994)
319. Don’t Forget Me (When I’m Gone) - Glass Tiger (1986)
318. Anniversary Song - Cowboy Junkies (1994)
317. I Can Dream About You - Dan Hartman (1984)
316. Up On The Roof - James Taylor (1979)
315. I’ve Got To Use My Imagination - Gladys Knight & The Pips (1974)
314. A Life Of Illusion - Joe Walsh (1981)
313. The Old Man Down The Road - John Fogerty (1985)
312. Listen To What The Man Said - Paul McCartney & Wings (1975)
311. Haven’t Got Time For The Pain - Carly Simon (1974)
310. Across The River - Bruce Hornsby & The Range (1990)
309. Whodunit - Tavares (1977)
308. Daybreak - Barry Manilow (1977)
307. Tom’s Diner - D.N.A. Featuring Suzanne Vega (1990)
306. Mighty High - Mighty Clouds Of Joy (1976)
305. Spies Like Us - Paul McCartney (1986)
304. Jenny Says - Cowboy Mouth (1997)
303. Rikki Don’t Lose That Number - Steely Dan (1974)
302. Boogie Down - Eddie Kendricks (1974)
301. Natural High - Bloodstone (1973)

300. You’re The First, The Last, My Everything - Barry White (1974)
299. Back On The Chain Gang - The Pretenders (1983)
298. Burning Love - Elvis Presley (1972)
297. Pop Muzik - M (1979)
296. Mexican Radio - Wall Of Voodoo (1983)
295. Dead Giveaway - Shalamar (1983)
294. Everyday I Write The Book - Elvis Costello & The Attractions (1983)
293. Paper In Fire - John Cougar Mellencamp (1987)
292. Bette Davis Eyes - Kim Carnes (1981)
291. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap - AC/DC (1981)
290. Dancing In The Moonlight - King Harvest (1973)
289. The Salt In My Tears - Martin Briley (1983)
288. Sister Golden Hair - America (1975)
287. The Warrior - Scandal Featuring Patty Smyth (1984)
286. Safety Dance - Men Without Hats (1983)
285. Drift Away - Dobie Gray (1973)
284. 867-5309/Jenny - Tommy Tutone (1982)
283. Thinking Of You - Loggins & Messina (1973)
282. Pillow Talk - Sylvia (1973)
281. Puttin’ On The Ritz - Taco (1983)
280. Lovely Day - Bill Withers (1978)
279. Centerfold - J. Geils Band (1982)
278. Sausalito Summer Night - Diesel (1981)
277. New Frontier - Donald Fagen (1983)
276. Pour Some Sugar On Me - Def Leppard (1988)

275. You Don’t Know How It Feels - Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1994)
274. Blinded By The Light - Manfred Mann’s Earth Band (1977)
273. Come Baby Come - K7 (1993)
272. Sweet Love - Anita Baker (1986)
271. Crumblin’ Down - John Cougar Mellencamp (1983)
270. Magic - Olivia Newton-John (1980)
269. The Entertainer - Billy Joel (1974)
268. Pray - M.C. Hammer (1990)
267. Birdland - Manhattan Transfer (1981)
266. Nightshift - Commodores (1985)
265. Cherish - Madonna (1989)
264. Horse With No Name - America (1972)
263. Regulate - Warren G & Nate Dogg (1994)
262. Right Back Where We Started From - Maxine Nightingale (1976)
261. Don’t You (Forget About Me) - Simple Minds (1985)
260. Tomorrow’s Girls - Donald Fagen (1993)
259. Man On The Moon - R.E.M. (1993)
258. Lawyers In Love - Jackson Browne (1983)
257. Summer - War (1976)
256. The Real End - Rickie Lee Jones (1984)
255. Every Morning - Sugar Ray (1999)
254. You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet - Bachman-Turner Overdrive (1974)
253. Dear God - XTC (1987)
252. Don’t Shed A Tear - Paul Carrack (1988)
251. Gel - Collective Soul (1995)

250. Son Of My Father - Giorgio (1972)
249. Don’t Call Us, We’ll Call You - Sugarloaf (1975)
248. The Sweetest Taboo - Sade (1986)
247. Doll Parts - Hole (1994)
246. Dreaming A Dream - Crown Heights Affair (1975)
245. Hey Nineteen - Steely Dan (1981)
244. Forever Your Girl - Paula Abdul (1989)
243. Band On The Run - Paul McCartney & Wings (1974)
242. Inside - Patti Rothberg (1996)
241. Carefree Highway - Gordon Lightfoot (1974)
240. Moonlight Feels Right - Starbuck (1976)
239. Boogie Nights - Heatwave (1977)
238. Heartache Tonight - The Eagles (1979)
237. Groove Is In The Heart - Dee-Lite (1990)
236. You Ought To Be With Me - Al Green (1972)
235. Good Time Charlie’s Got The Blues - Danny O’Keefe (1972)
234. Peg - Steely Dan (1978)
233. The Obvious Child - Paul Simon (1990)
232. Rock And Roll Girls - John Fogerty (1985)
231. Feed The Tree - Belly (1993)
230. Walk The Dinosaur - Was (Not Was) (1989)
229. Makin’ It - David Naughton (1979)
228. Dancing Queen - ABBA (1977)
227. Lovefool - The Cardigans (1997)
226. Old Days - Chicago (1975)

225. Black & White - Three Dog Night (1972)
224. Keeper of the Flame - Martin Page (1995)
223. Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band (1976)
222. So Alive - Love & Rockets (1989)
221. American City Suite - Cashman & West (1972)
220. Under The Clock - Janey Street (1985)
219. Brick - Ben Folds Five (1998)
218. One Less Set of Footsteps - Jim Croce (1973)
217. Junior’s Farm - Paul McCartney & Wings (1975)
216. White Lines - Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five (1983)
215. Tin Man - America (1974)
214. Flagpole Sitta - Harvey Danger (1998)
213. You Get What You Give - New Radicals (1999)
212. Undercover Angel - Alan O’Day (1977)
211. Veronica - Elvis Costello (1989)
210. Mockingbird - Carly Simon & James Taylor (1974)
209. How Much Love - Leo Sayer (1977)
208. Get Down - Gilbert O’Sullivan (1973)
207. Smoke From A Distant Fire - Sanford/Townsend Band (1977)
206. Beautiful Sunday - Daniel Boone (1972)
205. Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) - The Offspring (1998)
204. Borderline - Madonna (1984)
203. Magic To Do - Cast of “Pippin” (1973)
202. You Better You Bet - The Who (1981)
201. The Way To Your Heart - Soulsister (1989)

