The weekend that makes March Metness the memory-laden free-for-all that it is came to an end Sunday, with the final eight qualifiers for the Rick Sweet 16 earning their trips to the next round. While some pack for home, others pack for quintessence. Here's who and/or what made it to Getaway Day and what they did once they got there.

MIRACLE REGIONAL
Ball Off The Wall (6) vs Banner Day (3)
Ball Off The Wall gave Mets fans every reason to Believe. The one-of-a-kind bounce (score it Fence-7-5-2) allowed the Mets to move within a half-game of first place on September 20, 1973, a position they'd seize the next night and, improbably, never let loose of the rest of that year. It's moments like those that make fans want to scribble uplifting message on bedsheets for years to come. Funny thing, though, is the Banner Day banners came out in seasons far removed from 1973. No matter how much the Mets fan outlook is informed by a play as perfect and perfectly bizarre as Ball Off The Wall, the banner phenomenon was in place 11 years before Richie Zisk succumbed to Ron Hodges' well-placed tag. There were banners and placards flying through the Polo Grounds before the Mets could ever dream of reaching .500 let alone reaching a game below .500 — which is where their record stood when Hodges drove in John Milner in the bottom of the inning when he outed Zisk. This, like that game, was a battle that lasted a full 13 innings, but when it was over, Banner Day slid home with the winning score.

Marvelous Marv (7) vs Rheingold The Dry Beer (2)
"CRANBERRY! STRAWBERRY! WE LOVE THRONEBERRY!" So went the chant at the Polo Grounds in 1962. What were those fans...drunk? Only on love for the quintessential 1962 Met. Or perhaps a little on the sponsor's product. We can't tell from here. It is ironic, in light of this matchup, that Marvelous Marv Throneberry's latter-day fame would come from his starring in a beer commercial. It's too bad it wasn't for Rheingold The Dry Beer, a brand that disappeared from the market by the time Miller Lite was hiring old athletes to demonstrate the manliness of being calorie-conscious. The Mets would find other cult heroes, other first basemen, even another fan-magnet whose name ended in berry. They'd also take their business to Schaefer and, once the company that brewed it evaporated, Budweiser. But does anybody think of Mets and beer without thinking of Rheingold? Anybody over 40 at least? Even somewhat under 40? The sudsy connection is too strong to be watered down, even at the stone hands of Marvelous Marv. Rheingold The Dry Beer wins — it will take on Banner Day — and graciously throws a victory party for everyone to enjoy. Everyone? Even Throneberry? Well, they wuz going to give Marv a cold one, but they wuz afraid he'd drop it.

MAGIC REGIONAL
Mettle The Mule (11) vs Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? (3)
Some futility is cuter than other futility. 1962 futility, as painful as it was to have lived through for the uniformed personnel of the New York Mets, lives on fondly recalled because there is a mulligan and an innocence to be applied to first-year expansion teams, particularly one helmed by someone as eminently quotable as Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel. When he rhetorically asked, "can't anybody here play this game?" all anybody could do was laugh (and, in Jimmy Breslin's case, take copious notes). But there is nothing cute or innocent or funny about an eighteenth-year expansion team. That was what the Mets had become by 1979, and the introduction of Mettle The Mule as mascot and de facto grounds crew helper underscored that sad, sad fact. It's not Mettle's fault the Mets lost 99 games in '79. Nor were the jokes that followed his removal from the Shea scene — usually involving that strange meatlike dish they were serving in the press room — in good taste. He was just a mule stuck where no more than 788,905 persons chose to be in 1979. Can't Anybody Here Play This Game? may have been a question born of frustration, but it advances here for having left behind the happier legacy. One Hundred Twenty losses, yes, but nobody ever had to clean up after it.

Jose! Jose! Jose! Jose! (7) vs Bill Shea's Floral Horseshoe (15)
Is the lowest seed to make it out of the first round any more than an early season wonder? Bill Shea deserves to be remembered longer than the stadium that bears his name will stand, and it is fervently hoped that the Shea family's tradition of offering the Mets' manager a good luck floral horseshoe every Home Opener will survive into Citi Field. It is also hoped that the new joint will vibrate just as the current one did in 2006 with cries of Jose! Jose! Jose! Jose! and then some. The Sheas did New York proud by returning National League baseball to the city where it belongs. Jose Reyes and those who encourage his exploits are ready to keep the pride going. A happy new tradition edges a beloved and well-meaning established ritual. The four Jose!s next set their sights on answering Can't Anybody Here Play This Game?

