It's been an odd six weeks for this Met fan -- derailed by tons of work, disenchanted with Port St. Lucie's injuries and age, and disinclined to a level I hadn't expected to forgive those caught up in the Mets' September disaster. Relations between me and my favorite team had become somewhat chilly, and I was worried -- for the first time in my adult life -- that there might not be a thaw.

Last night I felt that maybe, just maybe, the ice was thinning. The Nationals' park was indeed gorgeous, and left me thinking about our own date with the future, now just a year away. I found myself perking up at the sight of Lastings Milledge and Paul Lo Duca, and enjoyed mocking the Braves' odd black-and-white looking road uniforms and early ineptitude. "Bobby Cox is in midseason form!" I crowed to Emily after the cameras caught him looking, post-error, like he'd just encountered a bad clam. (I was in midseason form, too: I fell asleep, lifted an eyelid to find Ryan Zimmerman striding to the plate with two outs in the ninth, and turned off the game. Oops.)

But even if you don't miss the best part, the opening-night game usually winds up being unsatisfying. It's partially that it's not your team, and encountering your team solely through scheduling notes and announcer chatter and players' resumes makes the last night of winter all the more lonely. It's also the dearth of other baseball storylines, of hearing what touted rookies and relocated veterans and comeback kids are up to in front of various big, bundled-up crowds and walls draped in bunting. Opening night offers only one storyline, for better or worse, and either way it's like wolfing down an appetizer and then not getting a meal.

But I really knew I was OK when I woke up later in the night and couldn't sleep -- because I was worried about Johan's first impression and Big Pelf's prospects and Castillo's knees and Delgado's reflexes and Jose's head and everything else my mind could seize on. And then when I found myself with a certain bounce in my step, scant sleep notwithstanding, while walking Joshua to school. (Attired, of course, in his new, slightly oversized Reyes t-shirt.) And the kid was fired up, too: At five, he's now old enough to be told that Opening Day is a secular holiday. No afterschool today, I told him -- I'll pick you up at 2:45, and yes, that's plenty of time to see the game.

So we got hot dogs and ice cream and I put on my own finery -- black Mets road uni, Faith and Fear shirt (get your own here), stars-and-stripes Met hat -- and we watched Cubs-Brewers until they put the tarp on and Diamondbacks-Reds until it was time for pregame and we cheered the Mets as they were introduced by the Marlins' public-address guy and then finally Jose Reyes tramped up to home plate with his odd side-to-side gait and 2008 had finally begun. And immediately I was locked in, grimacing at Jose striking out and exhorting Castillo to work the count and sparing only an offhand thought for why I'd ever been worried.

Ah, the game. Johan Santana is good -- we knew that, but this was the day of really discovering it, of appraising his arsenal and how coolly he commanded it, rising above brief trouble like that was just the final thing to check off in his preparations for the long haul of 2008. As important was seeing the Mets poke at Mark Hendrickson the first time through the order, then fall on him like wolves the second time. (When Angel Pagan and Ryan Church announced themselves with a double and single, I scrawled "Angel + Church = Heaven!", which isn't particularly clever but made me happy because, hey, it's Opening Day.) After that the only sour note was the random strike zone (random for both sides, at least) and the briefly worrisome sight of David Wright flopping like a gaffed fish around third base.

SNY did a nice job, starting with the addition of HD on the road. (For which I suppose I must grudgingly thank the Yankees.) I liked that they didn't duck the wreckage of last year, beginning with a hide-your-eyes montage of everything that went wrong in the second half of September -- painful, but far better than pretending the whole thing didn't happen, or that time began with Johan signing a contract. (Though that Mohegan Sun ad repurposing "Super Freak" may have me burying an ice pick into my ears by the Kentucky Derby.) Keith, dependably, delivered his first moment to made the SNY suits cringe: After Gary welcomed Hartford to the SNY family, Ronnie gamely said that he loves Hartford, only to have an incredulous Keith ask, "You do?" Joshua and I sang "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" (and I wondered if I'd jinxed us by unthinkingly singing "the home team") and I tried to explain all the things Hanley Ramirez had failed to do and then Heilman closed the door and Joshua declared "that's a great beginning to the season!" Which it was.

And then the joy of finding out everything else that had happened, all the old names and new names and instant heroes. I mean, did you see Kosuke Fukudome hitting the first pitch he saw for a long double, then blasting a three-run homer to (briefly) save the Cubs' bacon? Did you see Lastings Milledge getting to home plate one long stride ahead of Carlos Ruiz? (Break up the Nats!) Or the Indians and White Sox blasting away at each other like 18th-century warships? Or the Royals offering their fans at least one day of wild joy by shocking the Tigers? Or Carlos Gomez whacking the ball all around the Metrodome, giving Twins fans reason to embrace their new center fielder while honoring their old one? Or, to be less charitable, Tom Glavine going a lukewarm five innings and Yankee fans sitting in the rain for a while and going home? (Heh heh.)

Nothing revelatory there -- just the pulse of life resuming its natural rhythms once again. Nothing extraordinary -- except the routine miracles to be found in any day's full slate of baseball games. Happy New Year!

1. Wish someone who will immediately get it a happy new year today.

2. Wish someone who has no idea what you're talking about a happy new year today.

3. Develop amnesia — what 2007?

4. If you still remember 2007, take a shower. Or a pill. Or a good, long look at Johan Santana.

5. Expect No. 1 starter quality from Santana, but don't count on a win every time.

6. Don't ever use a 4-for-4 by Minnesota Twin Carlos Gomez as a reason to bash Omar Minaya.

7. Allow Willie Randolph April before attacking him for past sins and detecting troubling patterns of misjudgment; he may be right and you may be wrong.

8. Applaud Carlos Delgado without qualification for a month.

9. Give Scott Schoeneweis the benefit of the doubt until mid-May. He can't possibly be any worse this year than last.

10. Take a deep breath before reacting to the first big hit or walk allowed by any Met reliever.

11. Present Ryan Church with a clean slate.

12. Jose Reyes gets 10 stolen base attempts to refigure it all out before being subject to reminders that he ran from second and two out with David Wright up against the Phillies last September 15 (if you haven't developed amnesia about all that).

13. Resist the temptation to take cheap shots at perennially lousy N.L. opponents. One of them is your defending champion.

14. Respect the Phillies and Braves. Do not fear them, not even the Mets-killers among them.

15. Don't let the predictable journalistic abominations that will slobber over the demise of the current Yankee Stadium (opened 1976) while dismissing the end of the one and only Shea Stadium (opened 1964) get to you. Seek refuge in blogs like ours and Loge 13 which present a more appropriate worldview of the Metropolitan area's current ballpark transition period.

16. Keep reading Mets blogs.

17. Tell at least one Mets fan you know who doesn't read Mets blogs to read one — ours or any other you enjoy. That Mets fan doesn't know what he or she is missing.

18. Don't wait for a walkoff win to read Mets Walkoffs and Other Minutiae, up and running after a winter's hibernation.

19. If you like deep, deep Mets minutiae of the Mets Walkoff variety, check out the equally detail-oriented Metaforian.

20. If you don't mind being reminded of the most gaping hole in Mets history, go to NoNoHitters.com and revel in the fact that Mets fans come up with stuff like this.

21. If the mood strike you, do what CharlieH did and start your own Metsian blog. No gatekeepers here.

22. Be outraged — send them a pointed e-mail, even — that MLB shortsightedly short-circuited the legendary and beloved jphilips41's YouTube page, the one with otherwise unseen clips from the '73 World Series pregame shows and the '77 and '79 Mets Old Timers Day ceremonies. Neil Best in Newsday broke the bad news, and it's bad news not just for Metsopotamians and for John Philips but for baseball which is lucky it can crawl, so often does it shoot itself in the free-publicity foot.

23. Should you ever meet John Philips, his next beer is on you.

24. Seeking a substitute for the treasure trove that was jphilips 41's collection won't be wholly satisfying, but you could do worse than the warts & all Shea Stadium slide show presented by Ballparks, Arenas and Stadiums. Other great ballpark, arena and stadium slide shows included.

25. Ignore the Carvel lines at Shea and go for Dippin' Dots instead. That's the ice cream of the future anyway...literally.

26. Somebody go to one of those "watch parties" bars hold when a season starts and tell me what the appeal is. I don't want to watch the Mets with a bunch of drunken strangers, except at Shea.

27. Be amazed by the gall of the ESPN Zone to hold a "watch party" at its Times Square location this Tuesday night for the Mets and Braves when reliable sources inform me that the very same ESPN Zone initially refused to change one of their myriad televisions on a recent Sunday to a Mets exhibition game even though a table full of Mets fans made the request, even though just about everything else being shown on every screen was spectacularly irrelevant to a New York audience.

28. If a nosy child asks you, as one did me last week, if you like the Mets because you're wearing a Mets sweatshirt and then volunteers, "I like the Yankees," don't be shy about responding, "Good for you," loudly in a room full of bored adults, such as a doctor's waiting room. It will make you and everyone in the room feel better.

