Waking up in the first inning this afternoon, still hung over from last night's emotional doings, I couldn't have predicted that it would be a 1986 Greenville Brave who would captivate our thoughts as retro weekend concluded. Especially since Tom Glavine wasn't pitching against the Rockies.

Now he may not be pitching against anybody. Cross your fingers that he can cross his fingers. He was one of the two givens among our starters and now both of them are parked in the TBD lot. Hence, after 4-1/2 months of puzzling out potential rotations and trying to assure you and reassure myself that we'll have enough pitching when it counts, I give up. Whoever takes the ball will take the ball and we'll figure it out from there. We've just fortified the bullpen with the acquisition of Guillermo Mota, but even the Michael Tucker of relievers can only do so much. The casting call is in effect, then:

Mike Pelfrey, Brian Bannister, Oliver Perez, Dave Williams, John Maine...come on down!

Orlando Hernandez, step right up!

He did! He did!

Good Duque, who swings by about four times as often as horrendous Duque, reappeared at Shea Sunday and made Colorado question its contender status. He struck out eight batters, collected one hit and stole one base. He can do all that. He is advised to continue.

Solid to occasionally spectacular outings from solid to rarely spectacular starters is what it's going to take to win more than a division title, though I plan to linger and enjoy the magic number countdown (26...and 27 over .500 for the first time since 2000 1999) before sweating profusely over phrases like Game One, Game Two and Game Three. As an intense 1986 Met and frisky 2006 broadcaster said after the 2-0 lilacwashing of the Rocks, Mets fans, get your heads out of the oven.

Keith may be relenting and allowing his uni top to be auctioned off for charity, but can the Carloses & Co. keep wearing theirs? Two throwback fashion shows, two victories. The Mets are now 4-0 when wearing 1986 clothes past their 1992 expiration date. Remember, they did it twice in 2002 as part of the Triumphant Glory promotion, a year when, ironically, there was little triumph and no glory. True, the magic wore off those togs by 1991, but they seem to be working again. (On a personal couture note, I've suddenly witnessed three wins in a row in my black 2000 World Series cap and, as Keith proclaimed last night, you'll have to rip it off my head.)

My hangover from 1986 + 20 isn't quite faded, so a few leftover impressions from last night:

• I read today that it figuratively killed Ray Knight that he couldn't attend, but he was committed to make appearances with his golfer wife on behalf of the concern that manufactures the heart medication that saved him from being literally killed. I'm looking to feel sympathy for his cause, but what audience on earth could have been more interested in Ray Knight's presence than the one at Shea?

• Many banners flew at the ol' ballpark proclaiming variations on the message that we won in '86, we'll win in '06. Who without foreknowledge of Glavine's condition would have argued? It's so much better to have these festivities enveloped by success. So many Banner Days of my adolescence were unhinged by well-meaning participants who insisted the Mets would be known as CHAMPS 1969 1973 1979. You gotta believe delusion is painful to observe between games of a doubleheader when you're 14 under and 15-1/2 out.

• But why was it necessary for the Mets to take down their 1969, 1973 and 2000 pennants from below the centerfield flag where they have flown classily since 2001? They left only '86 and a companion anniversary banner to whip in the wind. Was Randy Niemann going to be offended by our other triumphant glories? Tacky.

• Darryl being given the Tom Seaver treatment as final introductee was perfect. But it was surprising to this reporter that Gary Carter superceded Keith Hernandez in the public address pecking order. Gary was the Kid, but Keith will always be The Man. Ah, but Gary Carter is Hall of Famer Gary Carter. Cooperstown trumps Captaincy. (Yeah, I know they were eventually co-captains, but don't tell me that was about anything but salving Carter's ego.) To whatever extent it was planned, kudos to Keith for turning it over to "the Mookster" as team rep and letting the man who made all this possible have the last word.

• Beautiful that Mookie is still MOOOOOO!KIE. He hung around as first base coach for six seasons under Bobby V, but he never faded into the Eddie Yost woodwork. Seeing him last night was both familiar and fantastic. MOOOOOO!

• Oh, you weren't the only one surprised to see CLOSE 94 belting out the national anthem. I'm assuming she was the singer at the Home Opener a dozen years ago and, true fan that she is said to be, kept and cherished her very own jersey. But the Mets couldn't make her a new one for last night? (Or do they only go to the first 25,000 anthem singers?)