BELIEVE REGIONAL
The Happy Recap (1) vs John Rocker (9)
The mere thought of "Hi everybody!" emanating from the tinniest of transistor speakers obliterates every ugly thought associated with the ugliest buffoon to disgrace Shea Stadium in all of its 43 seasons. If Bob Murphy can dismember John Rocker at the beginning of his broadcast, imagine what The Happy Recap would do to him. Murph moves forward. Rocker can buy a MetroCard.

Revised Yearbook (12) vs Seinfeld (4)
Given in-season trading deadlines, waiver wire pickups and minor league recalls, it would figure the Mets' always colorful annuals with their suitable-for-framing team pictures would require a Revised Yearbook. Seinfeld, on the other hand, was Mets-friendly from the beginning. The fifth scene in the pilot episode, when the show was still called The Seinfeld Chronicles, showed Jerry picking up a ringing phone and anxiously telling his caller, "If you know what happened in the Mets game, don't say anything, I taped it," before ever mentioning "hello". Now that's media that had its priorities start from the first run. Seinfeld is already lobbying for its next gig, against the Happy Recap to be scheduled for — when else? — Thursday at 9.

AMAZIN' REGIONAL
Mr. Met (1) vs Serval Zipper (9)
The Queens skyline hasn't been quite the same since the Serval Zipper sign came down. Mr. Met is sympathetic for the loss, but notes he doesn't bother with zippers. He's a stitch man himself. And let's be honest: In your life as a fan, you might peer over the fence and notice Serval Zipper. You might notice U-Haul. You might even notice the occasionally blazing car fire in what's left of the parking lot. But when he pads on by, you can't take your eyes off Mr. Met...especially if he stops and sits right in front of you. For now, he stands at the head of his bracket.

Pete Rose (5) vs 1964 World's Fair (4)
While Shea Stadium and the 1964 World's Fair are linked by birth, boardwalk and Marina, they were not a single-admission ticket. Shea was considered a commercial success, boosting Mets attendance by 650,000 versus the last year at the Polo Grounds and instantly attracting attention among tourists and locals with rides and exhibits like the 32-inning doubleheader, the Jim Bunning perfect game and Ron Hunt's start in the All-Star Game. Robert Moses' other Flushing Meadows project didn't, uh, fare quite as well. The '64 version was not as well received as its 1939 predecessor, did not attract the crowds predicted for it and, not long after it was over, its grounds did not maintain itself as any kind of cohesive going concern — as the New York Pavilion's Gilkeyesque gag cameo in Men In Black illustrated. Pete Rose never called the Shea area home, but as a visitor, he was hardly an alien presence. You gotta have somebody to root against, and for a quarter-century nobody ever quite filled the despicable shoes of Mets Opponent as did Rose. He takes it to the Fair and will bet all he has that he can upset Mr. Met the way he upset Mets fans for a quarter-century.

March Metness isn't so much a big dance as it is a three-week Merengue Night. The first Saturday is when everybody starts to get up and move in earnest. Let's see who and/or what among Day One's winners will be shaking and/or grooving their way to the Rick Sweet 16.

MIRACLE REGIONAL
Let's Go Mets (1) vs Mojo Risin' (9)
Did you know "Mr. Mojo Risin'," the mystical refrain from the Doors' "L.A. Woman," is a perfect anagram for Jim Morrison? Did you know that Robin Ventura intuitively knew it would provide the backbeat for perhaps the craziest September and October in Mets history? Do you remember the bass accompanying Todd Pratt's trip around the bases once it could be ascertained that Steve Finley caught nothing but air to end the 1999 National League Division Series? There's never been a less sensical yet simultaneously more appropriate theme for any Mets' pennant drive. It was "You Gotta Believe" without actually spelling it out. Mojo Risin' belongs to the dying and resurrecting days of the last Mets season of the last century, a magnificently momentous stretch by any measure. But Let's Go Mets is eternal. Eternity beats back the Risin' challenge.

Jane Jarvis (5) vs Mike Vail (13)
Vail is the Cinderella of the Miracle region, ironically going up against the only lady in the March Metness tournament. Mike made it this far based on both the electrifying 23-game hitting streak he put together shortly after his August 1975 elevation to the big leagues and his resounding lack of followup. He earned a starting role for '76 after his strong debut, but sabotaged himself by breaking a foot playing offseason basketball. Not that basketball has anything to do with March Metness, but let's just say flashing in the pan will only get you so far. Ms. Jarvis can pound out a triumphant charge as she heads to the next round against the formidable Let's Go Mets.

