...there was a team that had a starting rotation many -- including some of us -- thought was better than ours. Whose lineup seemed to stack up pretty well with ours. A team that talked big that this was their year, for the first time since 1980 and the second time since ... well, since never.

What happened to the Philadelphia Phillies? They're on the DL -- Freddy Garcia and Jon Lieber and Tom Gordon and Brett Myers are sidelined, Pat Burrell's disappearing act continues, and Jimmy Rollins and Chase Utley and Ryan Howard can't do it all themselves. I mean, Dobbs and Ruiz and Happ? Who are these guys? (Though Michael Bourn is positively Endyesque as a figure of fear if you're a batter who's just sent one into the gap and sees him closing ground out there.)

The Phillies have had a run of horrific luck. But bad luck's part of the game, and so far we've done what we're supposed to do when confronted with a wounded, unlucky opponent -- step on his throat, since you know he'd step on yours. Like the Phillies did in the beginning of the month, as a sputter against the Diamondbacks turned into a disaster against them, kicking off that lovely 4-14 stretch in which we won once a week. Ugly, but we then finished the month 8-1, however, making June 2007 about the most encouraging damn 12-15 month I can remember.

In the beginning of the year it was our rotation that looked old and suspect. Now the Phillies barely have a rotation, and we find ourselves indignant at the idea that John Maine might not make the All-Star team, and largely shrugging off a hamstring strain for a guy with a 7-3 record. Jorge Sosa had one more start before the All-Star break; we'll hand that one over to Mike Pelfrey and see if New Orleans has sharpened his sinker and dulled his anxieties, and assume Sosa will be back in two weeks. Up next for the Phils? Someone named Kyle Kendrick, who began the year in Reading. If Kyle Kendrick pulls a Darrin Winston on us, the Phils salvage one of four. If we prevail, the Phils are a .500 team.

A bit of amnesia's a good thing in baseball -- it lets you revel in 8-1 to the exclusion of 4-14. It might be good for Phillie fans too, considering the ill portents abounding. In the seventh, Aaron Rowand went racing toward the center-field fence, then went three-quarters over it, with Carlos Beltran's second home run of the day actually glancing off his glove before finding its right and proper home beyond the fence. As the play unfolded, it sure looked like a replay of the circus catch Rowand made last year, robbing Xavier Nady in a game that the rain ended before we could get to Gavin Floyd. Except this year Rowand didn't catch the ball. (Though he did keep his nose intact.) This week, rain-shortened wins have been on our side of the ledger -- sorry, Anthony Reyes. Even when we don't play we win: witness the suspiciously spiked Mets-Cards finale, which just happened to come on a night when it would have been really good for the Mets to get on a bus early for a double header against a division rival. The fact that the skies cleared by around 9 that night and stayed that way? Purest coincidence.

All this is a roundabout way of saying I'm not putting my money on Kyle Kendrick tomorrow.

"Greg? Is that you?"
"Um, yeah. Hi Shea."
"Where have you been all Friday? You missed the day-night doubleheader on TV. The Mets swept!"
"I heard. Great for us."
"You must've heard. You have an extra-big smile on your face."
"Sure. I'm always happy when the Mets take two."
"From the Phillies, no less."
"Yeah, I guess that's who they played."
"You guess! Silly boy. You know it was a potential battle for first place and that by sweeping the Mets ensured they'll at the very least leave town no worse than where they came in."
"You don't say."

"Well, you missed an exciting day of baseball. I'm going to get a crusty usher to wipe down your cramped seat with a grimy wet rag so I can tell you all about it. Fish a single out of your wallet."
"No, that's OK. I'll just stand here."
"Well at least let me find you a stale pretzel and a Diet Pepsi with no cap. It'll only be $8.50."
"Um, no. I'm good. I had something."
"Are you all right, Greg? Usually you're starved for what I can give you."
"No. I mean yeah. Fine. I'm fine. What's with the third degree?"
"How about a nice five-dollar-and-twenty-five-cent slice of Sbarro pizza?"
"No."
"Maybe I should get you some help. There's a number for the Dallas police department somewhere above a urinal in my upper deck..."
"I said I'm fine!"

"Greg, something about you is different. You don't want to sit with me. You don't want anything I'm offering you. You're suddenly immune to my charms. And you weren't around to watch the doubleheader against the Phillies...wait! You weren't...YOU WERE!"
"What?"
"You were at Citizens Bank Park today!"
"Huh? What would make you say such a crazy thing?"
"Don't deny it! A stadium knows when one of its fans has been somewhere else. And what's that plastic red batting helmet in your bag? That's a...PHILLIES ICE CREAM HELMET! You were!"
"Now, Shea, don't get all hysterical on me."

