1: Sunday, September 28 vs. Marlins
The following New York State executive order was issued and communicated on a series of banners carried aloft and paraded by officially certified fans of the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York, Inc. on the field at William A. Shea Municipal Stadium following the last out of the final regular-season baseball game to be played there.

WHEREAS, William A. Shea Municipal Stadium was established on the Seventeenth Day of April in the Year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Sixty Four; and

WHEREAS, Shea Stadium has hosted thousands of events of all sorts; and

WHEREAS, Shea Stadium has been home for forty-five seasons to the Metropolitan Baseball Club of New York, Inc.; and

WHEREAS, Shea Stadium has yielded countless memories to millions of New Yorkers and those who have visited New York; and

WHEREAS, Shea Stadium has played an integral role in the lives of countless persons since 1964; and

WHEREAS, neither Shea Stadium nor the events that have taken place inside and around its physical plant can be considered anything less than a rich cultural contribution to the State and City of New York and the Borough of Queens; and

WHEREAS, the circumstances inherent in those events, those people and Shea Stadium itself have been so carefully chronicled since the Eighth Day of April in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eight in what has been known as the Shea Stadium Final Season Countdown Like It Oughta Be; and

WHEREAS, the Shea Stadium Final Season Countdown Like It Oughta Be has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt the historical significance of Shea Stadium; and

WHEREAS, no facility that has encompassed so much history should be permitted to undergo total and complete demolition; and

WHEREAS, the New York Mets organization relies on certain tax abatements and incidents of government assistance to optimize commercial enterprise profit; and

WHEREAS, the State of New York recognizes a responsibility on behalf of private-sector concerns to function in the public interest; and

WHEREAS, this public servant did, in fact, grow up a fan of the New York Mets baseball team and a devoted patron of Shea Stadium;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, DAVID A. PATERSON, Governor of the State of New York, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the State of New York, do hereby order as follows:

1. Upon conclusion of the 2008 New York Mets season or postseason, dependent on the Mets' record in championship season play, the ownership of the New York Mets is required to leave one piece of Shea Stadium standing.

2. The portion of the right field wall on which has been emblazoned the numbers that have signified how many games have remained in the life of Shea Stadium since there were eighty-one on April 8 shall remain standing into perpetuity.

3. That portion of the wall shall be maintained as it appears today, the Twenty Eighth day of September in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eight, painted blue and continuing to display the numeral 1 as it does now.

4. The wall and the number shall stand as part of the foreground of all successor facilities to Shea Stadium on this site in Flushing Meadows Corona Park or whatever structures are erected here in the future should the New York Mets baseball team shift its operations to another locale inside or outside New York City.

5. No plaque or marker shall accompany this section of the wall. It shall be incumbent upon those who witnessed the events that filled Shea Stadium between 1964 and 2008 to communicate to future generations the significance of the wall when asked. All who entered Shea Stadium between 1964 and 2008 shall carry forth a moral obligation to tell the story of Shea Stadium to all who never had the opportunity to experience it.

6. Any person who is not sure what to say to their children or their children's children or anybody's children as to what made Shea Stadium special is encouraged to refer to the transcript of the Shea Stadium Final Season Countdown Like It Oughta Be, available at the blog Faith and Fear in Flushing. But it is the considered opinion of this office that all you will need to do is look into your heart and reach back into your memory and tell those future generations and those individuals who never attended Shea Stadium themselves what you saw, what you heard, what you felt.

7. If you saw the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, let those who never did know what it was like to be here when the stadium shook because a Met hit a home run.

8. If you saw the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, let those who never did know what it was like to be here when the stadium gasped because a Met came close to pitching a no-hitter.

9. If you saw the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, let those who never did know what it was like to be here when the stadium erupted in joy as a championship was secured or a victory was sealed or a nice play was made.

10. If you saw the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, let those who never did know what it was like to anticipate the trip here, to wander through the gate, to walk up a stalled escalator, to emerge into a dark and damp concourse and then be assaulted with more light and color than television could ever relay.

11. If you saw the New York Mets at Shea Stadium, let those who never did know the delight of being a New York Mets fan at Shea Stadium, the frustration of being a New York Mets fan at Shea Stadium, the absolute totality of being a New York Mets fan at Shea Stadium.

12. Whatever you experienced at Shea Stadium, for whatever reason you were at Shea Stadium, pass the word along.

13. If you attended Shea Stadium, idealized Shea Stadium, adored Shea Stadium, loathed Shea Stadium...don't forget Shea Stadium. The portion of the right field wall that shall remain standing with the numeral 1 is intended to serve as no more than a well-meaning cue to bring out your stories of Shea Stadium and allow you to share them for the rest of your lives so they, in turn, can be shared into perpetuity, which is how long this section of the wall shall stand.