29. If you are fortunate enough to find a good, old-fashioned stationery store that actually sells baseball cards by the pack and the store owner, moving and talking slowly after decades in the same location, asks you to confirm that "kids still like these, right?" be quick to reassure him that kids definitely still like these.

30. Don't feel compelled to tell him the kid in your focus group is 45.

31. If you turn on your car radio and hear David Coverdale crow, "Here I go again" moments after fulfilling your annual obligation to buy several packs of baseball cards before a new season starts, read into it anything you like.

32. If the first 2008 baseball card you find upon opening that first pack is an American Leaguer with whose work you are only vaguely familiar, it is appropriate to channel Whitesnake once more and think, "Here I go again," because the first baseball card of any year is almost never a Met.

33. Should you gaze upon the midtown sky on the evening of April 8, pay attention to the colors of the tallest building in the vicinity. You will be pleasantly surprised (if you don't click here and ruin the surprise).

34. After Keith Hernandez revealed during a Spring Training game that one of his minor league roommates was Mike Vail and that Neil Allen, for whom he was traded, had the best curveball he ever faced, wonder who or what he doesn't know.

35. Give Wayne Hagin a chance. I cringed during his first Metscast when he said 1986 is a year that will "live in infamy" for Mets fans, but he's got pipes to die for and he's not Tom McCarthy.

36. Stop campaigning for the demotion of whoever's batting .182 after three weeks and insisting Fernando Martinez be promoted at once. Same applies in pitching terms to Jonathon Niese, even if he was born on October 27, 1986, a date that will live in non-infamy for Mets fans.

37. Cheer like hell for Carlos Beltran. Cheer him like he's David Wright.

38. Continue to cheer David Wright as previously cheered.

39. Continue to melt like Dippin' Dots on a hot day at the sight of Pedro Martinez.

40. React to all politicians invading a ballpark with absolute silence. Don't cheer. Don't boo. By your silence, maybe someone will get a clue that we want them concentrating on their government jobs.

41. Line every pocket with pocket schedules. What's the point of pockets otherwise?

42. Make an exception to your "watch party" skepticism when Jon Springer and Matt Silverman host one of their own on Sunday April 6 at Stout NYC, 33rd between Sixth and Seventh. It's to promote the brilliant Mets By The Numbers book that we've mentioned a few times already...and to watch the Mets beat the Braves, if possible.

43. If you haven't bought Mets By The Numbers, you can buy it at Stout.

44. Or buy it sooner. We really like this book around here.

45. We also recommend another selection in the bulging Matt Silverman oeuvre, 100 Things Mets Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die.

46. We recommend it so heartily that we're borrowing generously the book's premise for this post.

47. As we can barely come up with half as many Knows & Dos as Matt did, we truly admire the way he covers his Mets bases.

48. So secure yourself a copy...

49. And enjoy Opening Day...

50. And happy new year!

Just over a month ago I speculated on composition of the Opening Day roster of the New York Mets. I was 80% right.

Do I know my team or what?

Apparently not so much. Even allowing in advance for the possibility of injury, I actually penciled in for March 31 the names Moises Alou, Ramon Castro and Orlando Hernandez, a trio that has spent a combined 472 years, give or take, on the Disabled List since 2007, including right now. They are replaced, respectively, by youthful Angel Pagan, ancient Raul Casanova and possumy Mike Pelfrey.

Matt Wise made the team after all, but Duaner Sanchez did not. He is another ultimately unsurprising disablee, replaced at least for now by Joe Smith, who has shown a penchant for confusing batters in springtime. May it be a long spring for Joe Smith.

And the kid from 2007, Ruben Gotay, is unfortunately Atlanta-bound, replaced by THB Class of 2002 member Brady Clark. Clark's presence among us is a moderate upset given the reported surge in support for Fernando Tatis in the past week. Gotay's loss is a little distressing, especially since he wound up claimed by the Braves (the only thing we'd like them to claim is last place), but I won't pretend I was his biggest supporter. I liked half his bat — the right half — if little of his glove. But the kid was fast and had moxie, as evidenced by his contribution to the memorable five-run ninth the Mets pinned on the Cubs last May 17, and this team could always use more moxie, to say nothing of speed. Then again, Brady Clark wore 93 in St. Lucie (since reduced to 44) and made the team, so that's pretty moxieish if you're scoring at home.

We've been down Pagan's path a bit and it's thrilling to watch an original Cyclone swirl into Opening Day as the Mets' starting left fielder, though a healthy Alou, if such a commodity exists, would be preferable in that role. Whatever Wise chips in will be a welcome upgrade from the way Guillermo Mota crumbled under the pressure of serving up snacks to opposing hitters (without a side of HGH). Pelfrey feels like he's been trying to live up to his prospects since the days of Hank Webb (who played with Tug McGraw, who played with Julio Franco, who played with Mike Pelfrey), but maybe there's some baseball version of lousy dress, great performance at work with him and his tantalizing right arm. The most intriguing thing to me about Raul Casanova is that he was actually the player to be named later in the deal that sent Wally Whitehurst to the Padres.

Yeah, a lot later.

Your crew of 2008 Mets is set for now, and I do mean now. It changes and changes and changes again in the course of a season, so unless you're one of those people who must absolutely have a baseball card for every Met who's ever played, don't get too hung up on who's not here and too attached to who clings to the fringes...unless you are so inclined. It's baseball season almost. It's as good a time as any to develop irrational attachments. Even rational ones.

We are only 24 hours from Johan. I can't wait.

52: Tuesday, June 10 vs Diamondbacks
It is the dream, ladies and gentlemen, of every kid who has ever tossed a ball or swung a bat to put on a big-league uniform. Tonight we honor two boys who grew up to do just that...even if they never got to toss a ball or swing a bat in a big-league game.

They were Mets, in a sense. They were called up to the club, put on the roster and issued a number. They indeed, as the saying goes, came to play. But for whatever reason they made it into a game, either as a Met or for any other Major League team. As a result, their record in the bigs is nonexistent.

It's too late to do anything about that circumstance, but we can, at the very least, announce them as they might have been announced at Shea Stadium had they been penciled into a lineup or at least sent in to pinch-hit.

Your attention please, catcher for the New York Mets, number 22, called up in 1972 from Tidewater, Billy Cotton.

Your attention please, first baseman for the New York Mets, number 21, called up in 1992 from Tidewater, Terrel Hansen.

Billy and Terrel were here for such a brief time, they probably carried away nothing but a scant memory of Shea Stadium. Tonight, we want them to have more than that. Longtime equipment manager Charlie Samuels, who will be escorting our pair of almost-Mets down the right field line to remove number 52 from the wall, will first present each man with a uniform with his own originally issued number to commemorate the dreams of every kid who ever wanted to grow up to wear a Mets uniform.

51: Wednesday, June 11 vs Diamondbacks
Ladies and gentlemen, you have likely heard Shea Stadium referred to as a multipurpose facility. For the most part, that has meant the ability to host the Mets, the Jets and a few other high-profile get-togethers. While those are the calling cards of Shea, there have been a lot of sports played here. Tonight, we pay homage to a few events that deserve to be remembered as well.

The squared circle had its moment in the Shea lights in 1967 when the middleweight championship of the world was settled here. The last man to earn a boxing title at Shea was Emile Griffith, who won his belt by virtue of a 15-round decision over Nino Benvenuti. Please welcome back the champ, Emile Griffith.

From time to time, soccer has been just as prevalent at Shea as it is in the neighborhoods of Queens, as the ballpark has hosted several international matches and a few in the professional ranks of the North American Soccer League and the American Soccer League. New York's most famous soccer team played and won a big NASL playoff match of its own here 32 summers ago. From those 1976 New York Cosmos, the winning goalkeeper from that night, one of the great goalies in United States soccer history, say hello to Shep Messing.

And though it's been a long time since anybody's kicked an American football off at Shea, this used to be an occasional stopping-off point for college teams, particularly the legendary program run by Eddie Robinson. We speak of Grambling University, which prevailed over Norfolk State here in 1975. The Tiger quarterback that Saturday would go on to become the first African-American quarterback to lead his team to a Super Bowl victory. He said "it was honor to play at Shea" because his idol growing up was another Grambling alum, Tommie Agee. That's as good a reason as any for us to give a warm greeting to Doug Williams and ask him to lead our multipurpose all-stars up the right field line to remove number 51.

50: Thursday, June 12 vs Diamondbacks
To Mets management, ladies and gentlemen, every fan who passes through the Shea Stadium turnstiles is entitled to star treatment. One star who is a regular at Shea, however, has been content to be known simply as a rabid fan of the team he loves.

In the pilot to what would become his groundbreaking sitcom, the very special fan we recognize today picked up a ringing telephone and told whomever was on the other end of the line not to tell him the score of that night's Mets game because he taped it and hadn't yet watched it. That's what he said instead of "hello," and we guess you could say he had us at hello. His series would be a showcase for references to Mets past and present and would include, hands down, the most memorable appearance by any Met on any television show this side of Kiner's Korner.

Ladies and gentlemen, to remove number 50 from the right field wall, please welcome a close, personal friend of SNY broadcaster Keith Hernandez — and the most famous Mets fan in the world — Massapequa's favorite son, Jerry Seinfeld.