200. When I Come Around - Green Day (1994)
199. A Long December - Counting Crows (1996)
198. Let's Stay Together - Al Green (1972)
197. I Feel For You - Chaka Khan (1984)
196. Sideshow - Blue Magic (1974)
195. Nights On Broadway - The Bee Gees (1975)
194. Need You Tonight - INXS (1988)
193. Sundown - Gordon Lightfoot (1974)
192. Like The Way I Do - Melissa Etheridge (1988)
191. Mysterious Ways - U2 (1991)
190. U Can't Touch This - M.C. Hammer (1990)
189. Come Out And Play - The Offspring (1994)
188. I'm Your Baby Tonight - Whitney Houston (1990)
187. To Be With You - Mr. Big (1992)
186. The Name Of The Game - ABBA (1978)
185. Bad Blood - Neil Sedaka & Elton John (1975)
184. Rock This Town - Stray Cats (1982)
183. Rubberband Man - The Spinners (1976)
182. I'll Be There For You - The Rembrandts (1995)
181. Semi-Charmed Life - Third Eye Blind (1997)
180. I Touch Myself - The Divinyls (1991)
179. Someone Saved My Life Tonight - Elton John (1975)
178. Come And Get Your Love - Redbone (1974)
177. Brother Louie - Stories (1973)
176. Head To Toe - Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam (1987)

175. I'm Stone In Love With You - The Stylistics (1972)
174. Why Can't We Be Friends - War (1975)
173. You Oughta Know - Alanis Morissette (1995)
172. A Change Would Do You Good - Sheryl Crow (1997)
171. I'm Too Sexy - Right Said Fred (1992)
170. Piano In The Dark - Brenda Russell (1988)
169. Battleship Chains - The Georgia Satellites (1987)
168. You Make My Dreams - Daryl Hall & John Oates (1981)
167. Lonely Ol' Night - John Mellencamp (1985)
166. In The House Of Stone And Light - Martin Page (1994)
165. Straight Up - Paula Abdul (1989)
164. Lucas With The Lid Off - Lucas (1994)
163. Better Days - Bruce Springsteen (1992)
162. Glory Days - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (1985)
161. Breaking Away - Balance (1981)
160. Don't You Write Her Off - McGuinn, Clark & Hillman (1979)
159. Special Lady - Ray, Goodman & Brown (1980)
158. My Girl - Chilliwack (1981)
157. Centerfield - John Fogerty (1985)
156. Then Came You - Dionne Warwicke & The Spinners (1974)
155. Shake It - Ian Matthews (1979)
154. Whenever I Call You Friend - Kenny Loggins & Stevie Nicks (1978)
153. Dancing In The Dark - Bruce Springsteen (1984)
152. The Boys Are Back In Town - Thin Lizzy (1976)
151. Mr. Jones - Counting Crows (1994)

150. The City Of New Orleans - Arlo Guthrie (1972)
149. Mother And Child Reunion - Paul Simon (1972)
148. Human Touch - Bruce Springsteen (1992)
147. Garden Party - Rick Nelson (1972)
146. Scenes From An Italian Restaurant - Billy Joel (1978)
145. That Thing You Do! - The Wonders (1996)
144. Spiders & Snakes - Jim Stafford (1974)
143. Saturday In The Park - Chicago (1972)
142. Up In A Puff Of Smoke - Polly Brown (1975)
141. Hearts On Fire - Randy Meisner (1981)
140. That's The Way Of The World - Earth, Wind & Fire (1975)
139. Native New Yorker - Odyssey (1977)
138. Tennessee - Arrested Development (1992)
137. Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels) - Jim Croce (1972)
136. She's So Cold - The Rolling Stones (1980)
135. Could It Be I'm Falling In Love - The Spinners (1973)
134. Stomp - Brothers Johnson (1980)
133. On The Radio - Donna Summer (1980)
132. Dance Hall Days - Wang Chung (1984)
131. Right Between The Eyes - Wax (1986)
130. What You Won't Do For Love - Bobby Caldwell (1979)
129. Let My Love Open The Door - Pete Townshend (1980)
128. Sky High - Jigsaw (1975)
127. Endicott - Kid Creole & The Coconuts (1985)
126. What Are We Doin' In Love - Dottie West & Kenny Rogers (1981)

125. Maria's Wedding - Black 47 (1993)
124. Use Me - Bill Withers (1972)
123. Rockin' Chair - Gwen McCrae (1975)
122. Heaven Knows - Donna Summer & Brooklyn Dreams (1979)
121. Jet - Paul McCartney & Wings (1974)
120. Driver's Seat - Sniff 'N' The Tears (1979)
119. Help Me - Joni Mitchell (1974)
118. Rock Me Gently - Andy Kim (1974)
117. Higher Love - Stevie Winwood (1986)
116. Jazzman - Carole King (1974)
115. Damn, I Wish I Was Your Lover - Sophie B. Hawkins (1992)
114. One Headlight - The Wallflowers (1996)
113. Little Willy - The Sweet (1973)
112. Until You Come Back To Me - Aretha Franklin (1974)
111. Radar Love - Golden Earring (1974)
110. How Do You Do - Mouth & Macneal (1972)
109. Tell Me Something Good - Rufus (1974)
108. I'm Doin' Fine - New York City (1973)
107. Keeper Of The Castle - The Four Tops (1973)
106. My Maria - B.W. Stevenson (1973)
105. Mighty Love - The Spinners (1974)
104. Corner Of The Sky - The Jackson 5 (1973)
103. Allentown - Billy Joel (1983)
102. Tommy, Judy & Me - Rob Hegel (1980)
101. This Will Be - Natalie Cole (1975)