MAGIC REGIONAL
The 7 Train (1) vs In Ten Years... (9)
It is not widely known whether Casey Stengel ever opted to take the Times Square-bound IRT after skippering one of his team's many home losses in 1964 and 1965. If he did, it's not out of the question that he might have had to have waited an unacceptable amount of time for the next train. And if we accept that premise, Casey may have turned his wit on the New York City subway system and remarked to a companion, "In ten years, one of my Youth of America has a chance to be a star...or sooner than this damn hell-train will commence to arriving." For a legend whose managerial career ended on a broken hip sustained while getting out of an automobile, perhaps he should have been more patient and used mass transit. In any event, The 7 Train has been synonymous with ferrying Mets fans to Casey Stengel Plaza for well over ten years. It wins. You could look it up.

Outta Here! (5) vs Grand Slam Single (4)
The signature phrase of the most skilled announcer in modern-day Mets history was applied to the signature postseason swing of modern-day Mets history. This is what Gary Cohen had to say about what Robin Ventura did on October 17, 1999: Ventura is waiting. McGlinchy staring in has his signs. The two-one pitch...A DRIVE IN THE AIR TO DEEP RIGHT FIELD! THAT BALL HEADED TOWARD THE WALL...THAT BALL IS...OUTTA HERE! OUTTA HERE! A GAME-WINNING GRAND SLAM HOME RUN OFF THE BAT OF ROBIN VENTURA! Ventura with a grand slam! They're mobbing him before he can get to second base! The Mets have won the ballgame! Did the moment make the call or did the call enhance the moment? The answer to both is absolutely yes. This matchup goes not just to overtime but to a fifteenth inning...and is decided by Cohen's keen and immediate observation, amid a frenzied tableau, that Ventura never got to second base and his presence of mind to note it seconds after unleashing what would be, from another announcer's tonsils, just a catchphrase. Grand Slam Single is indelible. Outta Here! echoes for the ages. The echo takes it. Will it be resonant enough to drown out The 7 Train? We'll find out.

BELIEVE REGIONAL
Shoe Polish Ball (6) vs The Franchise (3)
Shoe Polish Ball contributed mightily to a world championship. But so did The Franchise. Would have the Mets beaten the Orioles without Gil Hodges' heady intervention and stoic powers of persuasion? It certainly helped the 1969 cause, but to imbue it with singular responsibility would be to overlook two catches by Tommie Agee, one by Ron Swoboda, fabulous timing by Al Weis, quick wristwork by J.C. Martin and, for that matter, the bat of Donn Clendenon who came up after the smudged sphere nudged Lou DiMuro into sending Cleon Jones to first. It also obscures the masterful pitching of Jerry Koosman, Nolan Ryan, Ron Taylor and The Franchise himself, Tom Seaver, who threw a masterful ten innings to capture a) Game Four of the World Series and b) this round of March Metness.

Baseball Like It Oughta Be (7) vs Meet The Mets (2)
Bravado boiled into five words takes on two verses, a bridge and a chorus of friendly-like invitationeering. Meet The Mets is a perennial sentiment. Baseball Like It Oughta Be can portray but one annus. And what a sweet annus 1986 was. The guarantee you'd have the time of your life in the Mets' theme song didn't really come true for almost a quarter-century after its debut. When MTM was first heard in 1963, the Mets were preparing to go out and capture 51 ballgames. An improvement over '62, but hardly a peak in one's existence. As for knocking those home runs over the wall, the '86 Mets set the mark with 148, exceeding by nine the previous standard...established in 1962. Info like this Oughta not be ignored. Meeting The Mets is always fun, but Oughta Be pulls off the upset and will meet The Franchise in the Rick Sweet 16.

AMAZIN' REGIONAL
Jack Lang (11) vs Kiner's Korner (3)
Jack Lang is closely identified with the Mets beat given that he was on it from its beginning in 1962 to the late 1980s, first with the Long Island Press and then (after the Press folded in 1977) the Daily News. He also wrote the invaluable team history The New York Mets: Twenty-Five Years of Baseball Magic, contributed to Mets magazine Inside Pitch until 2004 and served as longtime secretary of the Baseball Writers Association of America, a job that allowed him the honor of informing retired players that they were about to be immortalized in Cooperstown. As if that weren't enough, it was Lang who came up with "The Franchise" as the perfect sobriquet for the perfect pitcher, a creation that carries the added bonus of having driven M. Donald Grant to distraction. The chairman of the board once scolded Lang that "Mrs. Payson and I," not Tom Seaver, were the franchise. In all, it was a long and meritorious career for Jack Lang, one of the most Mets-associated people to never actually work for the organization. But Kiner's Korner is Kiner's Korner and Ralph Kiner does not go down easily — or at all — even to a Hall of Fame writer.