"HYSTERICAL? You're cheating on me!"
"What cheating? I went to see the Mets! I've gone to see the Mets in other ballparks before. I've shown you the pictures. I went to RFK two years ago and you didn't mind."
"Yes, but this is different."
"Why?"
"Because it's Philadelphia. Because it's so close. Because you think that tarted-up, red-brick whore of a new ballpark of theirs is prettier than me!"
"Shea, don't be like that."

"I'll be any way I wanna be!"
"Yeah. That's the problem."
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
"Huh?"
"I said WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. I couldn't hear you over your decrepit, ancient sound system."
"I NEVER!"
"That's right you never. You never sound good. You're never comfortable to be in. Your food tastes terrible. Your bathrooms are a horror show. You make it impossible for me to get around you. You treat me as if I have nowhere else to go."

"How could you say all that after we've been together for 35 years? After all the great times we've had together this year?"
"Oh Shea. It's not about that."
"What do you mean it's not about that? You, Mr. Sentimental Blogger, you, it's always about that with you. That practical 'why shouldn't we be modern and comfortable' jazz is Jason's bit. With you, it's always 'Shea Stadium is home, Shea Stadium is special, Shea Stadium is ours.' I guess I'm not that special anymore, huh?"
"No."

"WHAT?"
"Well, not with that crappy attitude."
"WHAT?"
"No, I've NEVER liked your attitude! I love YOU, but your attitude SUCKS! You act as if I'm doing you a favor by being with you as often as I am. I was with you last Friday, last Saturday, last Monday, last Tuesday, and you squeeze me for every dime, you paw through my stuff, you eye me suspiciously, you give me no room to breathe, you act like I'm some sort of moron, you don't even speak clearly to me."

"And I suppose Citizens Bank Park speaks clearly to you."
"Yes, as a matter of fact, Citizens Bank Park has the greatest sound system I've ever heard at a baseball game."
"When did that become so important to you?"
"It isn't. I don't care about a sound system, but..."
"But what?"
"But it's nice to be somewhere where things work the way they you figure they're supposed to in the 21st century."
"Oh, don't worry. You'll have a place like that soon enough."
"Don't start with that Citi Field stuff again. I've barely given Citi Field a second look."

"What are you talking about? I've read your mash notes!"
"That? I was just trying to be fair."
"Fair? Are you fair to me? You're running down to PHILADELPHIA to sit in that floozy tramp of a stadium?"
"It's not a stadium. It's a ballpark."
"Excuse me. I forgot multipurpose stadiums aren't adequate for Mr. Ballpark anymore. Mr. 'PNC Park is so precious, let's move it to Flushing.'"
"Not this again."
"Don't think I've forgotten all those googly-eyes you were making at Pittsburgh five years ago."
"It was just a vacation."

"So now you need a vacation from me?"
"Stop putting words in my mouth. How about putting some decent food in my mouth?"
"WHAT DID YOU SAY?"
"Shea, you make me sick with the garbage you sell me. Why do you think I keep bringing sandwiches with me from 7-Eleven?"
"You said it was your delicate digestive condition."
"Who do you think gave me the indigestion in the first place?"
"Oh, that's it. You're not seeing any more games in me for two weeks."
"Like I don't know the schedule."

"Anything else? Anything else your pretty ditzhead of a 'ballpark' do for you yesterday?"
"Well, everybody who worked there couldn't have been nicer."
"So why don't you go to Disneyland if you want nice?"
"Do you have to take everything I say the wrong way?"
"Well, what do you want from me? I forced all the ticket scanners to spit out a 'Welcome to Shea Stadium' after you go through security. And you get some of your change back correctly if there's change at all. Isn't that enough?"
"Maybe not."

"You don't come to me for the Mets? Didn't you always say that that's what you and me are all about?"
"Again with the words in my mouth. Yes, Shea, I love you and the Mets and you know it. But god it was refreshing to be in a place where everybody treats you like a valued guest, not a shakedown object. Where everybody smiles and not just because they begrudgingly went through some half-assed customer-training session. And a place where I can hear the PA, yet not be overwhelmed by it and where I can see everything from everywhere and where they serve some of the best barbecue I've ever had. Where I can go to the men's room and come out dry!"
"So I'm not good enough for you anymore?"
"Hmm."

