Being a baseball fan is hard work. At least the players can do things. Our primary occupation is to squirm, fret and get lost in our own anxieties.

Death Month '07 began in earnest with the Alternate Reality World Series, known in this universe as the World Series of Bitterness, or the Except for the Fact That the Cardinals Beat Us World Series. And it didn't seem like an invitation one would accept happily. In one corner, the suddenly struggling Mets, with their offense punchless and pressing, outfielders expiring on an hourly basis (David Newhan got eaten by paperwork, to be spat out in New Orleans), and the bullpen gone from sterling to suspect. In the other corner, the American League champs, engaged in a dogfight for the top spot in what might be baseball's best division.

Detroit has always been terra incognita on my baseball map. (Here be Tigers!) This is about all I know or have ever known about them:

* They've got one of baseball's greatest uniforms, one that's not just simple and classic but legitimately looks old. And bonus points for the subtle but effective orange D on the road.

* Rusty Staub was traded there in return for Mickey Lolich, who retired because he was too fat and then unretired once he didn't pitch for us. I still hate Mickey Lolich.

* They beat the tar out of us 10 years ago in a series we seemed ill-prepared for, a humiliation that turned me against interleague play and left me afraid for years to come that the Mets would acquire Bobby Higginson, who wasn't actually any good. That series left such a scar that I was startled to read we'd returned the favor by sweeping them in 2004. We did? Really?

* Cobb, Kaline, Trammell and Whitaker, Jack Morris, Mark Fidrych and ... ummmm ....

* They've got Sheffield and Magglio Ordonez, both of whom talk too damn much but hit the ball all over creation, and a bunch of guys I've never really heard of but who are really good, except when the Cardinals hit balls to them in October.

Not a lot to go on, but I grasped that facing the Tigers didn't seem like the best possible treatment for being undone by some very un-Phillie-like play from the Phillies. (Points to Ron Darling for his smug note of the Royals' early outburst tonight and his dismissive, "They'll go back to being the Phillies.") And despite the outcome, you can't exactly say the patient's been cured. Two solo home runs, a sac fly that came within a whisper of being overturned on appeal and the fewest pitches seen since the second keg of a company softball game aren't exactly an offensive explosion, and the middle relievers couldn't spit the bit because they were never saddled. Jorge Sosa was masterful, and we should all give thanks for his hard work and the Jacket's wise counsel, but all the starters have been good to excellent of late.

Still, one thing my co-blogger's finally rammed through my extra-reinforced skull is in the end, you don't dwell on style points. Mets win, Braves lose, Phillies lose. What more do you want out of a night of baseball? It wasn't even dark in Detroit by the time things looked a lot brighter for us.