Jimmy Qualls (10) vs Buckner (2)
You can argue it was the trade of Nolan Ryan that assured the Mets of missing out on at least seven of the theoretically dozens of no-hitters they could have accrued by now. But it's impossible to consider Jimmy Qualls — lifetime .223 hitter over 139 at-bats — and not apply his name above all others to the no-hitless Metropolitan phenomenon. What ungodly business did Jimmy Qualls have in reaching Tom Seaver for a single when Seaver was two outs from achieving a perfect game on July 9, 1969? Jimmy Qualls experienced, it's safe to assume, 138 completely inconsequential at-bats and one that lives forever in the heads of millions of New York National League baseball fans. When Antonio Perez or Chris Burke or Luis Castillo or Kit Pellow or Chin-Hui Tsao or whoever's next throws up the latest obstacle to that transcendent moment of Met happiness we can all only wonder about, there is but one name that will spring to mind again and again and again. Jimmy Qualls is our quintessential heartbreak kid in our quintessential quest for the one goal we can never reach. What a powerful name it is. If Jimmy Qualls had never been in Leo Durocher's lineup that July night, if Don Young hadn't been frozen out of it by his atrocious defense the afternoon before, if Tom Seaver had cashed in that no-hit, no-walk, no-flaw performance, we would be collectively and retroactively ecstatic for all the days of our lives. But if Buckner doesn't do Buckner...such a hypothetical is not to be contemplated. We would trade a dozen Fregosis and a thousand anti-Quallses for that single, solitary E-3 every time. Outcome: Prepare for Buckner versus Kiner.

Attempting to cope with the baseball anxiety attack this listless spring has brought about, I decided to watch something I recently recorded. This from that: the top of the ninth inning of the 1988 division-clincher aired (again) by SNY last week, Fran Healy talking to special guest in the booth Jack Lang...

Fran: Jack, [can] you believe that the Mets right now will win their second division under the regime that took over in 1980?

Jack: That's right. And what a machine they've built. This won't be the last of these we're gonna see from them. Not with that pitching staff.

I got chills from that exchange. It was a completely reasonable assessment from Lang (amid not altogether unreasonable hyping and prodding from Fran). The Mets were three outs from nailing down their second N.L. East title in three years. Healy said it would have been three had the Mets been healthy "last year," a.k.a. 1987. There were no ifs, ands or buts about those late '80s Mets. Despite a brief bout of dynastis interruptus, we were a powerhouse, plugged in and ready for more.

1986 was considered the norm by September 1988 standards; it was September '87 that had gone haywire. The Mets were, as the DiamondVision highlight reel would confirm on the final Sunday of the '88 regular season, back in the high life again, back where they belonged. We were stopping briefly to be coronated against the Phillies on September 22 and obviously we would take out the Dodgers soon enough and probably the A's right after.

Yeah, with our pitching staff, who would argue? Doc was finishing up an 18-win season. Ron, the man on the mound in the clinch, would get to 17. And theretofore unknown David Cone was piling up a 20-3. Among them and El Sid and closer Randall K. Myers, there was nobody next to 30 years of age. Why wouldn't 1988 be like 1986, avenge 1987 and, more importantly, set the stage for 1989 and the 1990s?

Why wouldn't it, indeed? In the eighth, the Phillies had a rally going, causing Mel Stottlemyre to trot out to take stock with Darling and Carter. The whole infield joined in, including third baseman Gregg Jefferies. It wasn't the Jefferies who would annoy everybody and leave bad tastes in his wake. It was Gregg Jefferies who was earning Rookie of the Year votes based on a late August callup. Standing next to him behind the mound — and moments from starting the inning-ending 6-4-3 double play — was Kevin Elster, in the process of setting a record for most consecutive errorless games by a shortstop. When the top of the ninth rolled around, Lang noted that not only were the Mets blessed by a great young staff and a terrific manager but they featured "the most underrated player in the National League" in left field, Kevin McReynolds.

After Darling got Lance Parrish on a called strike to end the game and give the Mets their second East crown in three years, SNY showed a bit of the postgame celebration. It was rather subdued, owing perhaps to the experience of the '86 vets. Keith Hernandez — who had missed a sizable chunk of the summer of '88 with a bad hammy, thus providing quality audition time to yet another young talent, Dave Magadan — admitted it could never be like it had been when the Mets won in 1986, but pledged he would be plenty excited if...when (he corrected himself quickly) the Mets won the '88 World Series.