100. Couldn't Get It Right - Climax Blues Band (1977)
99. The Look - Roxette (1989)
98. Hold On - Wilson Phillips (1990)
97. Leave Virginia Alone - Rod Stewart (1995)
96. Brilliant Disguise - Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band (1987)
95. Where Have All The Cowboys Gone? - Paula Cole (1997)
94. The Valley Road - Bruce Hornsby & The Range (1988)
93. I'm Alive - Jackson Browne (1994)
92. Time And Tide - Basia (1988)
91. Yes We Can Can - The Pointer Sisters (1973)
90. Got To Get You Into My Life - The Beatles (1976)
89. I Got A Name - Jim Croce (1973)
88. Iko Iko - The Belle Stars (1989)
87. You Can't Get What You Want - Joe Jackson (1984)
86. You Little Trustmaker - The Tymes (1974)
85. I Want You - Savage Garden (1997)
84. Deacon Blues - Steely Dan (1978)
83. Jungle Boy - John Eddie (1986)
82. Stay - Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories (1994)
81. One Night In Bangkok - Murray Head (1985)
80. Two Princes - Spin Doctors (1993)
79. Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) - Looking Glass (1972)
78. Misdemeanor - Foster Sylvers (1973)
77. Steppin' Out - Joe Jackson (1982)
76. Time Passages - Al Stewart (1978)

75. Don't Make Me Over - Sybil (1989)
74. Wild, Wild West - The Escape Club (1988)
73. Heaven On The 7th Floor - Paul Nicholas (1977)
72. Driedel - Don McLean (1973)
71. Life Is A Highway - Tom Cochrane (1992)
70. Bad Time - Grand Funk (1975)
69. I Gotcha - Joe Tex (1972)
68. You're So Vain - Carly Simon (1973)
67. People Make The World Go Round - The Stylistics (1972)
66. Stumblin' In - Suzi Quatro & Chris Norman (1979)
65. Always Something There To Remind Me - Naked Eyes (1983)
64. Keep On Truckin' - Eddie Kendricks (1973)
63. Once Bitten Twice Shy - Great White (1989)
62. Keep It Comin' Love - K.C. & The Sunshine Band (1977)
61. '65 Love Affair - Paul Davis (1982)
60. Downstream - The Rainmakers (1986)
59. Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me) - Reunion (1974)
58. Copperline - James Taylor (1991)
57. Freddie's Dead - Curtis Mayfield (1972)
56. Kiss Him Goodbye - The Nylons (1987)
55. We Built This City - Starship (1985)
54. Let The River Run - Carly Simon (1989)
53. When Doves Cry - Prince (1984)
52. Who Do You Think You Are - Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods (1974)
51. Paradise By The Dashboard Light - Meat Loaf (1978)

50. Free Man In Paris - Joni Mitchell (1974)
49. Just Don't Want To Be Lonely - The Main Ingredient (1974)
48. Nothing Compares 2 U - Sinead O'Connor (1990)
47. Call It Love - Poco (1989)
46. Stand By - Roman Holliday (1983)
45. Everything Falls Apart - Dog's Eye View (1996)
44. Forever In Blue Jeans - Neil Diamond (1979)
43. Beach Baby - First Class (1974)
42. Girls With Guns - Tommy Shaw (1984)
41. Walking In Memphis - Marc Cohn (1991)
40. Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) - Us3 (1993)
39. I'll Be Around - The Spinners (1972)
38. Magic - Pilot (1975)
37. I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles) - The Proclaimers (1993)
36. Magic Man - Heart (1976)
35. Let It Ride - Bachman-Turner Overdrive (1974)
34. Everybody Plays The Fool - The Main Ingredient (1972)
33. Tainted Love - Soft Cell (1982)
32. Thunder Island - Jay Ferguson (1978)
31. My Life - Billy Joel (1978)
30. Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go - Wham! (1984)
29. Lump - The Presidents of the United States of America (1995)
28. Everlasting Love - Carl Carlton (1974)
27. Am I The Same Girl - Swing Out Sister (1992)
26. Personal Jesus - Depeche Mode (1989)

25. My Sharona - The Knack (1979)
24. They Just Can't Stop It The (Games People Play) - The Spinners (1975)
23. The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia - Vicki Lawrence (1973)
22. Rock And Roll Part 2 - Gary Glitter (1972)
21. Wonderwall - The Mike Flowers Pops (1996)
20. Seasons Of Love - Stevie Wonder & The Cast of "Rent" (1996)
19. Hang On In There Baby - Johnny Bristol (1974)
18. You Are The Sunshine Of My Life - Stevie Wonder (1973)
17. Love Shack - The B-52's (1989)
16. Convoy - C.W. McCall (1976)
15. Waterloo - ABBA (1974)
14. Kiss - Prince And The Revolution (1986)
13. Another One Bites The Dust - Queen (1980)
12. Mary's Prayer - Danny Wilson (1987)
11. Only The Good Die Young - Billy Joel (1978)
10. One Of A Kind (Love Affair) - The Spinners (1973)
9. Baby Baby - Amy Grant (1991)
8. Rosanna - Toto (1982)
7. Ice Ice Baby - Vanilla Ice (1990)
6. Ariel - Dean Friedman (1977)
5. Get Used To It - Roger Voudouris (1979)
4. Come On Eileen - Dexys Midnight Runners (1983)
3. Roll To Me - Del Amitri (1995)
2. The Night Chicago Died - Paper Lace (1974)
1. American Pie - Don McLean (1972)

There you have it. The Top 500 Songs of All-Time. Thanks for tuning in today and throughout 2006. Happy 2007, everybody.

It's what I do
It's what I do
It's not some game I play
It's in my DNA
It's what I do
—Donald Fagen

Tomorrow, Sunday, is my birthday. It's my 44th birthday overall, the seventh among them to fall on a Sunday. When I think of having a Sunday birthday, I think of one in particular.

Few are the days of our lives that not only can we pinpoint in hindsight as momentous but that we know while they're in progress are gamechangers. My 10th birthday — the second I ever celebrated on a Sunday — was one of those days.

December 31, 1972, 34 years ago tomorrow, opened up a whole new way of looking at the world for me. It validated an impulse that was, to borrow a phrase from a source I would learn about soon enough, bubbling under my own Hot 100. It altered the way I think about everything.

On the day I turned 10, I heard my first year-end countdown on the radio. It was like a light went off in my ears.

You mean there are people who make lists who aren't told to go away? You mean there are people who get to broadcast them? You mean there's honor to this thing I like to do?