49: Friday, June 13 vs Rangers
Ladies and gentlemen, congratulations on having endured as long as you have on this date, which happens to be Friday the 13th. Since baseball is filled with nonsensical rituals and superstitions, this seems a good night to carefully pay tribute to the occasional bit of bad luck that has haunted the New York Mets over the years. Quite simply, we think it's a matter of good karma.

We have two guests who are great sports. The first of them has to know his name has been invoked repeatedly at Shea Stadium every time Mets fans have gnashed their teeth at the latest one to get away. We refer, sadly, to the elusive Mets no-hitter. Our first guest also has to know his name isn't brought up with fondness. Nonetheless, it is impossible to watch great, almost perfect pitching at Shea and not, at some point in the course of a nearly spotless performance, think of the ninth-inning single that derailed what would have been the first perfect game in Mets history on July 9, 1969. Since the Mets won that night and that year, we feel we are safe from any black magic he brings us. Please give a warm welcome to the former Cub whose lifetime average at Shea was .429, Jimmy Qualls.

Our second guest, who will join Jimmy in taking down number 49, is known for a streak, but not for one he wanted any part of. Yet the streak happened and he handled all 27 consecutive losses, a Major League record, with grace and good humor. The thing is he didn't pitch too badly during that stretch of 1992 and 1993 when he was saddled with one L after another and the Shea crowd always offered him its heartfelt support. When he finally earned a win in relief on July 28, 1993, you would have thought he himself had pitched a perfect game. Please welcome back home to Shea the man they call AY, Anthony Young.

48: Saturday, June 14 vs Rangers
Ladies and gentlemen, night games in June usually mean daylight extends for several innings. But soon moonlight should be in evidence over Shea Stadium and that's perfect for our theme as we remove number 48 from the right field wall.

You are probably familiar with the classic film Field of Dreams and the mystic chords it strikes where baseball and life are concerned. If you are, you'll recognize the name Moonlight Graham, a young player — a real one — who shows up in the movie just long enough to appear in a single Major League game as a defensive replacement...not even an at-bat.

In the spirit of Moonlight Graham, we have assembled our own corps of Moonmen, if you will. They are Mets with admittedly limited Shea Stadium résumés but surely they are Mets in full. No serious aficionado of the team's history could overlook their presence on the all-time roster

Please greet for one more cup of coffee these Moonlight Mets:

• His Shea, Met and big-league debut consisted of catching the final half-inning of the final game of the 2004 season, the final game, as it happened, in the history of the Montreal Expos and, to date, the final game of his big-league career. Deciding he wasn't going to make it back to the Majors as a catcher, he has remained in the Mets farm system, working hard to convert himself to pitching. You may have seen him this past spring working in exhibition games as a reliever. Say hello again to Joe Hietpas.

• The Miracle Mets were on the verge of certifying themselves division champs when this lefty reliever made his only appearance of 1969 and, eventually, his big-league career, throwing two innings against the Pirates in a doubleheader at Shea on September 19. Give a nice hand to Jessie Hudson.

• His single game in the Majors consisted of the sixth through ninth innings of the first game of a doubleheader versus the Expos right here on September 14, 1971. Within three months, this catching prospect would be sent to the Angels in a trade that involved five players. He wouldn't make it back to the bigs with California but would go onto a lengthy career in the Mexican League and managed Mexico in the inaugural World Baseball Classic. Welcome back to Shea Francisco Estrada.

• The Mets, as they were prone to be for the first four decades of their existence, found themselves short of third basemen on June 15, 1997 when, in the bottom of the seventh, they inserted into their home Interleague game with the Boston Red Sox a pinch-hitter who stayed in to play third through the ninth. He never played at Shea or anywhere else in the big leagues again, but he did stick around, in a manner of speaking, helping coordinate minor league operations for the Mets since his retirement. Say hi to the 106th third basemen in New York Mets history, Kevin Morgan.

• In the last week of the 1993 season, this pitcher tossed a scoreless inning against the Cardinals to mark his Shea, Met and Major League debut. That inning was the 17th. The Mets broke a scoreless tie in the bottom of the frame, making this rookie a perfect 1-0 as a Met. Injuries would prevent his return in '94. and though he'd pitch in a few more games as a San Francisco Giant, he'd never earn another win, so it is that 17th inning at Shea that stands as the signature moment in the career of Kenny Greer, someone who did nothing wrong, only everything right in a Mets uniform. Give Kenny and all our Moonlighters a big round of applause.

47: Sunday, June 15 vs Rangers
Ladies and gentlemen, we want to wish all the dads joining us today a Happy Father's Day and even a happy birthday to all the fathers out there. It's impossible to think of Shea Stadium on Father's Day without thinking of the very first one in Shea's history, June 21, 1964. For one pitcher, it was a perfect day.

Twenty-seven Mets came to bat and twenty-seven Mets went back to the bench. The end result was the first perfect game in the National League in the 20th century. It is a feat that boggles the mind.

To remember that sun-splashed doubleheader opener, we have invited back the three principals from that game's final moment.

• The catcher from the Philadelphia Phillies, Gus Triandos.
• The batter, pinch-hitting for the New York Mets, Johnny Stephenson.
• And of course, the pitcher, who struck out John and nine other Mets that Sunday in 1964. He would eventually be elected to both the Baseball Hall of Fame and the United States Senate where he serves still. Please give a big Shea Stadium welcome to Jim Bunning.

Since the topic is hitless games and since the Mets have welcomed in the Texas Rangers for the first time in Interleague play, we thought it would be nice if Gus, Johnny and the senator had some company en route to removing number 47 from the right field wall. Thus, we asked the president of the Rangers, the author of seven no-hitters of his own and a valuable member of the 1969 world champion New York Mets to join them. Please welcome back to Shea Stadium, the hardest thrower this ballpark has ever known as its own, Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan.

Numbers 59-53 were revealed here.

59: Monday, May 26 vs Marlins
Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to our Shea Stadium Final Season countdown. If, by chance, this is your first game at Shea this season, a quick reminder: At every home game this year, we are pausing in the fifth inning for a brief ceremony in which we introduce one or more individuals with a deep and abiding connection to Shea, tell you a bit about that person or those persons and have him, her or they take a number down from the right field wall to signify how many games remain in the life of this wonderful ballpark.

To continue the countdown tonight, we have someone who spent a great deal of time on Shea Stadium's pitcher's mound during a single game. It was October 2, 1965. The season was about to end but it wouldn't end all that soon thanks to what you would have to call the yeoman efforts of Rob Gardner. Rob took to the hill that Saturday evening in the nightcap of a twinight doubleheader and pitched...and pitched...and pitched some more. By the time manager Wes Westrum took him out, Rob had pitched 15 scoreless innings. His opponent that night, the Phillies' starter, the late Chris Short, matched him frame for frame, zero for zero...and struck out 18 Mets while doing so.

It was a pitching performance for the ages even if eventually it was put in the books as a tie. The Mets and Phils played 18 innings that night, neither team scoring a run. They had to play a doubleheader the next day, the last day of the season.

Tonight, we want to give Rob the opportunity to get some kind of number next to his name for authoring perhaps the greatest forgotten Met pitching performance in the history of Shea Stadium. We can't give you any runs, Rob, but we can offer you the honor of peeling number 59. And to join you, we've asked the two relievers who backed you up to take the walk with you. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome home to Shea Stadium, from your 1965 New York Mets, Darrell Sutherland, Dennis Ribant and Rob Gardner.

58: Tuesday, May 27 vs Marlins
Ladies and gentlemen, throughout the years at Shea Stadium, management has strived to offer you, within reason, a fine selection of food and beverages to make your baseball-watching experience relatively pleasant. Rest assured, when Citi Field opens in 2009, the culinary effort will be kicked up a notch.

Until then, we ask you to remember as fondly as possibly some of what you've eaten and drunk here and if you do and if you are old enough, one particular Shea Stadium sponsor's product will stand out in memory above all others.

From the opening of Shea Stadium in 1964 through the thrilling pennant run of 1973, Rheingold was the beer of choice here in Flushing and a big part of New Yorkers' lives. Brewed in Brooklyn beginning in 1883, Rheingold gave us the Miss Rheingold contest, the Ten-Minute Head and of course a jingle that echoes down the corridors of time. It has been relaunched under different ownerships since and has even returned to Shea on occasion. True, other beers have taken its tap space, to say nothing of its spot on the scoreboard, but at heart, Shea Stadium will always belong on the Rheingold beat.

To commemorate Rheingold's place in Shea Stadium history, we have asked Terry Liebman, one of those who worked to bring Rheingold back to New York in the late 1990s and a member of Rheingold's founding Liebmann family to join us, take down number 58 and toast the memory of a great Mets sponsor. Feel free to join in with a chorus of "My beer is Rheingold the dry beer..."

57: Wednesday, May 28 vs Marlins
Have you ever wondered why, ladies and gentlemen, the Mets are here? That's not an existential question but rather a query pertaining to the Mets having set down their roots in Flushing Meadow. The answer can be traced back to one man.