I report on what I watched on disc Saturday night not to drag us again through the crushing blow of Mike Scioscia and all those Dodger blues, but because it was so otherwise haunting. Those Mets were a consensus lock to be great for the foreseeable future. Five awesome arms only now scratching their primes. Four youthful position players of high ceiling installed since the last world championship. Plus Darryl Strawberry delivering on all that potential we'd been reading about since Sports Illustrated uncovered him as a high school senior. Hernandez and Carter may have been aging before our eyes, but really: Gooden, Darling, Cone, Fernandez, Myers, Jefferies, McReynolds, Magadan, Elster, Strawberry. What a nucleus! Of course this wouldn't be the last of these we'd see from them.

Again, this isn't about 1988 or the years that directly followed. I'm not here to talk about the past. It's this notion that there exists such a creature as a foreseeable future that got to me while watching this 19-year-old clincher. You would have bet every bit of Monopoly money you had and probably some real bucks, too, that what Fran Healy and Jack Lang were projecting would be so. But there was no knowing. There was no knowing about Scioscia, no knowing about Jefferies, no knowing about the tumult that would spin out of control in what was once a clubhouse of us-against-them fighters, no knowing that a big batch of '86ers would be dismissed across June, July and August of '89, no knowing that Davey Johnson's managing would, depending on whom you believe, not save the sinking ship or maybe contribute to its descent, no knowing that young and stellar talent doesn't necessarily translate to timeless victory.

That was the chill. That and the fact that there was no followup to '86 in the offing. There wasn't even an encore to '88. Imagine a team packed with the pitchers and players I just described not winning one lousy additional division title. Imagine that the franchise that was feeling warm all over for compiling the best five-year record in baseball since 1984 not finishing in first place again until 2006. If I told you that on September 22, 1988, you'd think I was peddling bizarro science fiction.

I even detected a slight chill over the opponents that clinching night. En route to 65-96, the 1988 Phillies were the epitome of nothing special, but they sent up a few young studs against Darling, names that would surely make an impact in the National League for years to come. Ricky Jordan, Ron Jones, Chris James...all good prospects as I recall. They came and they went (Jones with an assist from the unpadded Shea right field wall he ran a knee into a year later). The Phillies would undergo an extreme makeover in 1989, nabbing Lenny Dykstra — another talented and still-young Met in 1988 — among others, yet continue to fall drastically shy of contention right through 1992. As much as any division winner I've ever seen, they captured lightning in the proverbial bottle in '93, gave their fans one magical season, fell short in the World Series and have been absent from October ever since.

Could the Philophiles of late 1988 have imagined they'd go 1-for-18 in postseason bids clear into the new century? I don't particularly mind Philadelphia's lack of results, of course, but it's scary. It's scary that as fans, any team's fans, we get hooked on new players and young players and changes of direction and we're sure we're going to benefit — if it's March — this year or — if it's September — next year. Yet we just don't know. It's the ultimate blind trust.

Theoretically, the future has never been more foreseeably agreeable for the Mets. If the three young pitchers who now seem to have assured themselves of rotation slots each succeed, our 2007 fortunes would figure to do no worse than shadow our 2006 accomplishments. That trio could easily go quartet by April 2008. The outfield would be rehabilitated next, with two of three fast-rising kids patrolling corners currently occupied by short-term elders. Not as publicized but just as tantalizing this spring is an eventual first base candidate who got some good swings in before being sent down. Thus, in a blink, we could be swimming in a plethora of prime: Maine, Pelfrey, Perez, Humber, Gomez, Martinez, Milledge, Carp joining Reyes, Wright and Beltran. Throw in two or three strategically signed free agents by our nonpenurious ownership and we're looking at a nucleus that rivals our not-so-wild dreams from the crest of 1988. If you're inclined to take it a step further, there's the TV network and the new ballpark and the vast resources contemporary sports success seems to yield in staggering amounts every time you turn around. The foundation for this organization shapes up as solid as the accumulated brickage that will define Citi Field.

And you know what it all guarantees for our Mets and our Mets-related happiness? Absolutely nothing. It never did and it never will. Per the in-sickness-and-in-health vows each of us took when we betrothed ourselves to our team, the reality that everything's a year-in, year-out crapshoot shouldn't matter one little bit.

But it's something to keep in mind.