As a child in my single digits, I liked to make lists, but they were shapeless, formless, without context. What I heard on Miami's WFUN on the final day of 1972 was something else. It was the Top 79 songs of the year, fitting in that WFUN was 790 on your AM dial.

Pop music had emerged as the third leg of my obsession triad in the spring of '72, following the Mets and politics. I was essentially set for life in terms of overriding interests. There had been music before, but I hadn't linked it to the specificities of time and place and it wasn't something I sought. Via WNBC in the spring and WGBB in the fall, I heard songs that I knew were new. They were what were known as hits. I loved being in on the hits. It made me feel as if I were a part of the world, not some outcast who was the only one who wasn't told the joke or didn't receive the memo.

Come late December, our family took off on its annual holiday trek for North Miami Beach. For the second year in a row, we stayed at a motel on Collins Avenue called the Chateau. I brought with me the transistor radio I inherited from my musically indifferent sister. I assumed Miami had a station that played the hits. It did: WFUN. Great call letters. Great records. I listened to WFUN every spare moment I was allowed to (I was supposed to be outside getting some sun, we didn't pay all that money to come down here so you could sit in the room all day and listen to the radio).

I don't remember what it was I was supposed to be doing on my birthday but I do remember that my sister took ill with a stomach virus. She was stuck in bed and I told my parents, you guys go to the pool, I'll keep Susan company. It scored me some "what a good brother" points. What I did, actually, was sit on the balcony and listen to 'FUN and discover the art of the countdown.

The Countdown! What a concept! It was a list that went from back to front. It was drenched in suspense. It was an instant history lesson, both for the songs I hadn't heard much since June and for the songs that I managed to miss during 1972. I took a pen and wrote down in my notebook The Top 79 as it unfolded.

And I was hooked. I wanted to make this kind of list. In fact, I did. When we went home I made my own Top 100 songs of 1972. I kept reworking it into March, oblivious to the reality that nobody needed my list. But I was onto something that I enjoyed. Every year's end I made a Top 100 list. Not my favorites, mind you, but the Top 100, based on how much I perceived the hits of any year were played on the radio. I kept this up to the end of the 1980s. I also did weekly Top 20 lists on and off during the '70s.

I'll admit to myself now that those were pretty pointless endeavors. WFUN may have faded from the South Florida scene but other radio stations in other places counted down songs. Casey Kasem counted down songs. Billboard existed to count down songs. I turned my attention to thinking in terms of favorite songs. My favorite songs.

I have favorite songs nobody else seems to have, at least judging by every friend's, critic's or institution's ranking that comes down the pike. Perhaps it was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame declaring in the mid-'90s that there were 500 songs that shaped rock, providing a de facto canon for the genre, that inspired me to create my own list. Perhaps it was just my jones for milestones — in 1996, I sniffed the 25th anniversary of my musical birth just up the road. Perhaps it was WFUN and my 10th birthday from that Sunday, December 31, leaving an imprint on my DNA.

Whatever it was, I made it my mission to craft a Top 100 Songs of All-Time list, to be completed by April 7, 1997, the exact 25th anniversary of the day on which my pop radio connection first clicked.

So I did.

I liked it so much, I made it a Top 200. Then a Top 300. Then a Top 400. Finally, on the 30th anniversary — or 5th anniversary of the first hundred — The Top 500 Songs of All-Time.

Then I stopped. Because to do any more than 500 would be crazy.

My Top 500 Songs of All-Time would be meaningless without self-inflicted parameters. So here are the parameters.

• To be eligible, a song had to be in general circulation between the beginning of 1972 (because great songs from before then could never have quite the same impact as songs that I greeted upon their arrival into the atmosphere) and the end of 1999 (more or less the end of the century; had to cut off eligibility somewhere). General circulation means released as a single or a video or a widely played album cut or a featured number from a Broadway musical. In other words, it had to have been played somewhere at least once where anybody could have heard it. Sometimes it took me only once to love it.

• I had to own a copy of it or at least think I did and if I didn't, I had to run out and buy it.

• I had to be aware of the song more or less within the timeframe that it was released. There is, however, the WFUN Exception. Any 1972 song that I met on my 10th birthday is grandfathered in. But a 1972 song I didn't find out about until 1992? Not the same sensation, thus it would be ineligible.

• I had to love these 500 songs more than any other song within the parameters of eligibility. The reasons didn't matter. It could have a great beat and you could dance to it. It could be incredibly deep. It could be catchy to the point I couldn't rid myself of it. It could be something that I was playing when I was over there doing that or over here doing this. It could be by an artist I couldn't get enough of or an act I couldn't take except for the one great song he/she/they produced. It could be considered great by every scholarly musical source or it could be routinely despised by every sentient human except me. Maybe I loved it when it came out and the depth of my association with it from my youth survived my later decision it wasn't that great but damn it it's still one of my favorites. Maybe I only tolerated it when it was all over the airwaves but had come to appreciate it in adulthood.

Whatever. If I heard it, I knew it.

But I had to listen and listen closely. That's why I took six years to compile my list. There were thousands and thousands of songs in my mental jukebox. There were lists inside lists inside notebooks to make certain I didn't miss a trick. When it came down to the final hundred, the final ten even, I sat up through the night and played every compact disc, every cassette tape, every LP, every 45 under consideration. I wanted to construct the most airtight Top 500 I could imagine.

Even then I probably blew it. To this day, I'll hear a runnerup and think, "I'm surprised this didn't make it," which might strike you as odd since I am the sole judge and jury. But it's that WFUN training at work. Even when it's all about my subjectivity, I know there has to be a strain of objectivity, if that makes any sense. There has to be a measure of merit, however I define merit, or it won't merit inclusion.

It's almost five years since I completed The Top 500. I stand by it in full.

Tomorrow, in honor of that seminal Sunday — and as a birthday indulgence to myself that hopefully you will enjoy as well — I will this one time and one time only step away from the stated mission of this baseball blog and share with you The Top 500 Songs of All-Time.

If this comes off as trivial, well, so am I.

On with the countdown.

Springer and Spiers, Paul Gibson no Bob
Rick Parker, Kevin Lomon — who game them a job?
—From "Ode to the Unamazin'," by the author, 1997

I've got Barry Zito off my mind. I've got Steve Springer on my head.