"What? What did you say? Was that a 'yes'? I'm not good enough for you anymore?"
"I didn't say that."
"One doubleheader and you're through with me?"
"I wasn't there for the doubleheader."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying. I was there just for the day game."
"You were?"
"Yeah. I met my friend Fred from Baltimore at 30th Street Station because Philadelphia was a mutually convenient spot in the middle and there were tickets for the game available since it was a makeup of a rainout. I didn't stay for the nightcap. I listened to it on the train coming back."
"So you don't love that...that place enough to have stayed the whole day?"
"I guess not."

"Oh Greg! You do love me more than any ballpark!"
"I didn't say I didn't."
"Oh come here and let me charge you an arm and a leg for subpar concessions and surliness. Tell you what, let's forget everything I said and we'll watch today's game on Fox together. You can tell me all the things you love about me all over again."
"I can't."
"Why not? I'm not mad at you anymore."
"I'm going back."
"What?"
"I'm going back later today. Taking another train and meeting some other people. Going to another Mets game in Philadelphia."

"Oh. I see. Well. I hope you're very happy together, you and your SIGHTLINE SLUT! GO! GO HAVE ANOTHER BULL'S BARBECUE SANDWICH! GO HAVE SOME MORE TURKEY HILL ICE CREAM! GO USE A CLEAN BATHROOM! GO BE TREATED LIKE A HUMAN BEING!"
"Um, OK. See you tonight. Bye."

If it's the final Friday of the month, then it's the sixth installment of the special Top 10 Songs of All-Time edition of Flashback Friday at Faith and Fear in Flushing.

Juan Berenguer, Ray Burris and Roy Lee Jackson each recorded one hit in 1979. That makes them the kindred Met spirits of Roger Voudouris.

Unless Warner Bros. had a helluva promotions department and I missed it, Voudouris never belted out the Star Spangled Banner at Shea Stadium that decidedly unspangled season, but Roger may have unwittingly issued the anthem of our year at the bottom with "Get Used To It." The Mets finished last in '77 and '78. They secured sixth in the N.L. East on May 7, 1979. Didn't like their position? Couldn't stomach nobody hitting more than 16 homers, nobody driving in as many as 80 runs, only Craig Swan topping 6 (yes, 6) wins? Tried not to notice how little company you had as a member of the Met patrol? Barely tolerated Richie Hebner and couldn't fathom Sergio Ferrer, who collected one hit fewer than Berenguer, Burris, Jackson or Voudouris even though Sergio was an infielder and the others were all pitchers or singers?

Too bad, Mets fans. Get used to it.

Of course Roger Voudouris' single (single being the 1979 Mets' hit of choice, delivered preferably with the bases empty) had the advantage of being peppy, upbeat, uplifting, bringing a tap to my toe, a smile to my face and a hook to my head that was implanted late that spring and has yet to be removed.

There weren't many Mets fans extant in May and June of 1979. And I've yet to come into contact with a sole fellow aficionado of "Get Used To It". Voudouris was not only the embodiment of that most misunderstood pop music creature, the one-hit wonder, his hit wasn't terribly pervasive. I'm guessing about as many people in the New York area heard it in 1979 as professed optimism that the local National League franchise was going to go on a tear any decade now.

Yes, the 1979 Mets depressed me. Everything about 1979 depressed me. We were low on energy, low on confidence, high on malaise (even if the president never used that word). I was finishing tenth grade that spring. One of the last days of school there was a nasty racial incident. I don't remember the particulars, but we got to go home early. It was cloudy that day. Not metaphorically, but actually. May and June of 1979 were a torpor. No wonder the Mets and Pirates had to suspend play one night because fog enshrouded Shea.

Yet through the pea soup, through the gas lines, through the crisis of confidence, through the dark tunnel that led to 99 losses (a six-game winning streak at the end of September mysteriously averted a hundredth defeat) and a third consecutive last-place finish 35 long paces from Pittsburgh...through all that, there was "Get Used To It" by Roger Voudouris, a happy song for unhappy times.

I won't pretend it's what got me through those bleak and humid afternoons. It couldn't have. I don't think I heard it more than a half-dozen times while it was charting and peaking at No. 21. But it was there somewhere and I really, really, really liked it. I liked it a lot then. I kept liking it a lot. I like it so much that it ranks fifth in my personal Top 500 Songs of All-Time.