• Finally, in the spirit of overwrought, mid-late '80s Iron Eagle, Over The Top action movies with a heart of gold and a Kenny Loggins-laden soundtrack, how's this?

ACT ONE
A great baseball team, one of the greatest ever, is having its big twentieth anniversary reunion. Everybody's gonna be there except for The Ace Pitcher who is unjustly imprisoned (it has to be unjust, 'cause he was The Ace). He attempts an escape but is caught by the evil warden and placed into solitary. The reunion goes on without him. It's just not the same. The Ace sulks.

ACT TWO
A gruff prison guard with, yes, a heart of gold, whispers words of encouragement in the ears of The Ace. Your cell is 60 feet 6 inches long, he tells him You're still young, your arm still has lots of life left and so do you. With nothing else to occupy his time or his mind. The Ace starts training. He throws pebbles. Then stones. The guard sneaks him a baseball. He gets better and better. The state penal authority re-examines his case and finds it was all the warden's fault. The warden is imprisoned. The Ace is released! And he can pitch again!

ACT THREE
Meanwhile, the team he used to pitch for, the one that welcomed back all the old players, has just lost the use of its current star to a possible clot. Only one man can save them now...The Ace! The Ace is signed just in time for the World Series (never mind the August 31 deadline; this is the movies) and does the one thing he never did when he was younger...he wins a World Series game. Hell, he wins THE World Series game, the one that captures his old team the championship. And this time, the enwised Ace, who missed his team's reunion during the summer and his team's parade twenty years ago when he was young, talented and foolish, rides in the lead float. His old teammates? They line the streets and applaud, arm-in-arm with the prison guard and the GM who gave him one last chance.

Meet me halfway across the sky.

A couple of months ago, I was asked to compare and contrast 1986 and 2006. This wasn't long after L'affaire Lastings, the Milledge child's breach of protocol when he hit a game-tying homer and then nervily accepted high-fives from the fans en route to right field. I suggested to my interrogator that instead of throwing cold water on his actions, the Mets of twenty years ago — the curtain-calling, bow-taking, fist-pumping 1986 Mets — would have made such a greeting part of their repertoire. Lenny would have fan-fived. Wally would have fan-fived. Mex would have fan-tenned. Kid would have started his on-deck wait in the mezzanine. And Straw would have invented an entire interactive body language of his own.

Damned if that's not more or less what the whole lot of 1986 Mets did last night. I don't know whose brilliant idea it was to direct the Old Timers through the crowd and to the field, but it was one of the best things I've ever seen. The laying on of hands must have transferred some karmic electricity to Lastings Milledge who then went out and played the best game of his nascent career, sparking the first-place Mets of 2006 to another win.

That's the Mets and the Mets fans, see? That's the group hug that we are, all of us. That's the teamwork that makes the dream work. It is dynamite that the 1986 Mets got to understand that either again or for the first time or forever last night. It's no wonder they felt so blown away by the affection. When they were players, they needed to steer clear of wandering fan hands. That was a security risk. Last night it was a touchy-feely lovefest. I'm not surprised that they were surprised.

Having caught raw post-ceremony Keith in the portion of the broadcast that I recorded, I was overjoyed that he was overjoyed. My impression of Hernandez, certainly reinforced by his ongoing monologue on SNY this season, has always been that he saw us fans as a prop. His job was to field ground balls, hit line drives and ride herd on young pitchers. Our job was to attend his performances in adequate numbers, be antagonistic toward his opponents and slurp down the ice cream that would kill his waistline. When I met him seven years ago at a function designed to let fans have honest-to-goodness contact with retired players, Keith looked right through me and everybody else who fawned over him. I sensed he was only there because Rusty Staub, the chairman of the charity event, beseeched him to show his mustachioed face.

All I heard from Ron and Keith in the last week was how great it will be to see the guys, their old teammates. I didn't hear anything about the fans. It was a 180 afterwards. Maybe because everybody who wore a uniform has spent twenty years doing other things besides being 1986 Mets, it didn't dawn on them how important their being 1986 Mets is to the rest of us. It's probably never dawned on us that they don't realize they're 1986 Mets 24/7. We met in the middle of our perceptions and everybody came away giddy.