For the balance of the 20th century, that individual held sway over New York City in ways that are unimaginable today. His name was Robert Moses. He held various job descriptions across more than four decades of government service, but he is probably best known by the title of the masterful biography that explained him to succeeding generations: The Power Broker.

Moses believed the future of the New York metropolitan area lay ever eastward. Demographic trends validated his vision as more people left the five boroughs and began to call Long Island, right next door to Queens, home. He saw a future driven by the automobile and set out to build a network of highways second to none to accommodate it. And he recognized the potential of parkland in the geographic center of New York City, Flushing Meadow. He worked tirelessly to develop it and included within his blueprints for growth a modern baseball stadium the likes of which New Yorkers had never seen. The result was Shea Stadium, a structure Moses consciously modeled on the Roman Colosseum.

Robert Moses lived from 1888 to 1981, a time when the world changed and changed again. His legacy remains up for debate in matters large and small, but it is clear that he helped shaped New York as we know it, particularly Flushing Meadow. If you're wondering why the Mets are right here, you can be certain Mr. Moses had something to do with it.

To recall the impact of Robert Moses, we asked his Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer, by no means an unalloyed admirer of the man, to join us and remove number 57 from the right field wall tonight. One of America's greatest writers and kind enough to take time out from his rigorous research on the life of Lyndon Johnson — president of the United States, incidentally, when Shea Stadium opened — please welcome the author of The Power Broker, native New Yorker Robert Caro.

56: Thursday, May 29 vs Dodgers
This evening, ladies and gentlemen, it gives the Mets great pleasure to welcome back an old friend to Shea Stadium. He played his first game here as a member of the Milwaukee Braves on May 12, 1964, catching a complete game shutout. He would visit often over the course of eleven seasons until 1975 when he became a Met. Midway through his third season as a player for the home team, he became the Mets' manager, a post he'd hold for five years.

We speak, of course, of Brooklyn's own Joe Torre. While Joe hasn't exactly been a stranger around these parts, we are happy to have him back as a National Leaguer again. Joe will be removing number 56 from the right field wall tonight and joining him are two of the most popular players from the Joe Torre era at Shea.

He was an All-Star four times, three under Joe's tutelage. He was also one of the hardest-charging Mets of any period in team history, someone who gave no ground on the basepaths, at the plate or anywhere the field of play extended. Please give a warm welcome to the Dude, John Stearns.

Another Brooklynite, he spent his rookie season at the elbow of manager Joe Torre, learning the game and mastering his trade. By 1979, he was a Mets All-Star and a stellar one at that, homering and later walking with the bases loaded to ensure a win for the National League. He enjoyed two tenures in New York, the second of them commencing just in time for the 1986 World Series when he played a key role in securing victories in Games Six and Seven. Ladies and gentlemen, Lee Mazzilli.

55: Friday, May 30 vs Dodgers
Ladies and gentlemen, the next time a Met homers — provided all functions as it should — an apple will rise from a top hat and all will be right with the world. As has been the case since 1981, the Home Run Apple remains Shea Stadium's most recognizable and beloved landmark.

How did this apple come to take rise at Shea? We can thank one of advertising's most legendary minds for the inspiration. In 1980, when the team's new ownership was looking to garner attention, it hired Jerry Della Femina to produce an ad campaign. He came up with one of the most memorable lines in baseball advertising history: The Magic Is Back. A year later, the hat you see today was installed, sporting the phrase Mets Magic. It would take a little while for the club itself to pull out of the proverbial hat enough wins to contend, but by 1986, a world championship was conjured right here in the Big Apple.

Jerry joins us tonight to remove number 55 from the right field wall and, accompanying him, are two of the original Magic Mets of 1980, a pair of players who stirred the sleeping giant that was the New York National League fan base and gave it reason to hope that lasting success would someday soon be more than an illusion.

Craig Swan pitched for the Mets for over a decade, earning the N.L. ERA title in 1978 and always throwing his heart out from the Shea Stadium mound. His right arm bridged the gap from Seaver to Gooden like the Triborough connects Queens to points north, including Swannie's home in Connecticut.

Doug Flynn joined the Mets in 1977 and manned second base as no other Met had previously. Little got past Doug and his defensive brilliance was recognized in 1980 with the Gold Glove award. Bob Murphy liked to say Doug would look ground balls into his glove and we're happy to get another look at Dougie tonight.

Please give a big hand to Jerry Della Femina, Craig Swan and Doug Flynn.

54: Saturday, May 31 vs Dodgers
Ladies and gentlemen, we hope you're enjoying your Saturday in the park. Saturday has been a great day for Mets baseball over the years, particularly when the sun starts going down. Though it will probably still be light out when we're done today, we wanted to pay homage this late afternoon to some of the most memorable Saturday night fireworks in Shea Stadium history.

Our first sparkplug joins us from the active roster of the New York Mets. On June 11, 2005, he did one of the most difficult things there is to do in baseball. He came off the bench as a pinch-hitter and delivered a big blow off an ace reliever. What made this feat all the more amazin' was that not only was it a game-tying blast in the ninth off the superb Francisco Rodriguez of the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim but it was an inside-the-park job. He was already one of the best pinch-hitters the Mets had ever seen but this hit — and his mad dash around the bases while blowing his bubble gum — made him an instant legend with the Shea fans. We're thrilled he's a Met again, please greet Marlon Anderson.

As evening began to fall over Flushing on September 13, 1997, it appeared the Mets were going down to a rather dreary defeat at the hands of the Montreal Expos. The score was 6-0 for the visitors and the end was at hand...until an unbelievable rally unfolded that scored two runs, loaded the bases and brought up this man to face Ugueth Urbina. There were two outs and two strikes, but this valuable fourth outfielder had a game-tying, grand slam home run left in his bat. He sent the Shea crowd into ninth-inning euphoria and, as would be the case in the Marlon Anderson game, the Mets would go on to win in extra innings. Please welcome back the slugger Carl Everett.

What Marlon did and what Carl did no doubt spurred memories all over Shea Stadium of what one more Met did on a Saturday night when things looked desperate. On June 14, 1980, Joe Torre's Mets fell behind the San Francisco Giants 6-0. But typical of how they operated that spring and summer, the Mets battled back and closed the gap on the Giants to 6-4 in the ninth. Then, with two on and two out, our next guest, who will peel off number 54, swung and belted an Allen Ripley pitch into the Mets' bullpen. Just like that, the Mets had won, 7-6. So thrilled was the Shea crowd that it demanded a curtain call — a response almost unheard of here or anywhere in those days. Those who saw it will never forget it nor the man who came back on the field to wave to the fans. Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Henderson.

53: Sunday, June 1 vs Dodgers
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, Shea Stadium has been the home of the Mets since 1964. Sometimes, however, the Mets share their digs with others. Never were they as generous with their real estate as they were in 1975. During that calendar year, thanks to various construction and renovation products taking place around the metropolitan area, Shea Stadium played host to not one, not two, but four big league professional teams. In 1975, if you were at Shea Stadium, you were at the home of the Mets...and the Jets...and the Yankees...and the football Giants. Together, they kept the ushers and the grounds crew very busy.

To remember that unusual year, we have invited back a representative of each of those teams, starting with one of the best punters in NFL history. Dave Jennings gave the Giants great field position for 11 autumns, one of them right here in Queens. He finished his career kicking for the Jets and has been an excellent broadcaster of New York football ever since. Please welcome Dave to Shea again.

On Sundays when the Giants weren't playing at Shea, a more familiar football team set up shop. In 1975, the Jets depended on a talented Kansan to rush the ball for them and did he ever. He racked up 1,005 yards, the first Jet to run for four figures in one season. He would later rush to even greater glory in Washington but it was at Shea where he established himself as one of the great ground game threats in the NFL. Loosen up and say hi to John Riggins.

During the 1975 baseball season, for the second year in a row, when the Mets were on the road, they laid out the welcome mat for the New York Yankees. Someone already at home here after a stint with the Mets in 1967 was a stalwart for the temporarily Flushing Flashers at second base. He played 151 games for the '75 Yankees and the next year would take under his wing an up & comer named Willie Randolph. From the third base coaching box right here at Shea, give a warm hand to Sandy Alomar, Sr..

And leading our troop of 1975 Sheamen down the right field line to remove number 53 is someone who was most familiar with the terrain here. He came up in 1972 and earned Rookie of the Year honors for the Mets and would go on to contribute mightily to the National League championship run of a year later. In 1975, he pitched well enough for a second trip to the All-Star Game, emerging as its winning pitcher and co-MVP. One of the best southpaws to ever pitch in a Mets uniform, give a great big hand to Jon Matlack.

Numbers 66-60 were revealed here.

Welcome to Flashback Friday: Tales From The Log, a final-season tribute to Shea Stadium as viewed primarily through the prism of what I have seen there for myself, namely 358 regular-season and 13 postseason games to date. The Log records the numbers. The Tales tell the stories.

3/31/98 Tu Philadelphia 9-6 Jones 10 59-61 W 1-0 (14)
March? Whose deranged idea was it to start the baseball season in March?