Pretty good for someone I'm betting you didn't hear then and haven't noticed since. To you Roger Voudouris is probably the musical equivalent of Justin Verlander — a no-hit wonder. To me, he's...well, I wonder. I heard "Get Used To It" on American Top 40 on 99X in 1979 once a week for a few weeks. I heard it on WGBB, Freeport, while checking for any breaking news regarding our high school's contretemps. I don't think I ever heard it on WABC or WNBC. I don't know where else I could have heard it while it was on the charts. And after one or two recurrent spins on Miami's WAIA over Christmas break in 1981, I'm certain I never heard it again on any over-the-air outlet.

There was no XM 7 or Music Choice Channel 824 (on Cablevision) back in the day. I've heard Roger Voudouris regularly the last few years through both of these marvelous vehicles. I've gotten used to "Get Used To It" enough so that though it's still a treat when it pops up, it's no longer a shock. I no longer believe that I only imagined that this song existed.

Having withdrawn from 45-buying by high school, I missed my golden opportunity to push him into Billboard's Top 20. By the mid-'80s, good luck trying to track down the single or the album. Even Memory Lane Records of Baldwin, purveyor of Pele's Greatest Hits and other musical oddities, couldn't dredge it up until a promotional copy of the LP mysteriously appeared in a back room in 1994. Within two years, Rhino Records, bless its kitschy soul, included "Get Used To It" on its 25th and final volume of the essential (to me) Super Hits of the '70s: Have A Nice Day series.

So I had vinyl and digital proof that there was indeed a "Get Used To It" from 1979. It still sounded peppy. Boy do I love that opening. It's twenty seconds of pure ditty. Carnival-like, not altogether different from the calliope effect found in the No. 9 Song of All-Time. The back of Voudouris' album cover lists only rhythm guitar and lead guitar, but I hear a little keyboard, a little percussion or maybe the magic of synthesizers. Nice combo feel. Whatever it is, it's effective. If the whole song was just those twenty seconds, it might have made the Top 500 anyway.

The first lyrics you hear are actually a little on the lazy side. I did not know what you were about/Something called love made me wanna find out. "Something called love" is a phrase a middle-school poet gropes for when he needs an extra syllable. Who talks like that? The next line, Did not think you could ever care/But I'm outta control 'cause you're takin' me there is even dopier, yet in the mellow 1970s, "takin' me there" was as good a direction as MapQuest could spit out today.

OK, so it wasn't genius, but it got you to the doorstep of the chorus: "I couldn't believe our love would last/It's comin' on stronger/comin' on so...much...fast...ER!" Nice build, great internal rhyme. (I'm so fucking easy.) And now the chorus:

Get used to it.
'Cause I'll be around.
Yeah!
Ya better get used to...
All my love.

I don't know what it says about me that you can make the case that at least half of my Top 10 are songs in which a guy is kind of stalking a girl. None of the others, though, is quite as straightforward as "Get Used To It." With 28 years' hindsight, the message of "Get used to it, 'cause I'll be around," is more than a little creepy. But backed by those ebullient synths and that nonthreatening California laidbackitude, I don't think Roger Voudouris means any harm...even if he's a persistent bugger in the very next verse:

Get used to it, don't let me down.
You pulled me in, so don't turn me around.

Gotta love taking the title of the song, inserting it into the chorus (standard procedure) and THEN putting it right back to work to emphasize that he's not kidding, get used to it already yet. Besides, this relationship is obviously as much your idea, stalker object, as it is Roger's:

You didn't hesitate and told me just how you feel.
There ain't no mistake, this time it's for real.

See? SEE? Why are you leading him on? Get used to Roger calling up a great deal. Or get an unlisted number.

Sadly, nobody got used to Roger Voudouris as spring became summer and as 1979 became 1980 and as even WAIA in Miami stopped playing "Get Used To It". He was a true one-hit wonder. Many are tagged as such, few are authentic. For example, Vanilla Ice's is often referred to as a one-hit wonder. Uh-uh. He may not have been everybody's cup of Ice, but he made the Top 10 twice and the Hot 100 five separate times. Later in the countdown we'll hear from Dexys Midnight Runners. There was more to them than "Come On Eileen" even if the rest of their singles output never passed No. 86 in Billboard.

Not Voudouris. There is no evidence he ever released another single in the U.S. or that if he did that it scratched the surface of public consciousness. There is scant evidence of his recording career, period. His 1979 album "Radio Dream" (perhaps referring to his airplay prospects lacking any radio reality) yielded nothing else noteworthy or successful. There was an album that came before it that some dude on Amazon trashed. I found an article that indicates he was part of a northern California — Sacramento — music scene of sorts. And he apparently was more widely heard in Australia (hosting a TV show called, fittingly to my way of thinking, Countdown) than he was in America. He wrote and he produced for others after "Get Used To It," but there was never a second hit. Roger Voudouris died of liver disease in August 2003 at 48.