Steve Who?

The Metsologists among us don't blink. We know Steve Springer was a minor league lifer who sipped a cup of coffee with the Mets at the end of his career: four games with us in 1992 when The Worst Team Money Could Buy was rooting around for spare change between its cushions. Springer, an infielder, was recalled when another fella who was about done playing, Willie Randolph, went on the DL with a broken bone in his left hand. The recall grows sketchy from there. The entirety of my recollection of Steve Springer is that he didn't appear all that athletic (I say from my state of perpetual sloth) and he didn't slow the Mets' descent into oblivion.

Steve's stay at Shea lasted eleven days. He was sent down on August 25, 1992. Two days later the Mets filled their second base hole by trading for Jeff Kent. Kent's still playing, albeit not here. Springer was never heard from again as a player.

Steve Springer, it turns out, could teach Jeff Kent a few things about hitting. He could teach a lot of people and apparently he has. Steve Springer took what he learned in his years in baseball as a player, a scout and an agent and poured it into an instructional CD called Quality At-Bats: The Mental Side. It's endorsed by, among others, Billy Beane, Clint Hurdle, Eric Valent and Brent Mayne.

You recognize those names, don't you? They, like Steve Springer, were Mets. None was one of us for very long, but they are in The Holy Books and there was a moment or more when we applauded them and accepted them as our own.

But none of them — nor Piazza nor Hernandez nor Seaver, for that matter — can say what Steve Springer can say.

That I'm wearing his hat.

And for that, I thank one of nature's noblebloggers.

A little over fourteen years after Steve Springer completed his Met tour of duty, I met Dave Murray for the first time. Metsosphereans will recognize that name as synonymous with Mets Guy in Michigan. He and I became correspondents shortly after each of us started our respective blogs in 2005. E-mail led to friendship. Friendship led to bagels. Dave may be Michigan's leading Mets Guy today but in his youth he was simply another Mets fan from Massapequa. Last winter, he mentioned on his blog that while he can find Mets boxscores on the Internet, he can't find a decent bagel in the Midwest, certainly not the kind we grow here on Long Island.

So I sent him a dozen. Dave has been trying to repay me ever since.

Dude, we're even.

For Christmas/Chanukah, Dave sent me Steve Springer's 1986 gameworn Tidewater Tides cap. It's a beauty. The Tides were still riding the bicentennial cap wave of a decade earlier, so it's a pillbox model: orange bill, blue field, three white pinstripes circling the head, a big orange T for Tides. And in faded ink on the underside of the visor, "Steve Springer #10".

Holy cap! I'm wearing what Steve Springer wore!

Dave sent authentication along with the gift, but it was unnecessary. Even if somebody sent me a pretend Steve Springer 1986 Tidewater Tides cap, I'd be pretty overwhelmed by the thoughtfulness and generosity. He said he purchased ten Tides hats at some point and figured he could get by with nine. I've got one now and it's one of the greatest things I've ever been given.

I mean it's a baseball cap worn by a Met when he was a Tide! Geez!

Like any veteran fan who's seen 'em come and seen 'em go, I have a tendency to be a little snarky toward those we would loosely term obscure Mets. I will probably fall back on that pose, but maybe I'll think twice before chuckling at the CVs of the journeymen who were or are just passing through Flushing now that I share a bit of nogginry with one of them.

Steve Springer's first game in the minors was at Little Falls in 1982 when he was 21. He spent eight consecutive seasons at Triple-A, including stints in the White Sox, Mariners and Indians organizations. He played four games for Cleveland in 1990, then the four with the Mets two years later. And that, despite a .278 average in eleven years in the minors, was it. He was 31 in his last season.

Steve Springer came to bat all of five times as a Met. That's five more at-bats — and two more hits — than I'll ever have. That's something to admire, not deride.

Thanks to Dave. Thanks to Steve. Thanks to both of you for sticking my head more into the game than I could have imagined.

The Giants will lead the world in Barrys this year. It's a dubious distinction.

We didn't get our man. Barry Zito signed with San Francisco for money that makes Jeff Suppan look positively impoverished. Not the paltry six years, $96 million talked about in Texas and surely not the five years, $75 million reportedly proposed by the Mets.

Seven years. $126 million.

When it gets that high, you put your bidding paddles away.

The only president never elected president or vice president liked to deprecate himself as "a Ford, not a Lincoln". And while he was president, the National League representative of his favorite city was definitely no Big Red Machine.

From the day Gerald Ford took the oath of office until the end of the final baseball season of his presidency, the New York Mets compiled a record of 192 wins and 186 losses.

Sounds about right.

Here's to President Ford, a .500 or so chief executive uniquely suited to the .500 or so life and times that defined not just our ballclub but our country in the mid-1970s.

An interim manager thrust to the helm of an outfit in dire need of steady, reassuring guidance following an age of tumult.

Low-key in a town chock full o' self-promoters.

Universally liked by those with whom he served.

Probably not destined to keep the job all that long no matter who begged his pardon.

Made a nice run there toward the end.

By all accounts, by whatever standards one chooses to interpret the won-lost record, a good and decent man.

As presidents go, Jerry Ford wasn't a Lincoln. He was America's very own Roy McMillan.

I read this phrase somewhere when I was a kid:

If ifs and buts were candies and nuts, then every day would be Christmas.

I've seen it worded slightly differently over the years but I've always identified with it. As you can't be a Mets fan for very long without invoking "if" or "but," it's good advice.

Especially as it pertains to nuts.

Let's go back to when the world was young. It's October 12, the first night of what will eventually prove an eight-night festival of lights. The National League Championship Series has just begun. It's Tom Glavine versus Jeff Weaver in the early throes (and throws) of a duel producing nothing but zeroes.

And this, according to my co-blogger, is what happens next:

[T]he worst thing was actually poor Greg getting nailed in the face by a vendor's bag-of-peanuts missile, but that was really just startling. He was fine and the guy behind us, for whom the peanuts were intended, felt so bad that he shared them.

So much happened in the hours and days afterward that I never really followed up on — if I may provide a straight line fit for Howard Stern — the nut sack that got me square in the face.

