"Y'know, I've worked for your people a long time. They run this town. They run it a helluva lot better than the agents."
—Artie to Hank Kingsley, "My Name is Asher Kingsley," The Larry Sanders Show

I don't like our new worst enemy. And I'm not referring to the Mets bullpen. Or even this crooked umpiring crew.

Come back Braves! Nothing is forgiven, but I liked and respected our rivalry, even before (but especially in) 2006 and 2007. Not so much the Chipper and the Andruw and the Francoeur and the Smoltz and the so forth, but I liked that when you schlepped up here from Georgia, you schlepped few of your supporters in tow. There's always been a smattering of Braveophiles at Shea, just enough so that you knew we were playing America's Erstwhile Team. When the Joneses did their damage, there'd be a very light and scattered mist of applause, barely audible amid all our booing. You'd see a Braves fan and you couldn't really get mad. Mostly you'd get mystified.

I didn't know there were actually Braves fans.

So we go out and once and for all (for a second year in a row) dispose of the Braves. The king is dead (again), long live the king. That was the other night. Do we get to rest on our laurels? No, two days later we have a new challenger to the throne. And I do not care for them one iota.

Yes, the Phillies have always been on the menu and Philadelphia has always been within easy traveling distance and sometimes Philadelphia has produced a quality baseball product. But none of that ever congealed at once into the big wad of hate that is currently visiting its blight upon Shea Stadium.

Get these people out of my ballpark! I don't want them around. Visitors inflicting themselves on the home team? That's our thing! We get to treat Citizens Bank like our summer cottage. They, on the other hand, are permitted no more than the allotted 150 tickets fans that every team should get under my Met Fairness plan (let them enter a lottery like everybody else who wants in). In all my years of attending Phillies @ Mets games, which is more than thirty, I've never seen as many Philadelphians appear in Flushing as those who have descended like mosquitoes these last two days.

If they're going to bring the karma equivalent of West Nile Virus, the least they could do is bring cheesesteaks.

I don't need their lame chants. I don't need their lame chats. I don't need to hear about the Eagles and the Flyers and the traffic on I-295. I don't need all that woeful crimson. And I don't need them to be happy.

As for who they're here to urge on, I don't need them either. I don't need Jimmy Rollins' obnoxious tendency to back up his words. I don't need Aaron Rowand to perform up to the world championship standards he set only two years ago. I don't need Brett Myers let out in public — nor does the public.

The Mets don't need the Phillies anywhere near them. It's obvious they're not a good fit for our countdown and tuneup plans. They're miserable September guests. They're not welcome here in October. I'm one loss away from believing we may not be either.

Come back Braves and Braves fans. I've hated you people a long time, but you held up your end of the rivalry much less annoyingly than the Phillies and their crowd do.

Profuse thanks to CharlieH and PedroM for providing whatever good there was on this particular Saturday at Shea before it all went to Philad-hell...and if anybody tomorrow brings four empty whiskey bottles bearing the names Emmel, Iassogna, Scott and Kulpa, I promise to look the other way.

At one point during last night's game, I turned to Emily and said something along the lines of "If this were Game 163, with a playoff spot on the line, Met fans all over the city would be dropping dead of heart attacks."

As it was, it wasn't anything like that. (And no heart attacks. We're going to the playoffs. Really, we are. Relax already.) Without the threat of cardiac arrest, we were left with nothing more than a taut, marvelous game between a team battling for its life and a team playing remarkably good baseball. One with guys clawing and biting and scrapping for every base, and one following the leads of an MVP candidate and emerging superstar and a Hall of Fame pitcher. And the latter team in great-looking uniforms we should really see more often.