Rhino has great liner notes as a rule but they didn't offer much on Roger. His co-writer and producer Michael Omartian is noted for working with Christopher Cross, Peter Cetera and Michael Bolton, all stalwarts of VH1's amusing recent countdown of the 40 Most Softsational Soft Rock Songs. I'm not surprised there's a connection. Watching VH1 make gentle fun of those gentle songs, I wondered why Voudouris' exemplary contribution to this genre never gained enough traction to warrant consideration in such a retrospective. Rhino called "Get Used To It" a "radio-friendly single," but if it was so radio-friendly, why was radio so standoffish toward it? While Voudouris was takin' it there to No. 21 in Billboard for a second consecutive week on June 23, 1979, soft rockers Randy VanWarmer, Kenny Rogers and Rex Smith were outranking him, each of them filling the spots in the Top 10 not otherwise occupied by Donna Summer.

What was so great about them that wasn't great enough about Voudouris? Roger was snappy; they were sappy. Can't be looks. There was no MTV then. And even if there was, Kenny Rogers? Granted, I once glimpsed a picture of Rex Smith in Us magazine and thought, without looking too closely, that he was a really hot girl, but Voudouris seemed capable of holding his own in that realm. If the cover of Radio Dream is any guide, Roger could have been the love child (or kissin' cousin) of Jackson Browne and Rick Springfield, not to be mistaken for a really hot girl, but passable for pop purposes.

Radio definitely could have been friendlier to Roger Voudouris. More people should have had the chance to get used to or, perhaps, get sick of "Get Used To It". Too late now (even though Barry Manilow might want to think about covering it for his inevitable next compilation of remakes). Maybe just as well. Maybe hearing it more than a handful of times would have been a turnoff. God knows that picture on the album cover is. Still, it makes you one-hit-wonder why some songs endure as Softsational and others are only you and some Aussies remember.

Roger may have understood the fleeting nature of semi-stardom better than I do. He didn't believe "our love would last". My affection for what he left behind, however, does.

The No. 6 Song of All-Time was heard at the end of May. The No. 4 record will be played at the end of July.

Next Friday: Summer of contention.

No game tonight. No makeup announced. Good chance for those of us planning to be the kind of obnoxious visiting fan we despise at Shea to prepare our road grays and bon mots ("HEY BURRELL! YOU SUCK!") for Citizens Bank Park.

While you're otherwise without Mets baseball tonight, we present some FAFIF classics to get you through the precipitation until lightning strikes your Internet provider. Ladies and gentlemen, the 2006 National League Division Series as told by your co-bloggers — and you.

NLDS GAME 1
Wednesday Afternoon Lights
More-Substantive Commentary to Follow
Best Episode Ever
Holy Timoniel!
4 O'Clock Thunder

NLDS GAME 2
Tom Has Come Today
Depends What the Score is

NLDS GAME 3
Let's Make This a Night to Remember
Capping Off Holy Saturday
The Night Second Billing Was First-Rate
Reality Trumps Satire
Pride Wenteth After a Fall

No need to delve into the NLCS right now. I've seen enough of the Cardinals for one week.

Great idea this quitting while we're ahead and before lending too much dignity to Anthony Reyes.

Goodness knows Tom Glavine deserves a backdoor win after the dozens we've thrown out the window on his behalf since 2003. I missed the one Cardinal hit that was apparently a close enough call to have made things almost unbearable. Imagine Wright made what I am told was a makeable play. Who would want to spend the rest of our days explaining, "Well, we've never had a no-hitter, but we did sort of have a no-hitter in the rain in 2007 — it didn't count as a no-hitter, but it was a complete game and there were no hits..." No thank you. A six-inning, rain-curtailed no-hitter would not have been enough to send Godot home happy from the Jimmy Qualls Waiting Area.

Not to pour discontent on a soakingly adequate victory, but I have to express the following plea to the cable television channel that broadcasts our team's games:

Enough already with the airing of the Mets Classic of September 21, 2001 as rain delay filler. You're taking the most sacred baseball game in the history of Shea Stadium and treating it as if it's a handy installment of Heartland Poker Tour. The first baseball game in New York after September 11 deserves more respect than that. As does your core audience of Mets fans.

Where's the 1973 World Series film when you need it?

Swish that saliva...prepare that hock...ptui! Gotta get the bad taste of an eleven-inning loss out of your mouth.