From the Upper Deck, more so than I could get from TV, the applause just rose, '86er after '86er. Those most absent from the scene to date — no-shows on Ten Greatest Moments Day or All-Amazin' Night — seemed to receive a little extra oomph (from me anyway). Kevin Mitchell in a Mets jersey? Hadn't happened since October 27, 1986. That was big. Doug Sisk, who left behind a threat that he'd enjoy the World Series ring he was about to earn in Baltimore more than the one he got here? He's forgotten he ever said it; I'm sure of it. Danny Heep, the minibane of my 1986 existence? Except for when Howie Rose mentioned he had been the Mets' first designated hitter (Boo! on the DH), I greeted him as if he helped my favorite team win its last championship.

Two Mets from The Day stood out above all others. One was Wally Backman. The anticipatory reaction swelled when Howie began his introduction. This wasn't the guy who had a murky relationship with the law. This wasn't the guy who managed the Diamondbacks for four days, none of them during a season. This wasn't the guy who's been, if not blackballed, then probably grayballed out of his sport. This was our Wally. You could not take him away from us anymore. You were never traded to Minnesota and Gregg Jefferies never swiped your job. You were on when Lenny hit that home run off Dave Smith. Right here, at Shea Stadium, you're good as gold.

The other was the Lastings Milledge of 1983, Darryl Strawberry. Damn it, you're forgiven. You're always forgiven. We forgave you slipping in and out of common sense and good behavior during your eight-year Mets career. We forgave you every time you made a wacky proclamation of loyalty to another uniform on this coast or that. We forgave you all your menace-to-society actions. I looked up at the DiamondVision four years ago this month when you had to thank the fans for voting you one of the Mets' three greatest outfielders in a taped message wearing an orange jumpsuit. Whatever I was ambivalent about dissolved that night. And this week, after you characteristically left me rolling my eyes over your decision to absolutely not attend and then absolutely attend this celebration, all I had to see was you in No. 18, introduced last.

Darryl Strawberry is always welcome to be a Met at Shea Stadium. And forgiven in advance for whatever the hell he says or does next. It comes with the territory.

Impossible, of course, to look at the great but not Great homegrown Met of the mid-1980s and not think of the even greater but not Great Met of the mid-1980s. Twenty of the 24 Mets who made the postseason roster were at Shea Saturday night. One was utterly unavailable. Watching Darryl kept bringing me back to Doc. And going back to Doc will never not bum me out until Dwight Gooden goes back to where he needs to be. As the starting pitchers trotted out — Aguilera, Darling, Fernandez, the not-so-stubborn Ojeda — I joined in the applause, of course, but I wanted to tell my 55,000 soulmates to take a little something off their appreciative fastballs. Save something for Doc, he's the ace. But Doc wasn't coming out.

Roger McDowell and Lee Mazzilli are Major League coaches right now. You can't tell me their teams couldn't have gotten along without them for a game, but since they are employed by clubs perceived as Met rivals, I guess they have to make a living. Ray Knight and Davey Johnson, on the other hand, were ludicrous by their absence. Watching the tableau unfold, all those teammates in an embrace with all us fans, I couldn't believe Ray or Davey would see a clip of it and not be filled with regret. It occurred to me that for all the 1969 reunions that have been held at Shea (four, by my count), Gil Hodges couldn't attend any of them. I wish I could have mentioned that to Davey Johnson. As for Knight, maybe he'll make it for the 25th, but as someone who just went to his 25th high school reunion and found it conspicuously lacking by comparison to his 20th, I can tell him he missed the good one.

What else wasn't perfect? The parachute bit was a little cheesy, especially since the Mets have always disowned Michael Sergio. But if you were going to honor his action, you couldn't bring him out for a nod and a wave? You couldn't shine a light on the likes of assistant trainer emeritus and our pal Bob Sikes? You couldn't have convinced the most identifiable 1986 voice this side of the late Murph, Tim McCarver, to hop the shuttle from Boston? 1986 was more than just the 20 players, two coaches and one GM who were on the field.

