Emily and I go out every Saturday night. Every so often, there's a Saturday night game. Every so often, we decide one of these Saturday night games is a must-see: It's Mets-Yankees, or it's a big game against the Braves, or it's an attempt at clinching. So we wind up in a bar or a pub together, parked in front of the TV.

Sometimes when this happens, we fall into conversation with some fellow Met fan. And the process is always entertaining. The first time Emily says something about the Mets or the game, she gets a polite nod or a brief look, and then the Met fan goes back to chatting with me. The second time she says something, it's much the same reaction. About the third or fourth time (depending on how smart the Met fan is), you can see the newcomer starting to recalibrate. Wow, she's talking about Endy Chavez. Hey, she knows Billy Wagner's been lights-out since the All-Star break. Gee, she knows about Duaner Sanchez and his injury.

And then things change -- the fan, if not frightened off by his scrambled gender assumptions, stops treating my wife like a baseball afterthought and starts discussing all things Mets as fervently with her as with me, if not more so. It's happened often enough that now we practically wait for it from the moment some guy at the next table or the next barstool looks over and asks, "Met fans?"

I'm an insanely lucky man. I didn't rate a woman who would endure my mile-long list of faults. Somehow I wound up with one. I didn't deserve a woman who's smart and beautiful and ferocious. Somehow I married one. I certainly didn't deserve a woman who loves baseball and the Mets and knows what catcher's interference is. But somehow I got one. (If you're thinking my luck is Emily's utter lack of it, well, hush. Don't blow this for me.) One summer evening before Joshua was born, I suffered through some 7 train mishap and didn't arrive at Shea until about the third inning. Emily had broken out her full complement of baseball knowledge and was chatting amiably but a trifle coolly with a drunk guy in Jets regalia who was now clearly lovestruck.

"If only you didn't like the Giants," he sighed, "you'd be perfect."

No, Emily doesn't watch every pitch of every game -- a three-year-old bolluxes up your schedule something fierce, and she takes the early shift, so the sixth inning is often the end for her. She doesn't pore over Hagerstown stats or moon over the enigmatic career of Rich Sauveur or wonder if there's a decent picture of Al Schmelz on the Net. But that kind of thing doesn't make you a fan, it makes you a lunatic -- and one lunatic per marriage is enough.

All of this is preamble for tonight's game: Emily attended it with her dad, while I tried to convince Joshua to eat chicken fingers and apologized for repeatedly breaking the unwritten laws of how to color dinosaurs. After four innings, I had a wild hope blooming in my chest: Sure, I got to see the clincher, but she could see history. An end to the Curse of Nolan Ryan. The disbanding of that stupid club. Why not? Didn't David Cone flirt with a no-hitter after his aneurysm? Wouldn't that be a perfect chapter to add to the legend of Pedro Martinez?

Of course, it wasn't to be -- the count stalled at 15 to go. (Nowhere near, but hey, we're Met fans.) Then Pedro lost a little something, got a little unlucky, and before you could blink it was 4-1. Not a bad outing by any means, though it was another Rorschach in how to view Pedro. I think Pedro is incredibly smart not only about the game but also about himself -- he wasn't going to do something foolish out of pride or stubbornness in a meaningless late-September game, but when there's bunting on the stands and October in the air, the artist will look at the baseball in his hand and find a way. Maybe I'm right. Or maybe even Pedro can't outfox Father Time.

Still, it wasn't a meaningless late-September game for Emily.

Over the years my wife's had to put up with innumerable Met-related rages, a smaller but not insignificant number of bursts of overexuberance, impromptu lessons for our son in spectacularly foul profanity, black depressions, winter muttering, complaining that spring training's too long, complaining that spring training's too short, moaning that it's an off-day, moaning that it isn't a double-header, moaning about the All-Star break, hours spent on obsessive Internet searches, hours upon hours of blogging, hours spent on online and offline baseball-card hunts, half-assed conversation because the other husbandly ear is listening to a game on a headphone, and various and sundry other annoyances and offenses.

