The only entertaining, non-Reyes aspect to Tuesday night's blowout loss (to be confused with Monday's night's blowout loss, but try to keep them separate) was a conversation between Keith and Gary that led to a startling revelation:

Keith Hernandez was upset that the Shea DJs That Be blasted "Who Let The Dogs Out?" after the Mets won Game Three of the 2000 World Series.

Gary Cohen seemed startled. I was actually shocked into laughing, something I hadn't done any of since the Mets boarded the Acela in Washington.

Keith's got it in for the Baha Men?

Yes, our Mex was hot (in the non-Paris Hilton usage sense) that the Mets were somehow rubbing it in the Yankees' face that they had just won a game. Never mind that this had become the Mets' anthem across late September and October. Never mind that the Yankees assaulted every victim with Frank Sinatra's latter-day warbling. Never mind that baseball stadia play songs after baseball games. Keith thought that "Who Let The Dogs Out?" fired up the Yankees, that the playing of a team fight song (you can debate among yourselves the efficacy of the song in question) slapped them in the face, that it was inappropriate given that the Mets still trailed the Series one game to two, that is was no wonder Derek Jeter hit Bobby Jones' first pitch over the fence the next night.

Keith is very fucking weird sometimes.

Of course this was also the same postseason in which the Athletics apparently had the inside track on the ALDS in Oakland until someone behind the scenes brainlessly beamed the pregame press conference onto their DiamondVision during Game Five BP. Eric Chavez was up on the big screen answering a question with a little youthful bravado, declaring the Yankees had been great but now it was the A's time to shine. Down on the field, the doddering Yankee dynasty turned up its hearing aid and was aghast, just enough to have a big first inning and hold on for dear life. That helped gild their path to the Subway Series if you believe in the power of video board material.

I don't know what Citizens Bank Park plays when the Phillies win, as they've been doing with alarming regularity this week. Given the Mets' failure to do anything with Cole Hamels, Randy Wolf or Jon Lieber — cumulative score: Phils 27 Jose 4 — it oughta be "It's The Same Old Song" by the Four Tops.

Shea blares BTO's "Takin' Care of Business" for wins, an excellent tune if a dubious message. It's very presumptuous and not a little generic, but at the last two wins I attended, I couldn't not rock out down the exit ramps and neither could my companions. In that sense, I suppose it works and I wouldn't screw with it. But they've gotta do something about the loss music.

Where is it written in the unwritten rules that we have to leave Shea like Schleprock? The two songs used to see us to our cars, trains and ferries this year have been Natalie Imbruglia's melancholy "Torn" and Coldplay's wistful "Clocks". I like them both in other contexts, but quit dictating my emotions. Quit telling me that in a little while now, if I'm not feeling any less sour, I promise myself to treat myself to a visit to a nearby Serval Zipper tower. I feel bad enough as it is without the manipulative musical accompaniment.

It was worse in 1998 when, for reasons known only to the person who chooses these babies, every loss brought on a recording of the theme from Jurassic Park. It was mournful and instantly reminding that we had just been stomped back to the Stone Age by the Braves or Expos or somebody. "New York State of Mind" was a more benign bye-bye. One assumes somebody said to somebody else, "The Yankees use 'New York New York' whether they win or lose. We should do something like that." Yeah, but you only used it when we lost. Some folks like to get away, take a holiday from watching Kevin Appier or Bruce Chen get lit up. Thankfully, we're no longer in a "New York State of Mind".

Unfortunately, we still do lose home games from time to time (or in my case, a lot of the time). I humbly suggest to Mr. Vito Vitiello, Shea's producer, video/entertainment services and the guy who I believe makes these choices, to try "Right Back Where We Started From" by Maxine Nightingale the next time our boys fall short.