It hurt. It hurt plenty. It didn't hurt for that long, but I was really pissed off about it. Not so pissed off for it to overwhelm the occasion (the same reason, I figure, that Piazza didn't rush the mound in October 2000 despite dealing with his own missile issues), but I was definitely taken out of the NLCS moment.

Yes, the guy who ordered the peanuts, already one sheet to the wind and heading for second, did attempt a drunken makegood. He poured me two handfuls of nuts which I accepted because I felt I was entitled. I don't like peanuts, not the kind you have to shell. The mindless shelling of peanuts by my neighbors is one of those baseball conventions I heartily despise. Every other game I go to, I look down at my feet and discover my shoes and my bag and perhaps my condensation-laden $4.50 soda cup is drowning in somebody else's shells. I do not find it charming.

But I was damn sure accepting what was coming to me, maybe 10 nuts in all. I gave one to Jason. I clumsily opened another. I stuffed the other eight in my jacket pocket.

The night went on. Beltran went deep off Weaver. Glavine gave way to the bullpen. We won 2-0. By the time I got to my computer, I was giddily lost in the one-game lead we had taken on the Cardinals, lost enough to forget that there was an afterlife to the peanuts.

It was well after midnight when I walked in the front door and then into the kitchen. I reached into my left jacket pocket and found the handful of peanuts. I placed them on a paper towel on the counter, hung up my jacket and trotted upstairs to see if Stephanie could be at all stirred so I could tell her what a great time and great game it was. She could not. So I changed out of my remaining Mets gear, skipped downstairs and back to the kitchen for beverages to blog by.

That's when I noticed there were only two peanuts on the counter. Didn't take a village to figure out what happened to the remainder.

"AVERY!"

Yes, my adorable, playful, hellion of a kitten — just then learning and demonstrating the ability to leap onto high places with the greatest of ease — was attracted to the nuts. Like whatever Weaver tried to sneak past Beltran, they were eminently battable to him. That was Avery's interest, turning them into toys. I worried for a moment that cats may have Bill Haverchuck-type allergies to peanuts, but I saw no evidence. Besides, if he was eating them, it would take him a while to claw the shell into submission (at which point he'd be chewing on the shell for a couple of hours). Avery, I surmised, batted them into AveryLand, the destination for everything that is tiny and left unattended.

I grabbed the extant nuts and hid them in a cabinet. Why I'm not sure. I didn't want them. I didn't think Stephanie would want them. The cats weren't getting them. I threw 'em out the next day.

Fast-forward a bit. It's Friday afternoon, October 27. The NLCS has come and gone, sadly. The World Series is in progress, St. Louis up three games to one. I'm in a weeklong funk, trying to take my and maybe your mind off what went wrong by conducting the final Flashback Friday quiz. I'm in my office sorting through the entries when I smell gas. It doesn't seem to be coming from our apartment. I'm thinking the floor below. This is a co-op with some elderly residents and I'm concerned. I call the gas company.

Guy from Keyspan gets here. He pulls the oven out from the wall to check for a leak. There's no leak. But you know what there are?

Peanuts. Three peanuts. (Also, a cadre of stuffed cat toys, the long-missing remote control for our XM radio, a pen and some paper clips.) That's where those stupid nuts went. Didn't have much time to dwell on it, though. We still didn't know where the gas was coming from. It took a couple of hours of knocking on doors and gaining entry to apartments and other nonsense to turn off what needed to be turned off before I could get back to blogging and breathing easily.

Fast-forward again. It's the week before last, somewhere around December 13, I think. I wander into the kitchen. And on the floor? Another peanut. No gas, no need to make emergency calls or anything. Just a nut. Avery has dragged another one to the fore.

It lies there. And it all comes rushing back.

The whap in the face comes back.

The Beltran homer comes back.

The feeling of invincibility at one-oh in the series comes back.

The orange Mr. Met jacket that I didn't want to go anywhere without comes back.

The nightly ritual of parking at the station, boarding an LIRR train full of Mets fans and marching en masse with them to Shea comes back.

The hope that was more like certainty that we'd go up two-oh on Friday night comes back.

The early lead in Game Two comes back.

John Maine not holding the early lead in Game Two comes back.

Guillermo Mota's inability to strike out Scott Spiezio and Shawn Green's inability to catch a ball he got a glove on comes back.

Fucking So Taguchi comes back.

Trachsel comes back.

The momentarily reassuring offensive onslaught of Game Four comes back.

The icy shiv of Game Five comes back.

The faith vigil from the day of Game Six comes back.

The glow of Game Six — footstomping, rollicking, upbeat Game Six — comes back.

Billy Wagner's near sky-high blow of Game Six comes back.

The relief of Billy Wagner not blowing Game Six comes back.

Game Seven's restless preshow comes back.

Oliver comes back.

Endy comes back.

Suppan comes back.

Yadier Fucking Molina...

I don't remember if Molina had finished rounding the bases or pumping his fists when the enormity of what had just transpired occurred to me. If it hadn't, it couldn't have been long after his teammates pounded him silly.

Tom Hanks as Jimmy Dugan famously admonished a weepy Evelyn Gardner that there's no crying in baseball. Like fun there isn't. I learned a long time ago that there's loads of crying in baseball. There's a certain respectability to it, provided you cry for the right reason.

When I was in fifth grade, I had a really bad day. First I couldn't find my glove. Then I lost out on some classroom award for outstanding achievement in the field of excellence. I was bummed about the glove. I was really bummed about the award. A couple of the character cops in my class noticed I was a bit tearful over the whole megillah. Preparing to kick my ass for being the kind of kid who would cry over not winning an academic honor, I said, no, it's not that. It's my glove. I brought it in for gym and now it's lost.

"It's all right. He lost his glove."

That was acceptable. A guy loses a piece of vital equipment, of course it's a tragedy. But when the same guy's glove is found a few minutes later and he's still crying, we now rejoin the regularly scheduled ass-kicking, already in progress.

Anyway, I have cried over baseball. Gracefully. Poignantly. Appropriately. Afterwards.

That's the key. It's all well and good to reflect on a game or a season or a career and give yourself over to it. It may not be as manly as making bucks, getting exercise, working outside, but it's in the ballpark of what men do.

Crying because you're losing? I believe you get your ass kicked for doin' something like that, man.