14. No commercial enterprise shall be permitted to sponsor this section of the wall where the Shea Stadium Final Season Countdown Like It Oughta Be was commemorated. The idea that something as substantive as a seasonlong retrospective of a cherished institution's history — a history that belongs to all — could be diluted for commercial gain is reprehensible even in theory.

15. The removal of this portion of the wall and/or the numeral 1 shall result in the forfeit of all favorable financial considerations granted by any and all agencies of the State and City governments, the kind on which all professional sports organizations depend to function optimally. All highway and public transit infrastructure relevant to successor facilities to Shea Stadium on this site shall commence to be completely and totally unfunded if this portion of the wall and/or the numeral 1 are not lovingly and carefully preserved.

16. The number 1 is never to be removed from the portion of this wall that shall remain standing. As long as 1 remains posted on this site, Shea Stadium shall never truly be gone. It shall always be, as in the hearts and minds of millions of Mets fans since 1964, the 1.

17. That is how the Shea Stadium Final Season Countdown Like It Oughta Be oughta end.

Given under my hand and the Privy Seal of the State in William A. Shea Municipal Stadium in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in the Borough of Queens in the City of New York this Twenty Eighth Day of September in the Year of our Lord Two Thousand and Eight.

David A. Paterson
Governor and Mets Fan

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Number 2 was revealed here.

***
On Monday, July 21, we will offer a revealing Q&A that will describe the process by which the Shea Stadium Final Season Countdown Like It Oughta Be was conceived, constructed and executed.

Mike Pelfrey tore through the Rockies like a combine, sending 4-3s and 6-4-3s and the occasional K shooting out in his wake. Mike Pelfrey, mostly known as 79 inches of potential stubbornly untapped. Mike Pelfrey who somewhere in the last couple of weeks we learned to trust and stopped being surprised by. I got chills when the ballpark started chanting "LET'S! GO! PEL-FREY!" but that's not remarkable -- tens of thousands of people chanting anything can give you a shiver, and a crowd in the right mood can get behind any individual pitching performance. (Nelson Figueroa heard cheers too.) But there was something else in that chant for Pelfrey. Somehow you could hear that the Shea faithful had come to a conclusion and wanted to revel in it a bit. They brought Pelfrey out for a curtain call not to cheer what he could be, but to celebrate what he's become.

Emily and I took Joshua to Coney Island to hurtle around junior rollercoasters and then to Keyspan Park for our first Cyclones game of the year, an unofficial school outing that saw dozens of sugared-up five-year-olds clambering over seats and dogpiling and covering themselves in ketchup and cotton candy and ice cream and lemonade and yelling at nothing in particular. If you don't have kids, it was as scary as you might imagine. Actually, it was kind of scary (in an amusing way) for those of us who did have kids. The Cyclones, happily not distracted, won. (And Joshua ran the bases with elan, I'm proud to say.) Google told me via cellphone that the Phillies had overcome an early deficit and beaten the Diamondbacks, so there would be no reclaiming first place in the final hour of baseball's first half. But that was OK. There was sunshine and the Cyclones, and an odd bit of nostalgia: Their No. 2 hitter was Angel Pagan, the same Angel Pagan who was the Cyclones' first matinee idol in their inaugural season seven years ago. (And playing for Edgar Alfonzo, the manager then and the manager again.) I knew I was a lot happier about Pagan's presence in a New York-Penn League lineup than he was, but I also knew that was proper: He's needed elsewhere, after all. We caught the first few innings of the big-league game in a friend's car, and heard Howie's voice zoom the second Beltran make contact. He knew we would win. We knew we would win. And we did win.

It's obvious to say that it's a shame the Mets have to disperse for 72 hours, that they'd be better off if they could keep rolling. But I kept thinking something a bit different: Did you ever imagine we'd be sad to have the 2008 Mets take three days off?

Baseball fans fantasize all the time. (I've seen David Wright after hitting a three-run, walk-off home run in Game 7 of the World Series, and I can assure you he and we look very happy.) But did you ever imagine that we'd hear a crowd summon Big Pelf for a curtain call and have it not be for a lightning-in-a-bottle game of his life? That you'd see Carlos Delgado stride to the plate and think of him as dangerous again? That nine wins in a row would have you reaching eagerly for the pocket schedule and thinking about the second half?

I'd say it's a pinch-me moment, but don't you dare pinch me. If this is a dream, I've no interest in waking up.