Most glaring was the zero acknowledgement of the just-leaving, just-arriving, just-passing-through Mets of 1986. On an evening when Dave Williams came up from Norfolk, donned No. 32 and effectively channeled Rick Anderson, no Uncle Andy? No space for the man who single-handedly clinched the division, then-young Dave Magadan? Couldn't give No. 48 once more to crazy Randy Myers? You singled out George Foster, Ed Lynch and Bruce Berenyi for rings even though they were brushed off the team before '86 was out. You couldn't single them back in for a night?

And you couldn't arrange to hand out a pack of commemorative 1986 baseball cards to EACH AND EVERY ONE OF US? This "first 25,000" giveaway jazz is a disgrace worthy of the cheap-ass Chicago Cubs. In 1986, promotional items were handed out to every single fan. If the supply ran out, rain checks were issued. It was goodwill. The insidious plot to get you there early enough so you will stick around for two hours and buy $4.50 hot dogs is unbecoming an otherwise admirable organization.

Naturally, if I got my cards, I wouldn't say boo. But for this particular game, I was picked up and driven by my friend and fellow '86 scholar Rob Emproto. His failure to recognize and my failure to (sufficiently loudly) point out his lane on the Cross Island was, in fact, the entrance to the Throgs Neck Bridge gave us the unexpected pleasure of a detour across Long Island Sound and a cameo as one more bumper on the bumper-to-bumper Cross Bronx Expressway. By the time we turned around and doubled all the way back to the Grand Central, all the cards were gone (even though it was only 6:10). I was steamed at first, didn't much care as the night wore happily on but am annoyed again, more on principle than the need for more cards.

One of the highlights of '86 was flipping the Cards, you know.

Peeves aside, it's a night that goes in my Treasured Memories book. I've stayed a fan of the New York Mets for all of my sentient life, I suppose, for three basic reasons.

1) I get to be a part of something bigger than myself.

2) I hope to see them win again.

3) I like reliving what I've loved living through.

Saturday night wove all of that together in a way a fan who takes it very seriously would script if he could. Well, this fan is always looking to make edits, so let me not get carried away and tell you it was perfect. It wasn't. But it was as close as a 1986 postscript will ever get to such a state. When they have one of these pregame things that lives up to expectations and then they win the actual game, it's like a doubleheader sweep. It felt that way eleven nights ago when I helped welcome home Mike Piazza and left with a W, too. It felt that way times '86 last night. I wasn't just glad I went. I felt thrilled and privileged to be at Shea Stadium.

And those racing stripes there I feel are pretty sharp.

I'll leave the account of the feeling in the park to my co-blogger (probably making his way into the cheerfully crowded front car of a 7 train as I type) and concentrate (mostly) on the broadcast. Because the second Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling came back into the booth from the celebration on the field, I knew this was going to be a good one. Good with a slight chance of Rick Sutcliffesque greatness.

While Gary Cohen's partners were down below, it was time to marvel at what time has done to the '86 Mets. Some -- Tim Teufel, HoJo, Greg Prince favorite Danny Heep, Bobby Ojeda -- still looked thin and fit. Hell, HoJo looked like he could still play. Others -- Doug Sisk, Ed Hearn, Kevin Elster (who appeared to be doing some kind of Buddhist thing with his hands) -- had ballooned to El Sid levels. (By which no insult is meant: If transported through time from 1986 to the present day, my 17-year-old self would take one look at his future and burst into tears. And it should be noted that El Sid himself looked pretty slim.) And tonight demonstrates that Met fans do forgive: I was wondering if Doug Sisk might get booed.

No surprise, but Keith returned to the booth on fire. That was immediately clear when he answered Gary's rather straightforward question about how it felt to be down there receiving cheers by saying he felt like Scipio Africanus returning to Rome. Yes really. Then there was a nice moment. Keith was still wearing his '86 uni top, while Darling wasn't. When Gary asked about the discrepancy, Keith said they'd have to rip his off. Everybody laughed, but he meant it. Keith's sharp tongue, unvarnished opinions and libertine ways could make it easy to get lazy and assume he's too hard and cynical to be moved overmuch by a sentimental evening like this one; by the same token, you might assume that being in New York and connected with the Mets would make this night not as special for him as for someone who'd been away for years. Wrong on both counts -- it was obvious this meant an enormous amount to Keith, and that was nice to see. (The jersey did come off later -- they're being auctioned for charity.)