Yeech. Bad game. Lost at the bat, in the field, on the mound and by the manager. No one culprit. All are guilty.

And yet? It's just a loss. Just a loss even though it snapped an encouraging four-game winning streak. Just a loss despite it tripping up what was becoming standard-issue ninth-inning Met resilience. Just a loss to the, yeah, Cardinals, a team whose players and followers (save for the dude in the ANKIEL 66 jersey I said hi to in the loge concourse) I care for less and less with each passing second, but also the Cardinals whose ability to end a season with one hellaciously unlikely homer and bracing final out no longer exists — not this month, not this year. And just a loss despite my personal disappointment that my host and friend Rich deserved a win on his 47th birthday and that I came one lousy Julio Franco tapout from inking an 11th W in the '07 portion of The Log.

But it didn't happen. The Mets have stopped hitting almost altogether again. It's not as disturbing as when they were doing it in the swoon portion of June because their starting pitching has been so darn good. Maroth, newly National Leagued and totally lefty, I expected impotence against yet we got away with it. Todd Wellemeyer? As soon as the Cardinals fan with whom I exchanged pregame pleasantries mentioned Wellemeyer had a huge ERA and thus we should handle him, I was suspicious. Whenever an opposing team's fan tries to sell me on the hittability of his team's pitcher...uh-uh, ain't buyin'. I will note, however, that I'm impressed that the fellow knew the ERA. I long ago stopped keeping close tabs on stats that involve decimal points.

Jose Valentin, temporary hero and partial goat...I guess. He had two balls to field that would have prevented at least two runs had he fielded them, and the second wouldn't have mattered had he gotten to the first because without that first run, the game wouldn't have gone to extra innings which is when the second scored. That is if you believe if in the "everything else would have happened the same way" theory of baseball, which I don't except when it suits my needs. Anyway, Valentin did drive home Green in the ninth with the tying run and did headily move up to third while I was flailing in my high-five attempt with Rich. Plus he's wearing a knee brace and how can you stay mad at Jose Valentin?

Scott Schoeneweis su...nah, I can't type it. It's too easy. We know what it is he does. He does it virtually every time he comes in. For doing it he will be paid $3.6 million bucks, which rhymes with what he does every time he comes in. My question is why couldn't or didn't Wagner stay in one more inning? He threw two innings Monday, granted. But he was smokin' in the tenth. Nine silly little pitches to retire Ludwick, Miles and Stinnett (Stinnett catching Isringhausen and the Mets wind up losing — it was 1995 all over again). You're gonna tell me he couldn't go out and at least start the eleventh? What a waste. Unless he specifically told Randolph he couldn't go, it was a bad managerial move. And if he specifically told Randolph he couldn't go out of some closer's code of conduct, then bad Wagnerian move. Anything that leads to Scott Schoeneweis sucks.

Whoops. Typed it.

We've already taken the season series from the Cardinals if you were keeping track. I can't be certain we'll be at Shea in October but I'm damn sure as one can be after nearly half a season is done that they won't be at Busch. Young Brendan Ryan...ptui!, of course, but it's not haunting. It's just a loss in June to some extraneous visitor from the Central. The Phillies and Braves won. Our leads on those titans of competitiveness are 2-1/2 and 3-1/2, respectively. No cause for massive soul-searching, though. I'm convinced the Mets have rescued themselves from whatever was plaguing them during the long night of 13 out of 16, partly because I say so, mostly because I can't go through another three weeks of bingeing on cringing and whinging.

Eighty-seven games remain in the 2007 season. I'm fairly confident we'll win one of them real soon and then maybe another.

***

Confidential to the terribly authoritative chatterbox who sat behind me in Section 22, Row H: The Mets' rightfielder who was traded last year has a last name that rhymes with "lady" or "Sadie," not "laddy" or "Paddy"; it was mentioned several times per Mets game from April through July in 2006. Also, Xavier Nady wasn't traded because Duaner Sanchez came down with a sore arm, but because Sanchez was injured in a traffic accident; it was in all the papers and blogs. Finally, the slow, arcing, old-timey pitch of which El Duque occasionally throws his own version was not known in its heyday as a "gopher ball," but, rather, an eephus pitch. It became a gopher ball only when hit for a home run, as was the case when Ted Williams knocked one of them out of Fenway Park in the 1946 All-Star Game versus Rip Sewell. You could look it up...or you could just go on factlessly jabbering within earshot of the next reluctantly tightlipped baseball fan who sits in front of you. I think I know what your choice will be.

EXT. -- NIGHT. OUTSIDE SHEA STADIUM.

