Surprise!

Greetings from Florida, where I am living proof that the Mets' no-no-hit streak can resist absolutely anything, even the self-pity and self-absorption of bloggers.

My hotel is about a half-mile down the waterfront from a house I lived in as a teenager, and haven't particularly missed -- if you've never been to St. Petersburg, it looks vaguely like L.A., except it's more humid and there's less to do. I'd just settled in at a beach bar (sounds great, but it was raining) and noted that the Mets were up 8-0 in the sixth when I suddenly realized I had a long-ago connection to this hotel. Twenty years ago I'd hop off my windsurfer to catch my breath on their beach, only to get shooed away lest I bother the vacationers. Huh. The things you forget.

Anyway, I called Emily and found her oddly guarded.

"If the Mets game is on, you ought to watch it," she said.

Huh? Ohhhh. 8-0. In the sixth. I get it.

"I understand," I said, thinking (and not for the first time), my wife is so much cooler than I deserve.

I asked the girl at the bar if they could get the Marlins game (I know, it's the Mets game, but think vaguely local) and she scowled. The beach bar didn't have a dish -- it got the same channels as the hotel rooms. They couldn't even watch the Tampa Bay Lightning.

And that's when I knew the Mets would pitch their first no-hitter. Because really, from my perspective it was perfect: I was sitting in the rain in a vaguely moldy beach bar half a mile from a house where my only good Mets memory was Anthony Young somehow not losing a game, watching the Yankees pound the Indians because that was the only baseball I could see. Obviously the night would end with Lo Duca (bone bruise and all) hoisting John Maine high. Did Maine even know the Mets had a no-hit jinx? Probably not. He'd be vaguely amazed and bemused when told, but the knowledge of all those years and all those pitchers would roll right off of him, because -- marvelously, finally -- it wouldn't matter anymore.

Maybe I could take my burger back to my room, get the complimentary wireless access fired up, and get an MLB Gameday subscription in time. But that would surely jinx things. I'd get connected just in time to see Dan Uggla bloop one in. I sat back down. No, it was fate -- I'd watch the Yankees and hope ESPN would break in with an in-game update. Emily would TiVo the ninth -- hmm, no she wouldn't, she knows way better than that. SNY would show it 50 times before the week was out. I was fine, in the sense of "not actually fine, but not totally left out." Greg and our ace commentors would make me feel like I was there, I'd watch the brand-new UltiMets Classic Sunday night, and it would all be fine. I shouldn't be disappointed, even if my role on our long-awaited date with history was to witness A-Rod and Giambi going back to back.

Of course the 7th lasted too long on the crawl and when ESPN cut in and Miguel Cabrera was standing at the plate I had a feeling they weren't spotlighting a particularly nifty strikeout. Then it was 8-2 and just another night of the world's longest streak.

Oh well. I'll leave the details to my better blogging half. In the meantime, to paraphrase Tom Terrific, whatcha crying for? We won the game, 9-2.

Update: And Mark Buehrle did what Maine couldn't? The 16th no-hitter in Chisox history? I swear, this game....

David Wright has now hit in 24 consecutive regular-season games, tying the franchise record set by Hubie Brooks in 1984 and equaled by Mike Piazza in 1999. Wright has done it across two seasons which makes it a different animal from its predecessors, so even if he hits in a 25th straight tonight in Florida — which would be excellent — Hubie's notch on the Mets' statistical bedpost appears safe...for at least a couple of weeks (I heartily endorse gang-breakage of every Met offensive record in 2007, save maybe for Joe McEwing's).

Mike Piazza is an era of Mets history incarnate. His 24-game hitting streak was appreciated mightily between May 25 and June 22, 1999, but is it one of the first things you think of when you think of Mike Piazza the Met? First 24 things?

Hubie Brooks? That's a different story. He's not to be wholly defined by what he did between May 1 and June 1, 1984. Though it would land awfully high on theoretical Hall of Fame plaque, it would be a tad unfair to boil two honorable Met hitches encompassing six Met seasons to one month of a fine player's career.

Given that The David has vaulted the topic of Met hitting streaks to top of mind, I thought it appropriate to revisit the Met career of The Hubie, primarily as recounted in 2005's One Hundred Greatest Mets of the First Forty Years, in which our Mr. Brooks ranked No. 60.

***

It is, sadly, the human condition to lock in one's perception of a situation even when faced with evidence to the contrary. For example, the New York Mets have never been able to do anything with that nettlesome (or Nettlesless) third-base position.

We all know that throughout their entire history it's been one disaster after another, from Cliff Cook to Joe Moock to, god help us, Joe Foy. It's a charming enough storyline to have inspired the ditty about the Seventy-Nine Mets Who Played Third on An Amazin' Era, the team's 25th anniversary video. Yessir, playing third for the New York Mets is like drumming for Spinal Tap: Sooner or later, you're bound to blow up, and not in the way the kids mean.