As the innings went by some of the '86ers dropped by the booth for an inning or two. Lenny Dykstra was funny, saying he'd dreaded facing Mike Scott in a Game 7 of the NLCS because that would have meant listening to Gary Carter moan about how Scott was cheating. Nails's response (paraphrasing): "We know he's cheating -- we can't do anything about it!" He then looked at the camera and gave a rather nice speech, telling "all you little guys" that are told they can't do it not to listen to that, that if they worked hard enough they could do it. Moving stuff, except Gary then tried to work with Lenny by bringing up David Eckstein as proof. Nails was curtly dismissive, because Eckstein doesn't hit home runs. OK, Lenny. (Later, Keith offered a priceless, squeaky-voiced impression of Dykstra complaining about how starting pitchers made so much money working every fifth day.)

I admit I cringed when HoJo (who didn't visit) came up for discussion and the conversation turned to Whitey Herzog doubting how Howard could hit all those home runs. Darling started talking about how deceptively strong HoJo was, and I realized he wasn't around a couple of years ago, when Keith stunned the booth by matter-of-factly discussing HoJo's bat-corking prowess. Uh-oh. But Keith, for once in his life, was diplomatically silent.

Jesse Orosco's visit was interesting, too. I confess for years I've watched the image of Jesse flinging his glove into the air after striking out Marty Barrett and looked for one thing: The Glove That Never Came Down coming down. Because obviously it did, and I was sure that if I looked at the peripherals instead of the obvious, I'd see it. I never have, but Jesse discussed what happened to it: Buddy Harrelson retrieved it, and it was given to Steven McDonald, a police officer who was shot while trying to stop a robbery in the summer of 1986, an injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down. (As recorded here.) It was tempting to imagine The Glove somewhere above our heads in low orbit, but this is nicer.

Orosco also said he got "smoked by Gary Carter" in the celebration and wound up pinned in the celebratory pile, which led Keith to recount being stuck in that same pile, nose-to-nose with Kevin Mitchell. He said neither of them could move and just started laughing. "It was a good pain," said Keith.

The last visitor was Darryl Strawberry, who spoke movingly about trying to help people by recounting his own experiences going from the top to the bottom and then clawing his way back again. (Well, it sounded good. Not to be unfair, but Darryl's off-field walk hasn't always kept up with his talk.) After Milledge tried and failed to corral Garrett Atkins' at-the-time-fatal-looking home run, Straw muttered that he still thought he might have caught Mike Scioscia's decidedly fatal homer off Doc in the '88 playoffs if only he'd gotten back to the fence quickly enough. Straw also dissected his '86 postseason homers off Nolan Ryan and Bob Knepper. It always amazes me how players remember the small details of key games, at-bats and even pitches so well years after the fact. Maybe they do nothing but watch old game films, but I'm inclined to take it as a reminder that this game demands more than physical gifts. Many of these guys are stars because they can also summon up superhuman focus.

Anyway, it was a nice coincidence that the on-field Mets, the 2006 variety, were extraordinarily quiet while honored guests were parading in and out of the booth and there were tales to be told. Then, once the visits were over and the present-day Mets had the stage to themselves again, they took full advantage, cold-cocking the luckless Jeff Francis and his hapless Rockie teammates.

It was odd to see them in racing stripes, down to the blue button on the caps and the patch on the sleeves. (Even the gilled Jetsons helmets were all blue for the night.) I'm glad those uniforms are gone, but I suppose it isn't shocking that for at least one night they looked absolutely appropriate, and made me feel sentimental.

And whether it was Jose Reyes working back from an 0-2 count to draw a bases-loaded walk, Lastings Milledge shaking off all the dirt kicked on him by the fan base, Dave Williams answering the bell before a packed house on a mound he'd never seen before, or Carlos Delgado playing first like he should have worn #17, the current edition of the Mets earned those stripes. Save me a seat for the 20th anniversary of this very special team, willya?

Postscript: Oddest sight of the night? Glenn Close singing the national anthem (very well, too) in the horrifying '93-'94-style uni with the tail. I decided against immediately pouring Drano into my eye sockets in hope that some reasonable explanation for this might be offered. And, happily, one was: The back of her uni said CLOSE 94. 1994 wasn't particularly close -- we were mediocre and 18.5 out when the owners tried to kill the game -- but good enough for me.