I find the Game One peanut that Avery has excavated from under the stove or microwave cart or wherever he hides the refrigerator magnets, and Yadier Fucking Molina comes back from Game Seven.

He's thrilled. I'm not.
He's joyful. I'm not.
He's triumphant. I'm not.
They're going to the World Series. We're not.

As Rolen crossed the plate to make it 2-1 and Molina followed to make it 3-1, it was so goddamn over. This season, the one we'd waited six or seven or eighteen or twenty years for, depending on your count, was done. The superior Mets were second to someone at last. They hadn't been the superior Mets since the night I brought the peanuts home, actually, having never held another series lead after Game One. And if you watched them religiously as I had, you sensed that the Mets had peaked in early September. They had been frighteningly ordinary as they went about whittling their magic number, attempting to clinch, running out the clock. Marvelous as the results may have been, they weren't even all that crisp in sweeping the Dodgers. How many times had the Cardinals tied or passed the Mets in this series alone? The Mets of middle October were not nearly enough like the Mets of April and May and June and July and August. Not nearly enough.

Thus it shouldn't have been shocking to realize it could all end at any moment. But it was. The numbers had been on our side, 97 regular-season wins versus 83. The aura had been on our side. The home-field advantage had been on our side. We had been on our side. The runup to Game Six was so faithful to the cause and it paid off. How could we not be rewarded? How could this end in defeat?

Our season, I was sure, had died. I commenced to beat the rush and started mourning immediately.

No sobbing. No wailing. These ninth inning tears were in a league of their own. I don't think even Stephanie a few feet away noticed them. There were no accompanying noises coming out of me, save for maybe the furtive dab of a tissue. It had been mausoleum-silent since Molina left the yard. I didn't want to make a big thing about my emotions, not to Stephanie, not to myself, not to the Mets. My conflict was multifaceted. I was dismayed and disgusted with myself as a grown-up fifth-grader for giving into this lachrymose instinct, dismayed and disgusted with myself for not waiting the inevitable five outs for ocular moisture, dismayed and disgusted that it was 3-1 Cardinals.

The whole night had left me puzzled about what to do. It was the only home playoff game for which I wasn't at Shea. There it was easy to figure out my next move: when in doubt, stand and shout. In the living room, I felt stifled. I walked around most of the night inventing impromptu voodoo — solemnly rubbing the NY on whichever Mets cap was handy, for instance (the more Suppan pitched, the more I switched), or balancing a throw cushion behind my head between the insides of my elbows and the top sides of my shoulders. It was my very own yoke of offensive futility.

I don't think the crying lasted all that long, probably for what remained of the top of the ninth. Ronnie Belliard and John Rodriguez went out. I dried up. There was still a bottom of the ninth to be played. I made it clear to my brain that these Mets were capable of two to tie, three to win.

My brain understood even if my heart wasn't really listening.

Then Valentin and Chavez single and Wainwright is maybe Schiraldi and I lost faith approximately 19 years and 51 weeks earlier and boy was I delightedly wrong then and now...what was I crying about anyway? I wasn't crying. I was yelling C'MON CLIFF!

It seemed too good to be true that we could turn this thing around like we did with Buckner. You can't be thinking Buckner if you ever want to have anything like it again. I wasn't thinking Buckner when Mookie stepped in against Stanley. I wasn't thinking so much as just hoping. That was a long time ago. I'd seen too much in the intervening two decades to count on my brain acting enough the ingénue to allow me to be surprised by anything the Mets might do.

Cliff striking out comes back.

Jose lining not hard enough, not soft enough to Edmonds comes back.

Stephanie leaving the living room and barricading herself in the upstairs bathroom because she can't take it anymore comes back.

Lo Duca walking to fill the bases comes back.

Hernandez pinch-running comes back.

Beltran comes up.

Nuts.

I suppose it's fashionable to dwell on that called strike three, The Look Seen 'Round The World. We were down two in the bottom of the ninth. All we wanted was a chance to score two runs. Could there have been a better chance? Even with the two wasted outs between Chavez's single and Lo Duca's walk, who wouldn't have, in the parlance of afternoon sports talk radio, signed for Beltran up against some rookie with the postseason on the line? Carlos Beltran built a fortune by cleaning up in these situations, right in this month, October. He earned a good bit of it in Game One and Game Four. Beltran versus Wainwright, bases loaded, down two, two out? After Yadier Fucking Molina, I would have signed for it in blood.

Yet I don't come back to Beltran. The pitch was too hellacious to do a lot about. Do you really ask a disciplined Major League hitter to abandon the eye that got him the mansion in which he lives today to swing at something that appears to him to be breaking inside? I mean you could and maybe you should, but it was not unreasonable for Beltran to take an unhittable pitch. By definition, unhittable pitches aren't strikes. So he got it wrong. So we lost. It was the living, breathing embodiment of whaddayagonnado?

Ultimately, I don't come back to Beltran because it was so surprising that it got to him. After Molina, how did the Mets manage to send up six batters anyway? They were dead! 2006 was dead! I'd already loosened the waterworks, called the funeral home and was picking out a black armband. They lived three batters longer than I would have imagined ten minutes earlier. I'm disappointed he didn't connect but, I dunno, I'm not that mad that he didn't swing.

Besides, what earthly business does a team that loads the bases right after a catch like Endy's and doesn't score have to believe they can save themselves at the very last turn? Like I said, these Mets of October had already shown themselves to be something less than the Mets of months prior. We asked them to turn back the clock. They didn't. As a result, not a single one of us has ripped open a Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa or Winter Solstice gift to find a WORLD CHAMPION METS sweatshirt or something else that would have fit oh so perfectly.

Ifs.
Buts.

We didn't come back.

I've accepted it.
I'll never be over it.

Not completely.
Not really.
If precedent ('73/'88/'99/'00) provides a template, not ever.

Whaddayagonnado?

All that came back courtesy of Avery and the rogue peanut. Stupid cat.

But don't blame him for what he found underneath his own version of the hot stove league or me for revisiting this bitter end, because I come back to you with these as my definitive and, I suppose, final words on 2006 while it's still this year:

Fuckin' A. We had a great season.

I still wouldn't trade it for anything short of something slightly better — and something slightly better than a divisional romp, a first-round knockout and a seventh-game staredown that winds up no more than feet, perhaps inches, from Detroit doesn't come along very often.