That was my first thought when I saw the 1998 season would open in the month before it had always opened. Who starts a baseball season in March?

My second thought was where do I sign up? If baseball was going to be thoughtful enough to run back and meet me a month — OK, a day — early, how could I hold myself back?

So maybe the schedulemakers knew what they were doing. And for once, I had to hand it to the Mets marketing department. I handed them my MasterCard number, actually, and bought a six-pack ticket plan for the 1998 season. I loved the gimmick: It was called the Debut Pack. In it were pairs of tickets for six games, the first games against opponents who had never played the Mets at Shea during the regular season: the expansion Diamondbacks and Devil Rays, the newly National Leagued Brewers and the Interleagueing Orioles and, sigh, Yankees (who, between you and me, were probably the impetus for this new bundling scheme). That’s five. The sixth was Opening Day, the überdebut of 1998 itself, versus Philly.

I was psyched, even though the Mets would be opening in March for the first time ever. All winter long, I predicted wind chills and icy rains which was what we got for the opener in 1996 on April 1 of that year. If April 1 was frigid, March 31 would be frozen.

Except it wasn’t. It had been one of those Greenhouse Effect winters. We got little snow and the last week of March bust out like June. New York was having an honest-to-god heat wave, just in time for Opening Day. The Mets, who surprised the world with their legitimate 88-74 run at the Wild Card in 1997, were apparently going to be blessed with great weather to go along with their great chances.

What better way to prepare for our good fortune than with the ancient nectar of Metsopotamia? I speak of course of the one, the only, the Extra Dry treat, Rheingold. As if record-breaking temperatures and the onset of baseball weren’t enough, I was sent an invite to a press luncheon launching the return of Rheingold, doubtless the most beloved consumer product associated with the Mets. The event, the day before the opener, was set for Gallagher’s, an old-time steakhouse on West 52nd Street. How great was this place? I had been there once before for an Anheuser-Busch thing and discovered a seat from the Polo Grounds right inside the front door. I discovered it and I sat in it and I didn’t even break it.

Warm weather…Opening Day…Rheingold…Polo Grounds seat…what else could I possibly want?

How about some ballplayers? The first one I saw, heading up the stairs to the private dining room booked for the occasion, was Ralph Branca. Ralph Branca! Ralph Branca who gave up the homer to Bobby Thomson but made a nice living off it later in life. Ralph Branca whose daughter Mary married Bobby Valentine who led the Mets to dizzying third-place heights the year before. We were asked to sign in, name and affiliation. Ralph Branca wrote down that he was representing “Baseball”.

The rest of us should have given up and gone home after that. But I’m glad we didn’t, because the new owner of Rheingold, which had been the Mets’ beer from their inception until the mid-’70s when the brewery in Brooklyn went out of business, sought to add some stardust to his relaunch. He brought in Ed Kranepool and Tommie Agee to speak.

In case you’re keeping score: Warm weather…Opening Day…Rheingold…Polo Grounds seat…Ralph Branca of “Baseball”…Eddie Kranepool…Tommie Agee. And the season was still 24 hours away!

It wasn't even April!

I got a nice column out of the event, but I’m still kicking myself that I wasn’t more self-indulgent and didn’t include the quotes from Eddie and Tommie. It would have been extremely self-indulgent, but look what I was covering. Eddie recalled coming up to the Mets as a 17-year-old under the watchful eye of Casey Stengel. Said he really loved drinking Rheingold in the clubhouse even though he was too young to legally do so. Tommie invoked another manager from Rheingold’s halcyon days, reminiscing about Gil Hodges and wishing the sainted skipper were still here to enjoy a couple of beers with us. All the speakers mentioned this was a fortuitous time to rebrew because the Mets were going to have such a good year. They could have served us baked shoe for lunch, and it would have been delicious.

Each guest got a Rheingold goody bag to go. It included a t-shirt, a cassette of the old jingle (“think of Rheingold whenever you buy beer”) and a can of the golden lager itself, red label on a field of soothing white. I’m not much of a beer drinker, but this can was special. I took it home and stashed in the fridge. I told Stephanie I wouldn’t open it until the end of the season, after the Mets clinched the playoff spot that surely awaited them.

The road to postseason glory began the next day, March 31, and it was still sizzling. The temperature ran to 88 degrees (same as our victory total in '97...omen, omen, omen!) as gametime approached. Anticipation for the new season bubbled like Rheingold. Or Pepsi. Pepsi won the Shea contract from Coke early in spring training. As a trained BevHead, I couldn’t help but notice the signage all over the ballpark. The Pepsi Picnic Area, formerly the bleachers, looked like it had just been painted that morning. Mountain Dew was suddenly an official soft drink of the Mets, just like Lipton Brisk. Not that I would have ever pulled any strings for access to Shea Stadium (cough, cough), but Pepsi was based in Westchester and I kind of knew some people.

But that was work. That's not what 88 degrees on the last day of March was for.

I met my buddy Jason outside the park. Jace invited me to the raw Opening Day two years earlier and now I was returning the favor. We found our seats — my seats for the balance of the six-pack — in the mezzanine, Section 17. Short right field. Not bad. Not bad at all. I brought our camera from home and snapped off a roll’s worth of pictures. Mostly of the Pepsi signs. As a BevHead, I was always looking for photo opportunities.

The buzz was unmistakable throughout the ballpark (and it wasn’t from the Rheingold — they wouldn’t get a pouring deal until later in ’98). The Mets were wearing their new black caps with the blue bill as were, to my surprise, a lot of fans. Hadn’t played one game in ’em and the faithful had already invested. I was in traditional blue, a feeling the hitters on both sides would come to know quickly.

Curt Schilling, starting for the Phillies, was awesome. Our lineup was depleted from the get-go as Todd Hundley, he of the 71 homers over the past two seasons, was recovering from elbow surgery. Catching in his stead was Tim Spehr, who lit up Port St. Lucie just enough to win the pro tem job over Alberto “Bambi” Castillo and Todd “Tank” Pratt. Tank didn’t even make the big club. Spehr, defending in an alienesque black-and-orange chest protector (Jace thought it looked more Oriole than Met) and carrying no discernible nickname, collected two hits, or one more than any of his teammates had.

Schilling was otherwise awesome, striking out nine in eight innings. The heroes of ’97 — Fonzie, Oly, Gilkey, Huskey, Baerga, Ordoñez — were a combined 2-for-28. Bobby Jones, making his third Opening Day start, was less impressive than his opposite number — 1 K in 6 IP — but reasonably effective. The important thing is no Phillie scored. The visitors threatened every now and then, especially against Franco in the 10th, but nothing happened. The Mets paraded five relievers to the mound and all of them, even Mel Rojas, emerged unscathed. The Philadelphia relievers were no less unyielding. It was 0-0 through the top of the 14th. Far worse for wear was a guy in our section who didn’t wait for Rheingold. He went for Bud or whatever it was they were selling in the stands. By the end of regulation, he was passed out, several plastic cups stacked on his chest by his companions. Midseason form, indeed.

By the 14th, it was a tad chilly, just a touch. Nothing Marchlike, but cool enough to make me glad I brought an overshirt. The 49,000 in attendance had shed maybe 20,000 by now — it was after 6 o’clock. Funny that you’d wait all winter for baseball and then decide you had somewhere else more important to be. Ralph Branca wouldn’t do that to “Baseball”. Jason and I certainly weren’t going anywhere. True, I did get up and take a walk, but that was only to the row behind us, which had been vacated. I paced back and forth until the Mets, with two outs against them, managed to load the bases in the bottom of the 14th against Ricky Bottalico.

Up stepped the Mets’ last available position player, Alberto Castillo. Bambi. I’m pretty sure it was a derogatory tag, because if Alberto Castillo reminded you of any hitter living or dead, it may have been Albie Pearson or Freddie Patek or Sergio Ferrer, but it wasn’t the Bambino. In any event, he was all we had left.

He was enough. Alberto Castillo poked a grounder between first and second. It got to right field. Brian McRae jogged home. The Mets won, 1-0, in 14 innings. Jason and I delivered our first high-fives of the year.

The black and blue Mets, like the weather and the circumstances of the last two days, were perfect. March 1998 record: 1-0. March all-time record: 1-0. We were tied for first with the Braves and the defending champion Marlins, the two teams who finished ahead of us last year. But that was last year — the Marlins were decimated by Wayne Huizenga and this Braves thing was going to end sooner or later. Sooner was my hunch. Based on early returns, things were looking and feeling very, very good.

In the fridge, my Rheingold awaited a September debut.

Required reading for Shealovers: Gary Myers, Daily News football writer, turns his thoughts back to "my all-time favorite stadium that will forever hold a place in my heart". It's a beautiful and heartfelt tribute. Thanks to Loge 13 for the link...and for reminding us to watch The Amazin' Shea Saturday night, 7:30, on Channel 4.

66: Friday, May 9 vs Reds
Ladies and gentlemen, to remove number 66 from the right field wall, we call on a player intimately associated with tonight's opponent, someone who ordinarily would not be setting foot inside Shea Stadium without buying a ticket, but someone so intertwined with the history of this ballpark that it would be impossible to say goodbye to Shea without saying hello to him one more time.