Except that by 1986, the third-base curse was, for all practical purposes, reversed and buried by Hubie Brooks. The organization did its best to perpetuate the tepid image of the hot corner even when confronted with a competent practitioner. Called up in September 1980, Hubie was handed No. 62, as if to say, third base will eat you alive, kid, don't even bother.

After acquitting himself reasonably in his trial (and working his way down from 62 to 39 to 7), Hubie showed up to spring training 1981 to find Joe Torre handing the job to outfielder Joel Youngblood, who didn't want it, and then catcher John Stearns, who stepped on a ball and couldn't play it. Left with only a third baseman to play third base, Torre had no choice but to pencil in Hubie Brooks at the 5-slot, and Hubie Brooks stayed there for the better part of the next four seasons.

He didn't move off of third until, team man that he was, he shifted to short to make room for Ray Knight in the late summer of '84. Hubie was shortly thereafter packaged for Gary Carter, a trade nobody could rationally dispute.

He left two legacies in his wake:

1) Brooks was followed at third by, roughly, Knight, HoJo, Magadan, Bonilla, Kent, Alfonzo, Ventura, Alfonzo again, Wigginton and Wright. Sure there were some gaps and yeah, the total's grown from 79 when that song was recorded to 134 (including exactly one inning of one game played by Kevin Morgan in 1997, the only inning of the only game he ever played in the Majors), but the position's been held down by reasonably able men for decent stretches of time.

2) When Mike Piazza hit safely in 24 straight games in 1999, it was Hubie Brooks' 15-year-old mark that he matched with an eighth-inning homer off Vic Darensbourg. Gary Cohen announced it with something like "Move Over Hubie!"

It's not so bad to root for a team on which Hubie Brooks could endure so long as an aspirational figure, even for the greatest-hitting catcher of all time.

In a lot of ways, this was the perfect baseball game: Tight and tense early, with some intriguing twists and turns, and then a leisurely gallop away from the field. During Glavine's third-inning duel with Ryan Howard (bases loaded, two out, forces of good clinging to a 2-0 lead) I turned to Emily and declared, "Baseball is so cool!" Because whatever the outcome, how can you not love crafty Tom Glavine willing his frozen hand to wing change-up after change-up (inside, outside, up, down, a little faster, a little slower) at a monstrous young power hitter who can not only hit the ball to New Jersey but also think with the situational acumen of a 10-year veteran?

By mid-summer I'll be hard-pressed to remember Glavine's six pitches to Howard -- a non-decisive at-bat in an early-season game that turned into a blowout victory. But this is the absence that leaves us mopey and downtrodden in the winter: a little confrontation that leaves you staring at the TV and trying to think along with pitcher and hitter and nodding and clapping and frowning and holding your breath and saying silly things. Even the least-interesting baseball game is usually good for a moment or two like that. If winter's good for anything, it's eluded me.

And for the record, Howard walked, forcing in a run and making the score Mets 2, Phillies 1. Which was far from the worst thing in the world, as Glavine promptly carved up the once-terrifying, now vaguely pathetic Pat Burrell to end the inning. When the pounding was over, Charlie Manuel apparently had to be restrained from punching a talk-radio host. I think it's safe to say the vultures are gathering around poor Charlie. The Phillies being the Phillies, the odds are at least even that they'll do something equal parts panicky, PR-minded and just plain dumb. (Just as long as they don't do something that might actually work, like naming Jimmy Rollins player-manager.)

While 8-1 blowouts are always welcome, it was nice just to get to see some baseball. And nicer to send the boys down to Florida, where they and we shouldn't have to worry about aging hamstrings, slippery baseballs or whether a foul ball in liquid-nitrogen conditions might shatter poor Paul Lo Duca's finger. Catchers are tough hombres: Lo Duca has a bone bruise, which means he hopes he'll play tomorrow. If my intense life of typing and riding the subway ever left me with a bone bruise, I'd probably wrap my injured hand in a quilt and shriek at anyone who got within five feet to keep their distance. Lo Duca will most likely be squatting behind the dish in Miami with his hand in the line of fire, knowing at least one foul ball is likely to hit him in the exact same place. Great quote from Lo Duca, via John Delcos's awesome LoHud Mets blog: "I wanted to go in the corner and cry."

Speaking of Florida, I'm heading that way myself, to offer the blogger perspective at a conference on sportswriting. (Talking about blogging will likely prevent me from blogging. I believe that qualifies as ironic.) Will be on the wrong side of the state to see Soilmaster Stadium up close, but as it happens I do have tickets to Devil Rays-Indians at the Trop. Mr. Prince will do the honors until I can return with a full report on catwalks, retiring Wade Boggs's number and whether there actually are such things as Devil Rays fans.