Maybe I'm just a the-glass-is-3/7ths-full kind of fan, but when I saw that peanut, what really came back to stay was not the sorrow of a tepid final few innings, but the glow from a season in the sun. That peanut said Shea Stadium. It said orange Mr. Met jacket. It said excitement and gratification and faith by the busload. It said great times and great games and great friends, the kind of baseball memories you crave in the cold of a December night, the kind you don't expect to discover amid the flotsam of what the cat dragged in.

It said 2006, a Mets year that — regardless of its finish — deserves to be remembered and remembered well by each and every one of us. I will surely remember it that way.

And I don't even like peanuts, not the kind you have to shell.

It's not exactly the Christmas Eve news to suit anybody who said all they wanted under the tree was Barry Zito, but the Brewers have signed Jeff Suppan. Many years, insane money, OK pitcher who had a couple of good games when it counted.

This means for us, besides not having Jeff Suppan (and not having to contort myself to root for a guy I wanted no part of), that Barry Zito stands alone as the pitching prize on the market. Mark Mulder's still floating about, but word is he won't be ready for the season to start and he's not a New York or Rick Peterson guy.

So, what happens next? Do we throw our first five years of CitiBucks at Zito in hopes of luring him away from his lifelong dream of becoming a Texa$ Ranger? Or do we set a price, stand by it and let the chips fall where they may because even if he's twice the pitcher Suppan is, it will take more than twice Suppan's $42 mil over four years to secure him?

In Love Actually it was said that at Christmas you tell the truth. In that spirit, I have to be honest: I don't really want Barry Zito all that badly. Not for bankbreaking numbers and, in a touch of psychobabble, not on principle.

It has not so much to do with him as it does us and me. I don't really like us being the fans who expect our management to ante up above all others at this time of year just because we can. I don't want to sit in expectation that "we're the Mets, we buy who we want." It was necessary to loosen the pursestrings in the previous two winters, necessary and wise given the players available and where we stood. But just paying and paying to outbid a joke like Tom Hicks because we're the big, bad team from New York? It doesn't rub me the right way. Maybe if I felt more confident in Zito's long-term prospects I'd jump on the "it's not my money" express, but that's secondary at the moment. I just don't like the Mets operating like...well, I'm not going to name names, but I'd just as soon we go after the guys we really and truly need.

I still trust our general manager to figure something out if we don't wind up with the main guy. I like the idea that Omar Minaya will think of something besides cash. And I like the New York Mets going with their young pitchers because that's what the New York Mets do. If we're sitting here in six months slapping our collective palms to our collective forehead because nobody can go five innings, well, I'm an idiot.

Besides, if he wanted to be here, he'd be here by now.

And in the best sports news of any kind since October 18, the University of South Florida Bulls today captured their very first bowl victory, 24-7, over the East Carolina University Pirates in the inaugural PapaJohns.com Bowl in Birmingham, Alabama.

Like you hadn't already planned your Saturday around that.

Wherever your collegiate loyalties lie, even if they lie nowhere (unless they lie with those ECU shinkickers), won't you join the USF Alumni Association chapter of Stephanie and me in a hearty round of what we used to shout on alternate sides of the Sun Dome?

SOUTH!
FLORIDA!

SOUTH!
FLORIDA!

SOUTH!
FLORIDA!

YOU! ESS! EFF!
YOU! ESS! EFF!
YOU! ESS! EFF!

Ahhh...

For those of you somehow unfamiliar with this heretofore untapped bastion of scholar-athleticism, the University of South Florida — USF to us, if not the sports media community at large (screw you, University of San Francisco) — has been in business for 50 years and just completed its first decade of college football. The Bulls/Golden Brahmans entered the top tier of play in 2002 and have been quietly successful as a Division I program. There's been more quiet than success in North Tampa if you measure your standing in the sport by, say, Ohio State standards, but it's only been a few years of competing at this level. You needn't be an Oracle to understand that this piping hot triumph in the PapaJohns.com Bowl, one year after a misfire in the equally prestigious Meineke Car Care Bowl, is a saucy milestone...a tangy topping on a 9-4 season...a crunchy, crusty bite of pigskin pizza for those of us who intermittently bleed green and gold.

If you find this audible self-indulgently off-topic, know that ESPN2 assigned Gary Thorne play-by-play duties. He's as pompous and clueless at college football as he was as a latter-day Metscaster on WPIX. In the first couple of minutes, he referred to USF as "underlooked" and left the South out of Florida (thus giving the hated Gators an extra game). He may have even said a museum at a church that is an icon of the civil rights movement celebrates segregation. That's Gary Thorne, talking without thinking, whatever the sport.

But he couldn't ruin this. A molasses-slow crew of Sun Belt Conference officials that kept this thing trudging from 1 until past 4:30 couldn't ruin this. The inept Pirates hairline-fracturing our redshirt freshman quarterback sensation Matt Grothe with a kick in the shin couldn't ruin this. The rush of ESPN2 to dump out of the postgame so it could kiss that horse's ass of horse's asses Bobby Knight couldn't ruin this. Even the knowledge that we remain the most obscure 42,000-student school on the planet — bigger by half than it was during my early '80s studies — couldn't ruin this.

To be fair, USF is pretty obscure to me since I turned north on I-275 on April 29, 1985. As a Big East member, we're on TV now and then, but I usually seem to miss it 'cause I don't go out of my way to find it. My ability to drop a name like Matt Grothe surprises even myself. Alma mater is alma mater, however. USF's greatest college athletics tradition may be apathy (the cameras revealed plenty of good seats were available in Birmingham) and I may throw every single fundraising appeal straight into the trash, but gosh darn it, we just won a bowl game. Until it happened, I wasn't sure what sports outfit I identified with most when there are no Mets around.

SOUTH! FLORIDA! indeed.

So I'm looking at Deadspin's roundup of October, and I can't help re-reading the triumphant recap of Game 7. (Hey, Will's a Cardinals fan; while I wish I were the one being gallant in victory, I don't begrudge him his happiness.)

Anyway, in looking through the comments about the post I found this one:

At least we know that Beltran will never get eaten by a T-Rex.

And I laughed. And am still laughing.

Perhaps the healing has finally begun....