For a quarter-century, as a player, a player-manager and a manager, he was a regular visitor to Queens. Nobody in baseball was more recognizable, more controversial and, as it pertained to the Mets, more notorious than our special guest tonight.

He played his first game here on May 6, 1964 and in his second Shea Stadium at-bat doubled. Fourteen years and many individual and team accomplishments later, he tied and broke the modern National League hitting streak record right here to the cheers of the home crowd. As a Philadelphia Phillie, he would be the first batter Tom Seaver would face in his Flushing homecoming in 1983 and back with the Reds in 1986, he'd collect the last of his 189 regular-season Shea Stadium base hits off Dwight Gooden.

But it would be a postseason appearance that would inextricably tie Pete Rose to Shea Stadium, specifically a hard — some would say too hard — slide into Buddy Harrelson at shortstop in the third game of the 1973 National League Championship Series that brought Pete the kind of lasting infamy only true passion and a level of regard elicits.

Tonight, however, with only 66 games left in the life of this stadium, we believe it is time to greet Pete Rose if not forgive him or forget his role in the most memorable brawl Shea Stadium ever saw. That is why we secured permission from Commissioner Bud Selig for Pete's return to Shea, his first time in a New York ballpark since being banned from baseball for gambling in 1989. That is also why we asked the Glass Distillery Packaging Association to sponsor Salute to Pete Rose Night.

GDPA was gracious enough to provide the commemorative Pete Rose bottles of whiskey from which every fan has been enjoying since entering the park and the Mets remind you that when you're finished with your liquor, there are better ways than recycling to make use of your empty bottles.

65: Saturday, May 10 vs Reds
That sound, ladies and gentlemen, can mean only one thing. The sound is that of a cow bell and it belongs to a Mets fan everybody will recognize instantly, Eddie Boison. You might know him better by the name on the back of his jersey, Cow-Bell Man.

Eddie has been coming to Shea since it opened in 1964 but has truly become a fixture in the 21st century, strolling every section, making a joyful noise and stirring up his fellow fans from the field level to the upper deck.

We had planned to ask Eddie to reveal number 65 in partnership with another true Shea Stadium original, a fan who, like Eddie, became synonymous with enthusiastic and unique support of the Mets. Alas, Karl Ehrhardt left us this past winter, but in light of the tributes he received upon his passing, we are confident the placards held aloft by Shea Stadium's own Sign Man will live in the mind's eye as long as there are Mets fans. To represent Karl, we have asked his children, Richard Ehrhardt and Bonnie Troester, to join Eddie in making the walk to right field. Please give them a warm welcome.

64: Sunday, May 11 vs Reds
As you know, ladies and gentlemen, at every game throughout the 2008 season, we are taking a moment and pausing our game long enough so that individuals connected to the long and rich history of Shea Stadium can enjoy a moment in the sun. On this Sunday, however, we turn our attention to the Mets' only other home to date, the Polo Grounds.

It is true that the modern and attractive ballpark under construction right before our very eyes pays homage primarily to Brooklyn's Ebbets Field, but it is just as true that the Mets never played in Ebbets Field — it was gone two years before the Mets were born. It was left to the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan to serve as launching pad for this franchise we all hold so dear. When Citi Field opens in 2009, no matter what the exterior would indicate, proper tribute will be paid to the Polo Grounds' role in the development of the New York Mets and New York baseball.

Until then, there is today, which Mayor Michael Bloomberg has officially proclaimed Polo Grounds Appreciation Day in the city of New York. In Manhattan, the portion of the Harlem River Drive that runs past the site of the Polo Grounds has been renamed the Ottway in recognition of legendary New York Giants slugger and all-time New York City home run king Mel Ott. And here at Shea, to commemorate this admittedly overdue occasion, in addition to presenting every fan who entered Shea this afternoon with a handsome, glossy 96-page program filled with pictures and essays devoted to the Polo Grounds, we have invited a quartet of Mets whose presence speaks to roots of the club.

• Frank Thomas hit 34 home runs in 1962, 18 of them at the Polo Grounds, establishing a team record that would stand another thirteen seasons. He was the Opening Day leftfielder the day Shea Stadium opened and would remain a Met into the 1964 season.

• Roger Craig was the ace of the Mets in 1962 and 1963, pitching in hard luck but always giving it his best. His appearances at Shea would come in other uniforms, yet he would always be remembered warmly here for his work at the Polo Grounds.

• Choo Choo Coleman gained a measure of immortality as a catcher on the 1962 and 1963 Mets. He may have been quiet, but the stories shared by those who played with him and interviewed him spoke volumes. Choo Choo returned to the Mets in 1966 for a brief stint before retiring as an active player.

• And leading these three original Mets out to right field to remove number 64 is a teammate of theirs whose story becomes complete today. Ted Schreiber played one season in the big leagues, 1963, when the Mets still called the Polo Grounds home. In fact, Ted turned out the lights, in a manner of speaking, on the historic bathtub-shaped ballpark at Eighth Avenue and 155th Street. He came to bat as a pinch-hitter in the bottom of the ninth on September 18, 1963 and grounded into a double play, one involving two future Met coaches, Cookie Rojas and Bobby Wine, as the Mets lost to the Phillies, 5-1.

It was the last play in the baseball history of the Polo Grounds. Ted left the Mets after 1963 and never made it to Shea. It only seems right to invite him here now and give him the honor of taking down the next number in the park that he just missed playing in. Ted's presence also reminds us that no matter where we are at a given moment, whether it's this year or next, there is usually something that came before that deserves to be remembered.

63: Monday, May 12 vs Nationals
Ladies and gentlemen, if you can't hear me or I have to stop speaking for a moment so you can hear me, it is not a technical difficulty on the part of Shea Stadium's often erratic public address system. It is almost certainly for the same reason conversations have been interrupted, batters have been stepping out of the box and pitchers have been leaving the rubber for 45 seasons.

It is the airplanes.

We have a very famous neighbor just slightly to our north, LaGuardia Airport. While it is in many respects a fine airport, one once voted the greatest in the world by those who made their living in aviation, its presence may not make for ideal company during a ballgame. While passengers on the planes overhead no doubt thrill to a glimpse of Shea Stadium, the players on the field and the fans in the stands have mostly tolerated and learned to live with some pretty powerful jet noise.

But the airplanes are a part of the Shea Stadium scene, just as we sense they will be around when Citi Field opens, so we may as well acknowledge the unusual role they have played at Shea. To do so, we have asked Anthony Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority, the government agency that runs LaGuardia, to remove number 63 from the right field wall. Anthony's being such a good sport about representing noise and distraction, we have asked to join him the one Met more likely than any other to disrupt air traffic from below.

He hit 73 Shea home runs in two tours as a New York Met, and seemingly each and every one of them was a cause for concern among pilots flying into and out of LaGuardia. It's no wonder that he once did television commercials for United, one of the airlines that flies regularly from the airport next door. Please welcome back to Shea the slugger more likely than any other on any given day to reach the clouds and part the jets, Dave Kingman.

62: Tuesday, May 13 vs Nationals
Ladies and gentlemen, there are many factors that have made Shea Stadium one of the most distinct ballparks in America, none of them as juicy and tasty, however, as what we can rightly call its native crop.

How many stadiums do you know where tomatoes were grown as a matter of course? We refer, naturally, to the agriculture in the home team bullpen, the tomato plants that for decades were an integral part of the Shea scene.

One man was more responsible for those tomatoes than any other. He was the planter, the farmer and the inspiration, to say nothing of a pretty fair tutor of relief pitchers across 14 seasons. Please give a warm hand to coach Joe Pignatano as he trots out to right field to remove number 62 and then, presumably, continues into the Mets bullpen to check on the soil.

61: Wednesday, May 14 vs Nationals
As Mets fans, ladies and gentlemen, it is your inclination to root, root, root for the home team. It has never been common to cheer an opponent at Shea Stadium. It is almost unheard of today unless it is for a certifiable superstar.

The man whom we have asked to take down number 61 would be the first to tell you he was no superstar, just a guy doing his best. Sometimes, because he is human, his best wasn't good enough. Unfortunately for our special guest, the fates were not with him on the biggest stage baseball has to offer, the World Series. In one game, Game Two, he made three errors and his team lost in extra innings. The club owner for whom he worked was not pleased and attempted to circumvent the rules regarding postseason rosters and attempted to have him replaced by another player. A firestorm of protest erupted and this player's place was preserved.

The World Series in question was 1973, which means the action began in Oakland and shifted to Shea Stadium, which is why we honor A's infielder Mike Andrews here tonight. Mets fans recognized the raw deal Mike was receiving from Charlie Finley, so when he came to bat as a pinch-hitter in the fourth game of that Fall Classic, Mets fans rose as one and supported him with a long and loud ovation. They gave him a second round of applause as he made his way back to the Oakland dugout after he grounded out.

