Mets 6, Marlins 4.

The Mets put up a four-spot in the fourth inning against Scott Olsen, Jorge Sosa held the Marlins at bay, and the relievers hung on despite two late Florida runs and the Mets leaving the bases loaded in the seventh and eighth. Seems pretty straightforward.

Ah, but it wasn't. Depending on which medium you were enjoying, Gary and Keith and Howie and Tom did a great job dissecting two half-innings that could have gone very, very differently but for a mischance here and a play not quite made there.

Marlins third: Abercrombie singled to left. Abercrombie stole second. Olsen sacrificed to pitcher, Abercrombie to third. Amezaga hit sacrifice fly to right, Abercrombie scored. Uggla popped out to second. Marlins 1, Mets 0.

Abercrombie's single went to left, manned by Damion Easley now that Moises Alou, Shawn Green and Carlos Gomez are on the shelf. Easley was playing back, and Abercrombie's single was a parachute that Endy Chavez probably would have caught. (No insult to Easley -- he's not an outfielder.) Abercombie's steal of second drew no throw from Ramon Castro, because Scott Olsen practically fell across the plate swinging and getting in Castro's way. If Ed Hickox calls interference, Abercrombie is out. If Chavez is in left the pitcher's hitting with none on and one out. If the umpire makes a call he arguably should have made, same situation.

Mets fourth: Gotay struck out swinging. Beltran walked. Wright singled to right, Beltran to second. Delgado singled to right, Beltran scored, Wright to second. Wright stole third, Delgado stole second. Easley reached on infield single to second, Wright scored, Delgado scored on throwing error by second baseman Uggla. Easley to second on wild pitch by Olsen. Castro struck out swinging. Chavez singled to left, Easley scored. Sosa struck out looking. Mets 4, Marlins 1.

Wright's single to right was a little floater that wound up in no-man's land -- not a bad play, but lousy luck for Olsen. On the double-steal, Miguel Olivo threw to third, trying to get a fast runner with the batter blocking him out instead of trying to nail the lead-footed Delgado unobstructed. Easley's two-run infield single was a tough play, but the error on Uggla that let the second run score was first baseman Aaron Boone's fault -- an inexperienced first baseman, he wasn't properly positioned for a throw that sailed a bit to the left of the bag. The wild pitch escaped Olivo because he made very little effort to slide his body left to get in front of it. Endy's single? It was past Miguel Cabrera, inexplicably playing in with two outs. If Cabrera's positioned normally, he throws Endy out. Toss out the bad luck for Olsen and plays not made because his teammates were out of position or not thinking, and it's 1-1 or perhaps still 1-0. Olsen probably hasn't thrown 44 pitches and maybe isn't fantasizing about what various teammates would look like if he were to catch them across their snouts with a hurled bag of Soilmaster. But what's done is done, and the game is basically lost.

There are probably several thousand things I love about baseball. But one of the biggest ones is that it rewards wide-eyed fandom, occasional attention and experienced, careful scrutiny alike, but in different ways. To a new fan (my four-year-old, for instance), that Mets fourth was a merry parade of unexpected events ending with a crooked number for the good guys. To a fan paying idle attention (lots of us at various points), the game was good company, with a couple of weird plays thrown in for interest. And to a veteran fan watching closely, it was a reminder that games turn on the littlest things, and the recap sometimes doesn't tell anything close to the whole story.

It's three straight Memorial Day weekends that the Mets have visited the Marlins and that would be nothing more than a scheduling quirk barely worth noting except the Mets at the Marlins at this particular juncture of the calendar means one thing to me beyond any wonderful things John Maine, Carlos Delgado and their teammates are doing during their stay at Dolphin Stadium.

It means Bernie.

Bernie The Cat chose the hours leading up to the Friday night game of this holiday weekend two years ago — May 27, 2005 — to leave the building, so to speak. I would say we lost Bernie, but that doesn't sound right. Number one, you couldn't lose Bernie if you tried. There was just too much cat there to misplace. Number two, I would never let it happen.

We found Bernie at the North Shore Animal League on Halloween 1992 and he found himself at home in our hearts before All Saints Day dawned. He is the reason I'm a cat person. He's the reason we adopted him a brother, Casey, six months later and the reason we share our home with another smashing set of siblings, Hozzie and Avery, today. It's impossible for me to lose the feel of what Bernie meant and means to me.

Having served as Bernie's publicist, pro bono, for nearly thirteen years, I can report with total objectivity that Bernie The Cat was a star. A megastar. We should have furnished him with a red carpet and a velvet rope, that's the kind of star he was. You couldn't not see it and swoon. But you also couldn't not see what he was like inside.

See, Bernie would attempt to be aloof but could never quite pull it off. He'd sidle up to me as if it were just a coincidence that I was sitting a few inches to the right or left of where he decided to plant himself at a given moment. No, I didn't come over to see you, I just happen to like hanging out in the same square footage that you occupy...believe me, you shouldn't be flattered. My purring in your presence is not to be taken as tacit acknowledgement that I care for you. But as long as I just happen to be lying in the vicinity of you and whatever you were reading before I plopped myself on top of it, how about you make yourself useful and stroke me about 50 or 60 times? Also, there's a can of Fancy Feast in the kitchen that could use some opening when we're done here in the living room.

The act, repeated regularly, never lasted for long. We'd lock eyes and we'd become one, a man and his cat, a cat and his man. When the rest of the world slept, Bernie was the best friend I ever had. We did pretty well when everybody else was awake, too.

The Mets took three of four from the Marlins in Miami two years ago at this time. The Mets took two of three from the Marlins in Miami last year at this time. The Mets have taken the first two from the Marlins in Miami this weekend. In honor of Bernie's aspirations of aloofness, I'll continue to pretend the National League schedule is just one big, fluffy coincidence.