Game Eleven went to the Mets, just as did Games Eight, Nine and Ten. Where 2006 is concerned, those are four wins that do us a fat lot of good. But where 2007 matters, the sweep of the Cardinals to start the season certainly pushed us toward a better future and last night's Shawnoff shot added another welcome pinch of distance between us and the Phillies, us and the Braves.

"Fat lot of good" has such a negative connotation. Roget might say beating St. Louis this year has done us a zaftig quantity of excellence. I wouldn't argue.

2007 is all that matters right now. 2006 is in the books. I will forever love most of it, a bit of it will nag at me into the next life, but its conclusion is no more changeable than 1962's. Thus, beating the Cardinals in drumlike fashion in April and on Monday night is a great thing for the present and meaningless to the past.

Not that the past doesn't inform the present. I mean, boy, when Shawn Green touched down on home plate to end either a searing eleven-inning pitchers' duel or an interminable offensive lameout, and I realized what team had just succumbed to this current spark of Met magic, well, tee-fucking-hee, y'know?

I did make a point of securing tickets for this game expressly to boo the defending world champions. And I did what I came to do. But to feel as if my bile was being directed properly, I would have been better off staying home, logging on to the Injuries page at stlcardinals.com and booing it. I don't ever want to see Yadier Molina again, but it would have been nice if he had given me the satisfaction of allowing me to communicate his suckage to him without a television screen getting in the way of him hearing me. I longed to remind Jim Edmonds of what a horrendous human being he is, but he was hiding on the Disabled List. Braden Looper didn't step up at Shea when I needed him either (but what else is new?).

There were enough Dreadbirds worth expressing contempt to, however. Just not enough contempt to go around. I was a little disappointed in my 40,074 neighbors, save as ever for Laurie, who hatched a scheme to melt down all 2006 World Series rings into bullets and aim them at...well, I really shouldn't say anymore lest the authorities be alerted. Pujols was jeered in that insipid "I know him, he's the star on the other team" way. But that was it. So Taguchi, the dagger-plunger of Game Two, was oh so ignored. Scott Spiezio, another early NLCS villain, went scot-free. All sorts of flying pests with unfortunate October pedigrees — Miles, Duncan, Encarnacion — were permitted to parade anonymously on the same field where they dashed millions of dreams.

Honestly, majority of Monday night crowd, what was your stupor about? You'll boo your first baseman. You'll boo your setup man. You'll boo whoever's handy as a home team scapegoat. But the Cardinals? The Cardinals you've already paid to see? The Cardinals who wrecked your autumnal plans? You can't express individual displeasure with each of those preening, ringbearing bastards right in front of you every time each of their names is announced? Sorry, this is a Mets fan sin comparable to that committed by the in-the-moment lunkheads who failed to stand and applaud John Olerud and Edgardo Alfonzo on their 2003 returns...and everybody over the age of 12 who does the wave in the midst of a 1-1 death match.

Maybe it was just acoustics and my section. Because on the way out, after Wagner buried (for a night) the ghost of Taguchi, after Heilman found St. Louisians he could steamroll and after Mr. Green put a decisive dent in both the score and scoreboard, there was an extra edge to the walkoff happiness around me. (Having attended the last five walkoffs, I think I've developed a discerning eye on these occasions.) This had obviously been a very different Mets-Cardinals game from the last one I attended in October. Back then, everything that was emblematic of 2006 wasn't instant nostalgia — it was what was goin' on. Last night? Exponential Jose! and Sweet Albeit Co-opted Caroline and Metallica's heralding of the rock-steady Sandman all felt old, out of place, past-living.

But 2006 anthem "Takin' Care of Business"? A hardy perennial for 2007 and hopefully beyond. Bachman-Turner Overdrive (and the lefty slugger who cued it up) served to unleash some eight-months-removed furies in the concourses and particularly on the exit ramps. The grinning group with whom Laurie and I trotted out timed its turns so it would face a flock of Cardinals fans dragging their dejected tails down the facing ramp. Every time they saw the outlanders, they gave them a humongous chorus of "LET'S GO METS!" When one of the enemy countered with something about who was awarded jewelry as a result of 2006, he was reminded that that was last year.

And "LET'S GO METS!"