There have been rewards. She was there for the 10-run inning, for the wild pitch that allowed Game 163, for Pratt hitting it over the fence, for the Grand Slam Single, for Agbayani's homer, for the game of Bobby Jones's life, for Timo leaping into the air to make the pennant arrive earlier. But in recent years she's had too few chances to go to the park. Saturday-night games are rare, the Mets' schedule hasn't meshed well with Joshua's grandparent visits, and the price of being a Met fan instead of a Met lunatic is the lunatic goes to more games. Tonight was different. Nice evening. Pedro pitched. The only thing wrong was the score.

Sorry, sweetie -- I wanted this one for you. Here's hoping the Mets and I can make it up to you in October.

I now understand there are two kinds of nights at Shea Stadium. There are nights when the Mets clinch their first National League Eastern Division championship in 18 years and there are all other nights.

Surprisingly, Wednesday was the latter. I was surprised because since shortly after 9:30 Monday night I've been riding and writing on a cloud. The Mets clinched and stayed clinched. That's the way I've always heard it should be. That's the way, I assumed, it will always be.

But once every 18 years is once every 18 years. After staving off fallibility despite a most fallible lineup Tuesday, they actually went out and lost a baseball game Wednesday. Kind of annoying, but on the other hand, I checked to see if we're still clinched. And we are. We're even officially home-field advantageous, with St. Louis losing and us having beaten them the season series.

Thus, losing is now completely albeit temporarily statistically harmless. Live long enough and you'll see everything.

Noteworthy from tonight's 19th 2006 appearance by yours truly:

• There was no sign anybody snuck champagne (or Champagne) in. Luckily, it proved unnecessary.

• Paid attendance was 37,911. The third of that figure of somebody's imagination that didn't show should be ineligible to attend any postseason games in 2006. Their credentials as fans are to be reviewed as well. I'll take the first 4,213.

• This was my first game since October 2, 1988 that featured the Mets as active N.L. East champs and my first loss ever under those circumstances. Such a thrill I wasn't seeking.

• Slipped back under .500 to 9-10 on the year. But really, the clinching counts as like a thousand wins, so I'll shut up about my record for a bit.

• Matchup of the night from the out-of-town scoreboard:

ATL
WAS

Why, yes. ATL WAS. They ain't no more.

• Our sixth starter, Oliver Perez, looked pretty good. We have six starters.

• Dontrelle Willis is an SOB: Stunning Offensive Batter. Most of his batting average and practically all his RBI are against us. As my companion noted, he deserves a trip to the dirt.

• And speaking of my companion, Wednesday night marked the rain-delayed debut of Mike of Mike's Mets and me of Faith and Fear as seatmates. Two bloggers from two different blogs out in public at once? What are the odds? I felt bad that the Mets lost but, you know, not that bad. We are champions, I saw it with my own eyes. But Mike...geez, the guy makes his one dry trip to Shea Stadium from Up There, Conn. and the Mets pick that as the night to give the Marlins something to feel good about. Given those odds, I'd want to knock the D-Train off his tracks as well. The bottom of the ninth looked promising for a minute and I hoped like heck (saving hell-hope for the playoffs) they could give Mike a 1-0, me a 10-9 and themselves a 93-58, but no. With all due respect to a fine Met blogger, a great Met fan and, based on two meetings' experience, a swell guy, oh well. My can't-hit-lefties, can't-get-out-pitchers, can't-avoid-bad-signs antenna is still on holiday.

All that matters in the interregnum is Go Pedro.

In news so lesser as to be inconsequential, we're no longer the only champion in baseball. Congratulations to the New York Yankees who lowered themselves to celebrate a silly divisional title — backed into yet! — even in the face of A-Rod and the Giambino starring in a remake of Heathers as scripted by Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated. Paul O'Neill, despite being technically alive, must be rolling over in his grave.

How very.