Mike never forgot the reception he got at Shea, normally a tough place for visitors to play, that much more intense with a world championship on the line. Mike would say of Mets fans, "The ovations gave me chills, it surprised me. I don't think I've ever had a standing ovation in my life. To me that meant everything."

Mike retired after that World Series, the only career appearance at Shea Stadium for this lifelong American Leaguer. We thought it would be appropriate to have him back here once more. Ladies and gentlemen, please remind Mike Andrews what good fans Mets fans are.

60: Thursday, May 15 vs Nationals
Ladies and gentlemen, if you own a 2008 media guide, available at Shea concessions, or have visited rich and informative Web sites like Ultimate Mets Database or Mets By The Numbers — now available in book form — you know where to find a list of every player who has ever played as a Met. Yet one of the most lovable Mets of his era won't show up in any of these reputable reference sources.

Nevertheless, Mets fans will always remember the contributions infielder Chico Escuela stitched into the fabric of the 1969 and 1973 Mets even if the boxscores from those seasons don't reflect his presence. He is probably better recalled for his comeback attempt, tracked ably by Weekend Update anchor Bill Murray, during the spring of 1979 when he had to overcome the doubts and grudges that arose from his classic tell-all volume, Bad Stuff 'Bout The Mets. Anyone who remembers 1979 would have to admit there was plenty of Bad Stuff to write 'Bout The Mets in those days, but Chico's presence in blue and orange surely was one of the better things the franchise had going then. You might even say he was "berry, berry good" for the Mets. He certainly brought laughter to a fan base mired in an understandably dark mood.

Chico Escuela lit up Shea on Old Timers Day in '79, appearing alongside "other" members of the '69 Mets at their first on-field reunion, and baseball was better off for it. Unfortunately, Chico had a speaking engagement this afternoon and couldn't make it when we called and asked him to take down number 60 from the right field all as homage to his many fine years as a Met. But Chico being Chico, he was thoughtful enough to send in his place a great performer in his own right, a cast member on Saturday Night Live at the exact same time Chico was making his Met comeback. Please give a berry, berry big welcome to Garrett Morris.

Numbers 72-67 were revealed here.

Art Howe was a fine man with the misfortune to be rather seriously miscast as manager of the New York Mets. But his finest act might have come on Oct. 3, 2004, in his final inning at the helm. (Which also happened to be the final inning in the history of the Montreal Expos, and the endpoint for various other histories. I'll get to all that.)

Joe Hietpas had been called up from Binghamton in mid-September as an emergency catcher, though 2004 was so horrible that most any position could have been considered manned on an emergency basis. He was 25, and known as a defensive whiz, but an indifferent hitter if you were in a kind mood. (Seriously. Look at his minor-league stats and see if you can call the offensive glass one-eighth full.) Here he was nonetheless, waiting for the backup catcher to get injured, waiting for his shot in the Show. Waiting. And waiting some more.

I got used to seeing Hietpas on TV and from the stands as the season sputtered to an end -- he'd be right there in front, leading on the dugout railing, staring at the field. It went from vaguely comic to decidedly tragic: Couldn't Art find a place for Young Joe, the Forgotten Catcher? Some absurd blowout, some extra-inning tilt, some something? Nope. The second half of September went crawling by, and still that dugout rail separated Joe Hietpas from where he wanted to be.

On the last day of the season, I was there in field-level seats with Greg and Laurie, saying farewell to a hideous Mets season, farewell to never-again Mets Todd Zeile and John Franco, farewell to a well-intentioned but unfortunate choice as Met manager, and farewell to a franchise treated like a stepchild by the sport that should have done right by it. But what I really wanted was to say hello to Joe Hietpas.

Hietpas had warmed up pitchers between innings before -- a routine duty for backup catchers, but one made particularly cruel by his situation. But this time, in the top of the ninth, he was staying. At the last possible moment, Joe Hietpas was getting his shot. He'd catch Bartholome Fortunato, raising his own curtain as the Mets lowered the curtain on the season. It was 8-1. Fortunato got in a bit of trouble, and I briefly entertained ridiculous imaginings: The Expos would spit in Bud Selig's eye by scoring seven runs, staving off their own extinction, Greg and Laurie and I wouldn't have to say farewell to baseball quite yet. And sometime in extra innings Hietpas would bat -- and crack one over the fence to send us all home.

Why the heck not?

Nah. With two men on Fortunato gathered himself, struck out someone named Josh Labandeira and struck out Maicer Izturis and then got future friend Endy Chavez to ground out, Keppinger to Piazza. John Franco's Met career and Todd Zeile's career and Art Howe's Met tenure and the Expos were history. As, in all likelihood, was Joe Hietpas.

Hietpas got a baseball card the next spring, a rather optimistic declaration from Upper Deck SPX that he was an SPXciting Rookie, and went back to the bus leagues. Where he offered a mathematician's degree of proof that he couldn't hit: .216, ,194, .130 and .185 in tours of duty over two years with Binghamton and Norfolk. With Paul Lo Duca and Ramon Castro hitting up a storm for the big club, it was obvious his fate was to be the Mets' Moonlight Graham.

So Hietpas tried what more than a few guys who get called into the office and told the grim facts try: He said something along the lines of "Hey skip, I can pitch."

Only he actually kind of could: It didn't go so well for one inning with the Tides in '06, but down at St. Lucie last year, Hietpas put up a 2.47 ERA in 43.2 innings. He didn't strike many guys out, and he gave up a lot of hits, but hey, he didn't walk a lot of guys, either. And then there he was today, cleaning up after a parade of Met minor-league pitchers. In a Met uniform again. Pitching.

At this point, it's time to ignore some inconvenient facts. Like the fact that he was wearing 92. Or is in A ball with his 29th birthday soon to arrive. Or that his stuff was consistently up in the strike zone, and hit all over the place by Braves borrowed from minor-league camp, with only the unlikely glovework of Fernando Tatis and boneheaded Atlanta baserunning saving him from ugly results.

Never mind all that. It's March, whatever the Red Sox and A's are doing on the other side of the world in the nighttime. March is the time for ignoring inconvenient facts, and letting yourself imagine: Late summer '09, Hietpas trots in from the Citi Field bullpen as the latest middle reliever to get a shot as the Mets try to defend the title they won in saying goodbye to Shea. (I know, we're imagining a lot. Stick with me.) He throws an OK inning, and as he's sitting on the bench Reyes and Wright and Beltran and Teixeira and teammates start hitting rockets everywhere. A close one has turned into a rout, and Willie's decided not to burn up the bullpen for this farce. Hietpas goes to the bat rack. Borrows somebody's lumber. Finds a helmet. Steps into the on-deck circle. Then walks up to the plate.

"You know Keith," Gary says with the first hint of arch in his voice, "he was drafted as a catcher."

To be estranged from your favorite Met is strange. I know. I've been sort of on the outs with mine since last September.

I still wear my three REYES 7 t-shirts; my overpriced Jose Reyes button is still affixed to my plush home run apple; no Met has been elevated above him in my esteem, official or otherwise. Yet Jose Reyes and I haven't communicated much since things unraveled. I haven't lit up at the thought of him, haven't embraced the sight of him, haven't Jose-Jose-Jose'd hardly at all. And Jose hasn't really reached out to me.

Is there hope for us yet?

The annual day of renewal is at hand, so the benefit of the doubt must be issued. On Opening Day, Jose Reyes will bat first in Miami and I will put my hands together and he will take it from there. There's no point going to bed angry at your favorite Met and emerging from hibernation in the same old snit. I've been down on Jose since September, down in a way I didn't think was possible, down for reasons I can fathom but don't like doing.

The Mets as an institution did not do themselves proud when last they played for money and honor. You can count on one hand the individuals who bathed themselves in glory and have enough fingers left over to tell Jimmy Rollins what he can do with his portfolio of predictions and pronouncements. We were laid waste by a teamwide epidemic, but with the exception of a certain undevastatable lefthanded pitcher who doesn't live here anymore, nobody was more of a poster child for determined underachievement than Jose Reyes.

My favorite Met sparked everything good about the Mets in 2006, just as he had since coming to the big leagues in 2003. If, in between, he wasn't as polished as some would have liked, it was just a matter of time, I swore it was. He was a work in progress, like young Jed Bartlet in the "Two Cathedrals" episode of The West Wing when Mrs. Landingham told him that he missed a spot.

I didn't miss it. I just haven't gotten to it yet.

Jose got to it by '06 and in the first half of '07 he was on it but good. Then he got off it. The National League Player of the Month for April was nowhere to be found come September. It wasn't that he sucked (which he did), it's that he was almost on a mission to suck. He swung mindlessly, he ran recklessly if at all and he...he just wasn't Jose Reyes anymore. He was some time-marking pod person counting down to when he could ditch this stupid game and this stupid team and go hunting and fishing and maybe gravedigging. He comported himself like a latter-day Richie Hebner, for crissake.