Ooh and it's all right
And it's comin' 'long
We gotta get right back
To where we started from

Love is good
Love can be strong
We gotta get right back
To where we started from

Between the indefatigable lyrics and the deft deployment of what sounds like a beta version of The Clapper, this is the happiest goddamn song I know. It's like "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" without Ren & Stimpy irony. My dear friend and our occasional illustrator Jim Haines once told me I like happy, snappy songs as if I needed to get vaccinated for it. Well, yeah, I like happy, snappy songs and there's nothin' wrong with it (Ms. Nightingale's 1976 smash is No. 262 on my All-Time Top 500). At the risk of shoving a happy helmet firmly onto everybody's head, I think everybody should be happy when happy songs are heard.

But we're not happy when we don't win? Yes, that's exactly it! We need something to boost us out of our orange-and-blues, something that tells us the sun will come out tomorrow without explicitly using that saccharine number from Annie. Getting back to where we started from this year means getting back to our winning ways. And most of the time those winning ways are only a day away.

Or, if you're waiting for a wakeup call from the operator at the Westin Philadelphia, maybe never.

Pedro Martinez is on the DL again. Perhaps we should abbreviate it to the PM. Ice that calf, get well and...ah, you know what to do, Pedro. You always do.

Heath Bell will be killing time with the Mets until he is allowed to go home to Norfolk. Taking Pedro's place in the rotation will be somebody wasn't all that great to begin with or somebody who used to be but hasn't been lately. But it won't be Lima.

Think we need pitching depth after the last two episodes of corporal punishment? The Cubs used all 25 players in an 18-inning win over the Astros last night/this morning. How is that even possible? How can you leave yourself without a bench and without a bullpen? One line drive pings off the wrong wrist and you're gonna lose 9-0. I only watched the final six innings, so I didn't see all the buttons Dusty pushed to get to the 13th, yet, it's practically unbelievable. Bobby Valentine and Davey Johnson managed historic, marathon wins in the postseason and held a body or two in reserve. Bobby Valentine also outmanaged Dusty Baker in the postseason.

Cubs beat the Astros 1-0 in a day game today. They used a pitcher called up from Iowa to start. And coffee by the potful.

As you may have heard, the Rockies and Diamondbacks also went 18 innings. Watched it sleepily to get my money's worth out of the aptly named MLB Extra Innings. First time four teams have played two games that went 36 innings in the same day ever...on the same day a National Leaguer hit three home runs in the same year he hit for the cycle and his team lost both games. And just now, with the Dodgers succumbing to the Marlins after winning 17 of 18 (best NL stretch since our own in early '86), Vin Scully said, "the wheels have come off the golden coach."

Do other sports have stuff like this? Are there such angled oddities in football or the indoor activities associated with winter? Or legendary platinum voices who slice glittering phrases paper-thin like an expert deli counterman? If there are, I've missed them.

Meanwhile, right around the time the Minute Maid Park grounds crew was simultaneously punching out and punching in, shovels were hoisted and cameras were mugged for in advance of the erection of a facility somewhere in northern New York City. Comedian Billy Crystal was on hand, so you know it was a somber affair. Hours later, an official with the team that will use said structure told its sycophantic announcer (who masquerades as a sports talk host on an obscure staticky frequency), that if his employer didn't get to begin construction right this very minute, it would have very possibly forced his team to very seriously consider moving to the state of New Jersey.

How's that?

That Yankee COO Lonn Trost would address Michael Kay's softball with anything but WE HEART NY makes me wonder if something can still go wrong with the burgeoning blight in the Bronx. Trost used very peculiar language like "if we couldn't start in the next 24 hours..." before making his weird retro threat (just in case the state supreme court changes its mind?). Maybe we should all hop the 4 and form a human chain to stop this project in earnest. Call their bluff, pay their toll and get them out of our Metropolitan Area once and for all. Or as Trost's intrepid interrogator would put it, See Ya!

I have mixed emotions about watching the current Yankee Stadium close up shop...half of me wants to see it imploded in one grand swallow; half of me wants to see it knocked down arrogant piece by arrogant piece with a dynamite-packed wrecking ball. All of me says atta way to Piscataway, fellas.