I mean, there was Wright's ice-breaking drive over the fence, followed by his remarkable, Keith Hernandez In Reverse spearing of Jamie Moyer's pop bunt for a double play. There was Chase Utley playing his Ut-most as usual, one-upping Wright's solo shot with a crucial two-run blast of his own. There was Tom Glavine making everybody in red and gray but Utley look silly, and Moyer turning aside rally after rally from those in blue and orange. There was a huge crowd roaring "MVP! MVP!" and "Jose Jose Jose!" and booing every move Jimmy Rollins and Pat Burrell made. There was an umpire making an idiot out of himself -- somebody tell Paul Emmel that nobody comes to the park to see him reinterpret the strike zone to make a point of etiquette to Jose Reyes, watch Phillie relievers twitch as he accordions between strike calls at the knees and no such calls, or throw gasoline on the flaming torch that is Paul Lo Duca.

Still, I wasn't too bothered by Emmel -- he was playing the role of mutually agreed-upon heel. No, everything about this game was marvelous except for the ending -- engineered by that curling foul pop that a scrambling Mike DiFelice caught with his neck instead of his glove, and Aaron Heilman's too-hasty throw to second. Those were really the Mets' only blemishes, and they proved fatal. But then this was the kind of game in which you sensed the first team to make a mistake and allow extra outs would pay dearly for it. And now that there's a chill creeping into the night air, isn't that the way baseball's supposed to work?

Why can't we beat the Braves Phillies? We never beat the Braves Phillies when it counts. If we don't figure out how to beat the Braves Phillies and soon, we're going to be screwed.

Same yips, different series.

It helps to have a lead bigger than your hand when you decide to lose your sixth in a row to your closest rival, whoever they are. It helps to have perspective that in the middle of September it's awfully hard to blow 5-1/2 games in two weeks...though we are facing the franchise whose predecessors once did worse. It helps to remember the real magic numbers of any Friday night with a Saturday afternoon running right behind it are 162 and 1:10.

Just one game. But what a lousy one to lose.

Culprits? Plenty.

Paul Emmels Funny, my ticket for the very first row of the upper deck box behind home plate with a better than usual view of the plate said I was going to a baseball game, not the The Paul Fucking Emmels Show. Congratulations, you're the star of the evening. HEY! LOOK AT ME! I'M PAUL EMMELS! I COULDN'T TELL BALL FOUR FROM BALL FIVE FROM BALL SIX! I JUST CALLED OUT JOSE REYES! I'M AWESOME! Then as an encore you can't just turn away from one of the starting catchers and let him vent? Turn in your chest protector.

Paul Lo Duca Learn to shut the fuck up, sometimes, OK? We get it, you're passionate. Channel the passion into the passion of serenity. I thought catchers and umpires had some sort of simpatico going. Nice way to blow whatever credibility you had with that breed of idiots. Paul, you're not helping.

Mike DiFelice OK, you were cold. OK, you're barely active as it is. But it was a popup that was in your freaking mitt.

Aaron Heilman What is it with you and throws and the Phillies?

Jose Reyes The Professor needs a class in remedial hitting.

Jeff Conine Whatever number you're wearing, I'm beginning to suspect it shouldn't be on a Mets jersey.

The Iron Triangle The wind was blowing in from the chop shops, the area the city has tried to ignore all these years by not installing sewers. Tonight it was apparent...and redolent.

The Phillies Batboy From Box 700A, seat 1, I watched you chase down a foul ball and sit on a stool by the Mets' dugout for an entire at-bat. One Phillies uniform among a crowd of Mets. That seemed rather bush. Plus you left Jamie Moyer's jacket unattended in their on-deck circle. Whose nephew are you anyway?

The Phillies Fans It took you all these years to find out the New Jersey Turnpike runs north? Maybe I'll see you at Shea later today. Sunday, too? Eagles don't kick off 'til Monday at 8:30...c'mon, enjoy Phillies baseball while it lasts.

Dog Night Get off the field.

The Scoreboard Operator Great that you gave Cyclones updates when they led. Odd how they disappeared by the fifth.

Lousy night in Queens. And Brooklyn. And, though we pay no attention officially, Boston. At least the Braves won...and it doesn't help them one little bit.