I look at certain Met holdovers and I cringe a little for this year given how last year became last year and whatever troubling dispatch has wafted north from St. Lucie. Has Delgado completely fallen apart? What to make of Wagner's back? Beltran's limbs? Is the perpetual cold shoulder vis-à-vis being the one guy with the potential to fill the fifth-starter role yet never again given a chance going to catch up to Heilman? Is Ollie's arm OK? His head? Will Wright, as blameless as a Met could be as everything around him withered, have the strength to start it up and carry that weight again? Or will he be reduced to churning out quotes about how we're all out there giving it our best, Willie knows what he's doing, my circuits are fine, this does not compute? Contrary to how it looks sometimes, even David Wright is human.

Jose Reyes is way too human, it turns out. Jose Reyes has months, maybe even halves of seasons when he's not superhuman, when he's not the whirling dervish of home-to-third legend, when he's not beating out ground balls because he appears interested only in beating it out of town. He's having a nice March — every time I see a highlight, he's diving into something — but he had a fantastic early 2007 and in the end it amounted to a hill of nothing. No, it was worse than nothing. It was alarming the way he phoned it in on offense and wasn't nearly enough of an Ordoñez to make it up on defense. I was alarmed. I wonder if he was.

Does all that just go away now? I've seen him interviewed. He's smiling the Jose smile. He says everything is fine, everything is dandy. He looks a good bit like the Jose Reyes with whom I fell truly, deeply, madly in baseball love five summers ago. But I stare hard and I see the Jose Reyes from a September to dismember and I struggle to see the leadoff hitter of my dreams and the man who's gonna get on first base enough to get us back to first place enough.

Come back Monday, Jose. Come back for real. All will be forgotten and forgiven if you do.

72: Friday, April 25 vs Braves
Ladies and gentlemen, it took six seasons for Shea Stadium and the Mets to host their first postseason game. When they did, it was a doozy: Game Three, the 1969 National League Championship Series, an exciting, come-from-behind 7-4 win over the Atlanta Braves to clinch the N.L. pennant.

The happy ending should not obscure the efforts of a very special player on the visiting team who put his own mark on what would be the final postseason appearance of his brilliant career. He drove in the very first runs in Shea Stadium postseason history with a two-run homer in the top of the first inning. In fact, he hit a home run in each game of the 1969 NLCS, which should not surprise anybody since he would eventually retire with 755 home runs, for 33 years the standard in Major League Baseball and still recognized as an achievement that towers over the landscape of the sport.

Please welcome back to Shea Stadium, to remove number 72 from the right field wall, one of the greatest opponents this or any ballpark outside Atlanta or Milwaukee has ever known, Hammerin' Hank, Henry Aaron.

71: Saturday, April 26 vs Braves
Today, ladies and gentlemen, the New York Mets are honored to play host to Jack Lang Day, paying tribute to one of the most beloved sportswriters in baseball history. The late Jack Lang covered the Mets on a daily basis for the first-quarter century of their existence and continued to write about them for most of the next twenty years of his life. Proceeds from select ticket sales today are going to benefit the Epilepsy Foundation of Long Island, a cause close to the Lang family's heart. They thank you for your support.

In the spirit of the job men and women like Jack Lang have done throughout the history of the Mets, disseminating the goings-on of a baseball club to a fan base that always wants to know more, we thought it appropriate to invite three of his colleagues to remove number 71 from the right field wall. Each man we call on today has written about and been around the Mets since their beginnings. It is through the efforts of journalists like these that a team becomes more than a logo, that players emerge as more than figures on a stat sheet. Though the relationship is occasionally adversarial, the Mets appreciate the job that writers like these do and wish to salute it.

So please welcome from the Shea Stadium press box to the right field line, a trio of Jack Lang's most distinguished peers: George Vecsey, Vic Ziegel and Roger Angell, and, accompanying them, the Mets longtime vice president of media relations — one of Shea's most famous faces in his own right — Jay Horwitz.

70: Sunday, April 27 vs Braves
Ladies and gentlemen, it was 28 years ago that the New York Mets took their first tentative steps toward the rebirth that would lead them to an eventual world championship. It was then, in 1980, that the Mets tradition was granted new life under a vigorous new ownership group, one committed to growing a winner in Queens.

Though neither of them ever sought the spotlight, it would be impossible to tell the story of the New York Mets since 1980 without acknowledging their individual and collective contributions. That is why we asked them to take part in our Shea Stadium final season countdown together and that is why each of them graciously agreed to take the field this one time.

Please welcome, then, the chairman of the New York Mets until 2002, Nelson Doubleday, and his partner of more than two decades, current chairman and chief executive officer, Fred Wilpon, as they proceed to remove number 70 from the right field wall.

69: Monday, April 28 vs Pirates
No baseball season, ladies and gentlemen, is a static one. Player transactions happen regularly, sometimes frequently. For fans of a given team, it is a boon when a move is made and the payoff, in terms of a postseason appearance, is almost immediate.

There are several episodes in Mets history wherein a player came in and made that kind of impact. Unfortunately, there is a flip side. Somebody ultimately has to move on when someone else is added. And in the years when success lies just down the road for the team, it's a tough break for an individual who contributed to the rising to miss out.

With that equation in mind, we have decided to balance the books just a bit tonight by inviting back to Shea Stadium a quartet of Mets who played on four of our most successful teams but for one reason or another did not make it to October. Think of this, fellas, as our making it up to you.

From the 1969 Mets, traded on June 15 for eventual World Series MVP Donn Clendenon, please welcome a Met who made his debut with the club in 1965, Kevin Collins.

From the 1986 Mets, a victim of roster roulette, a pitcher who gave the Mets several gritty seasons and always his best, say hello again to Ed Lynch.

From the 1999 Mets, the centerfielder traded at the deadline in a deal intended to shore up various other needs, someone popular with his teammates and always a pro, Brian McRae.

And leading our group of would-be October heroes to remove number 69 from the right field wall, this outfielder played a major role on the 2006 National League Eastern Division champions. Circumstances dictated the Mets make a trade two Julys ago and the price was a stiff one. We were sorry to see him go, but we're happy to have him back, if just for three games in a Pirate uniform. Please give a warm hand to, from the 2006 Mets, Xavier Nady.

68: Tuesday, April 29 vs Pirates
We are playing ball, ladies and gentlemen, and we expect to finish playing ball sometime tonight. But there have been evenings in Shea Stadium's colorful history when that wasn't always the case.

One of those nights was May 25, 1979, better known as The Fog Game. It was these same two opponents, the Mets and the eventual world champion Pirates who played to a 3-3 tie. Why a tie? Because in the eleventh inning, the fog rolled in off Flushing Bay and it simply became too tough to see.

Here to relive that soupy night are:

• The Pirates' starter who went seven innings and surrendered only three hits, Jim Rooker.

• The Pirate pinch-hitter who belted a two-run homer in the eighth and was a perennial thorn in the Mets' side, the Hit Man, Mike Easler.

• He pitched a perfect top of the eleventh, striking out Dave Parker and Hall of Famer Willie Stargell to preserve the tie score, one of the Mets' most reliable relievers ever, Skip Lockwood.

• And leading us through the fog to number 68, the man who hit a ball to left that could not be tracked down in the pea soup of that May night and went for a triple. The conditions dictated the game be called right then and there and go into the books as a tie. He hit lots of balls in all kinds of weather that fell in unaided by the elements, however, and he had an arm that could rifle a ball through whatever the atmosphere had to offer. Please welcome back Mets All-Star outfielder, Joel Youngblood.

67: Wednesday, April 30 vs Pirates
This afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, we are please to recall a Pirate legend whose playing career had a funny way of bouncing through the annals of New York baseball.

He came to the big leagues in 1956. A season later, he was the starting second baseman for Pittsburgh in the final game at Ebbets Field and what appeared to be the final game at the Polo Grounds. Of course a few years later, the Polo Grounds would reopen for business with the Mets as the tenant, by which time this master of infield defense had become famous for hitting the first home run to end a World Series, defeating the Yankees and making their manager, Casey Stengel, available soon thereafter to tutor the new kids in town.

It shouldn't surprise you to know that Bill Mazeroski was in the starting lineup on April 17, 1964 for these Pirates when Shea Stadium opened or, given his credentials, that he was Ron Hunt's backup at second base when the All-Star Game took place here took three months later. Yet none of his accomplishments, not even his 2001 induction into the Hall of Fame, is why we asked the man known as Maz to remove number 67 from the right field wall today.

No, we invited Bill Mazeroski to Shea Stadium because he hit into a triple play...but not just any triple play and definitely not one that would show up in any box score. On June 27, 1967, prior to a day game right here at Shea, the director of a movie called The Odd Couple staged a triple play for fictional sportswriter Oscar Madison, portrayed by the great Walter Matthau, to cover...or not cover, as the plot dictated. The player captured forever on film making three outs with one swing? None other than Bill Mazeroski.

Maz, who never hit into a triple play in "real life," was a good sport then and he's a good sport now. And since The Odd Couple is also something of an icon in Shea Stadium history, joining Bill for his trip up the right field line is the actor who would play Oscar Madison in the television series version of The Odd Couple. He is quite possibly the actor seen more than any other in a Mets cap on screen. Please welcome to Shea Stadium, the incomparable Jack Klugman.

Numbers 78-73 were revealed here.