Maybe it was my seat location, only the slightest of strolls from Upper Deck Box 746B. I could see it from Upper Reserved, Section 12, Row C. And I could see all over again what I saw when I sat in 746B on September 30 last.

I saw the end of 2007 — the end that won't conclude. It's not Groundhog Day with these Mets. Groundhog Day was funny. This is a team that plays a week late and many dollars short. This is a team that makes me sad.

Remind me all you want that it's only six games. I can count. I own several calendars and earned an A in logic when I was a college freshman. It's not logic that draws me magnetically back to Shea Stadium season after season, April after September, ticket price hike after breathtakingly epic decline. It's not the chance that the Mets might make up a net deficit of one game in the standings and then go on to achieve what they haven't achieved for more than 21 years. After the first decade without, you stop setting your expectations by world championship possibilities.

Six games deep, a fine, fine season is still possible for 2008. A long winning streak could begin to unspool as soon as Wednesday night, and Tuesday afternoon would go into the books as an unpleasant stumbling block that had all the staying power of Matt Wise. Three or four consecutive Mets batters could each collect a hit; a series of Mets relief pitchers could record scoreless innings in rapid succession; simple ground balls could be transported without incident from the first baseman to whoever's covering second. A festival of competence and even enthusiasm could break out among the players. The manager's imagination might possibly stir.

It's baseball. Anything could happen. Doesn't mean it will. After the first Home Opener in ten attended that had me returning on my shield instead of with it, I'm not in a mode to see where anything outstanding will happen except for Johan Santana starting every five or six days.

Sorry. Can't shake September 2007. Can't watch the 2008 Mets play listless, ineffectual ball and not see much the same cast I saw from a couple of sections over six-some months ago. They were limp then. They've failed to stiffen since.

What a downer. What a downer after hours of uppers. It was such a good day there for a while, from the efficiency of the new and surprisingly improved transportation hub to my first-ever experience feeding off somebody else's meticulously executed tailgate bash to sittings with and sightings of old and great Mets friends to five innings of warmth before the sun ducked toward Corona to the shockingly classy tribute to Bill Shea, the Shea family and everything Shea. They honored the bejeesus out of the man, the clan and the stadium, that sweet Final Season logo plastered on everything from the popcorn boxes to the copiously consumed Bud and Bud Light bottles (there was even a countdown component — life imitates blog?). I wasn't fazed by the fights, the boos, the annual stilled escalator or the I dunnos from those who couldn't tell you a blessed thing about the potential replenishment of their merchandise supply. I didn't even mind the looming presence of that glassy space invader over the outfield fence whose mission it is to plow under for parking everything I've held dear across 36 springs, summers and falls. For now, I think of wind-curdling Citi Field as Shea Stadium's generally benign answer to the B&O Warehouse. As they eerily coexist, I can even imagine the understudied two-ballpark plan regaining traction because, really, if you put aside what's wrong with Shea, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Shea.

But the hollow Mets brought me and anybody who didn't wear a red cap down right quick on what's supposed to be and usually is one of the happiest days of the year. Losing would figure to do that, but there's losing and then there's playing, acting and being utterly defeated. It wasn't a brand new season full of hope we saw take shape on Tuesday. It was September 31, 2007. And it was damn depressing to watch.

Pallets of brown corrugated boxes sit somewhere in Queens. They are filled with magnetic schedules. Could be the reason I suddenly feel something.

I already kind of don't remember the first week of the 2008 season. I was there, it was there, but there wasn't much there there. Admittedly, I haven't managed to sit down and focus like a laser on nine contiguous innings, but that's just an excuse to go with all the others. Whether it's the hangover of '07 (if you can have a hangover after drinking no Champagne) or the clammy New York spring or the inability to mix and match new Mets with previous Mets and call the collection a team or, to be blunt, the saggy 2-3 start, I'm just not feeling this particular campaign yet.

But where I'm headed in a matter of hours...I'm feeling that. I'm feeling the pull of Opening Day at Shea Stadium. It's absolutely magnetic.

Somebody's down in storage unloading those pallets right now. Case upon case of those brown boxes. Somebody's cutting through the bands, somebody's rendering the adhesive obsolete. I can hear the boxes tearing open. I can feel it. Somebody with a clipboard is directing a fleet of forklifts. These go to Gate E, these to Gate D and so on. Break 'em out, have 'em ready. Company's coming.

It's the Home Opener at Shea Stadium. They always hand out magnetic schedules, since 1997 at least. It's the first sponsorship, the first promotion of the year: Kahn's...Delta...whoever pays the freight. They used to give one to everybody. Now it's the first 25,000 through the gates. You'd figure they could afford another pallet's worth, given the Amazin' advertising the thing provides. These magnets go up on 10,000 fridges and 10,000 filing cabinets in the Metropolitan area almost immediately. Who knows how many millions of times this summer somebody in New York or New Jersey or Connecticut will say "hang on a sec...let me check..." and crane a neck toward the schedule he or she was handed April 8 and positioned purposefully onto a cooperative surface April 9? Who knows how many Mets fans have waited patiently since September 30 to replace the previous magnetic schedule with a better one?

The new magnetic schedule's gotta be better than its predecessor. It's just gotta.

Or so we hope, which is fine — which is required, actually. Hope's in fashion this morning and afternoon, no matter how few sparks the season to date has thrown off, no matter that the cast of 2008 doesn't feel whole, as if we're in the Archie Bunker's Place phase of All In The Family.

Ah, stifle yourself. Enough moping that these Mets haven't clinched a darn thing after one week on the job. Those were road games. They counted only in fact, not at heart. The season starts when Shea unshutters, when indifferently trained personnel dip into those brown boxes and peel off a magnetic schedule to you...and to you...and to you...and sorry, we're all out, you shoulda got here sooner. The season starts upon first sighting of the big blue shell with the white trim, its amazing Technicolor dreamcoat of seats and its green, green grass of home.

The season starts at Shea. One more time it does. The contents of a pallet of corrugated boxes sitting somewhere in Queens says so.