Green's homer, by the way, came off Russ Springer, the least reviled villain in Mets history. While we can all fall out of bed in the middle of the night in the dead of winter and recite Kenny Rogers' dossier of disaster chapter and verse, I have yet to meet any Mets fan who cringes at the name Russ Springer, winning pitcher, on merit (Oly, Shawon, Robin...out, out, out in the top of the eleventh), in the Kenny Rogers game. Russ Springer was the Adam Wainwright of his heartbreaking postseason. If Russ Springer is in the same ballpark as me, I boo him heartily. But y'know what? It wasn't until I was on the 7 to Woodside that I remembered who threw the home run ball to Greenie and what it was about him that distinguished him from a thousand other middle and long relievers. While we were at the game, I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

We've won four in a row. And I'm calming down from a crushing loss in the last century. There's hope for us all.

An attaboy! to loyal commenter Jacobs27 for being the guy I saw coming off the train before the game in his sparkling 37 14 41 42 FAFIF t-shirt. Nice to meet you, Jakey — keep up the great fashion sense!

Also, if you're not keeping up with Metphistopheles, you're just not taking advantage of some of the best the Met blogging experience has to offer. Read his side of the triangular story from Saturday night's happy ending.

Two summers ago the Human Fight, our friend Pete and I were all watching the Mets take on the Angels. Bottom of the 10th, Mets down 3-2, two on and two out, and Cliff Floyd slams a long drive into the right-field seats, just foul. Pete was thrilled -- obviously Floyd would hit the next one several feet to the left, now that he had the range. The Human Fight and I were glum -- as we gently lectured Pete, it never happens that a batter hits a home-run-distance foul ball and then manages to recalibrate for a long drive that stays fair. What invariably happens, we explained, is the batter strikes out. (Hell, Cliff said the same thing. You could look it up.)

Of course that night Floyd promptly did hit a home run. The Human Fight and I gaped at each other. Pete was sunnily convinced he'd been right all along.

Pete would have loved tonight's game.

First Carlos Gomez slams a ball into the left-field loge -- and even tempts the baseball gods with an anticipatory strut. Then he hits a home run a few feet to the right of where his long foul went. (And struts again. He'd better learn to stop doing that.) Gomez is awfully raw, and besides his occasional rookie faux pas, he reminds me of a puppy the way he constantly seems in danger of falling down, the way puppies do when they're still growing into their feet. But he sure looks like he'll grow up to be a champ -- watching Gomez race Reyes across the infield or pair off with Jose on one of the Mets' five-dimensional celebratory handshakes is nearly as fun as watching him grow almost visibly in confidence with every at-bat. And get rid of his unfortunate Diamondvision mug shot, in which he looks like a spooked colt, and we just might have another Mets matinee idol. (While we're at it, could someone please reshoot Ricky Ledee's picture? He looks like a psychotic drifter, which isn't helping me put aside his Yankee past.)

After Gomez's recalibrated shot, hours and hours and hours passed, during which Emily and I watched Mike Maroth coolly dispatch Met after Met with wouldn't-break-glass stuff, Met pitchers wriggle out of confrontations with Albert Pujols (and with Juan Encarnacion, whom I was sure would get us eventually, being Juan Encarnacion) and a single sky-blue balloon drop down from the upper deck every four to five minutes. I never bothered to find out what the exact nature of the balloon-generating process above us was, because the truth couldn't have been good as our imaginings -- a birthday clown whose party hadn't materialized, a balloon factory, a rip in the fabric of spacetime, etc.

When Green lofted a ball towards the right-field corner, I didn't think it was a game-winner. It was tailing out of our sight, blocked by the mezzanine. A sneaky one around the foul pole? Maybe, but I doubted it -- after all these years I've got a pretty good sense of Shea trajectories. The next ball he hit? In Chicago, I bet Cliff Floyd suddenly found himself smiling. In San Francisco, I bet Pete was suddenly convinced he was right about something. I looked at the arc it made against the sky, saw Encarnacion slow down, and threw my arms into the air.

Cardinals at Mets: What to Look For
Flashbacks.
Horrible flashbacks.
Horrible, haunting flashbacks to Games Two and Seven.
Horrible, haunting flashbacks to a World Series never played.

Regret.
Regret at opportunity wasted.
Regret at what the flagpole doesn't fly.
Gnawing, burning regret that defies amelioration.

Vengeance.
A desire to avenge the darkest night of the soul.
A thirst for vengeance that has built since October 19, 2006.
A calendar-related impotence that has blotted out the chance for anything like true revenge.

Hatred.
Rare and abiding hatred.
Hatred that can never be mollified.
Overwhelming hatred that laps at the shores of rationality.

Mike Maroth (5-2) vs. Jorge Sosa (6-3).
Partly cloudy, 77 degrees.
SNY/WFAN, 7:10 PM.
Life isn't fair.