I've never completely understood the adage about not letting the other team's best guy beat you. He's their best guy. He's supposed to be the one who beats you if you are, in fact, supposed to get beaten. When Albert Pujols homered off Aaron Heilman in the fourteenth inning a few weeks ago, it wasn't fun, but it was Albert Pujols. It beat Yadier Molina beating us.

Likewise, I can accept Miguel Tejada or Lance Berkman pulling the trigger a lot less begrudgingly than I can the Astros' support crew doing us in. Brad Ausmus? Before today, he was a Killer B only by first initial. Darin Erstad? Power wasn't his game...before today. Good Major Leaguers continuing long careers, but not the guys who you picture crucifying your chances in the late innings.

But David Newhan? Christ Almighty, as David Newhan himself might think with total sincerity in the matter.

I was familiar with only two elements of David Newhan's biography when he signed with the Mets to become the new and hopefully improved Chris Woodward last year: 1) His father is a sportswriter of great renown; 2) he, like Shawn Green and Scott Schoeneweis, was represented by a card in my Jewish Major Leaguers set that these fine folks put out. As one who writes about sports and has been Bar Mitzvahed, I filed both facts under "couldn't hurt" and waited for David Newhan to perform utilityman miracles.

And I waited.

David Newhan's 2007 was one of the least inspiring of all Met 2007s. To put it kindly, he never quite got untracked. Hit a momentarily big homer against Milwaukee in a game that was ten minutes from devolving into a Brewer blowout. Contributed days later to the unlikeliest of ninth-inning rallies against the Cubs. And if he did anything else after May 17, I must have missed it. Willie Randolph kept sending David Newhan up to bat and, like Ricky Ledee (1 HR, 6 RBI, .222 BA), David Newhan (1 HR, 6 RBI, .203 BA) kept turning right around to reclaim his a seat on the bench. His unremarkable production as a bit Met was not unique. Utilitymen — whoever their father, whatever their lineage — are benchbound precisely because they are generally incapable of cracking a good lineup. It happened to Woodward. It happened to Joe McEwing before him. It happens to almost all of them. They also tend to wander through the desert seeking a 25th-man role on foreign rosters. Thus, David Newhan — erstwhile member of the organizations of the Athletics, the Padres, the Phillies, the Dodgers, the Rockies, the Rangers, the Orioles and the Mets — journeyed on after 2007, candles unlit in the Shea Stadium window regarding his return.

He came back this weekend anyway, not as a Newhan but as a new man — a man apparently bent on inflicting regret on those for whom he did next to nothing. Saturday night? A no-doubt home run off John Maine, his first of the year. Perhaps David, starting at second base, used his '07 pine time to really study Maine's arm angle in anticipation of someday swinging against him. Or maybe he succeeded as he did because Johnny's arm is perilously close to falling off.

Sunday? Sunday David Newhan stepped up as a pinch-hitter for the Astros. In 2007, as a Met, David Newhan batted .171 in pinch-hitting situations. In 2008, he'd tumbled far from that lofty perch. He was 1-for-21 (.048) as a pinch-hitter before facing Aaron Heilman in the seventh. Call it the rise of the new man; call it David Newhan's revenge; call it anybody could have whacked Aaron Heilman today. But David Newhan singled sharply to drive in the tying run for Houston (and might have eventually scored an insurance run had Astro third base coach Ed Romero not waved home dead duck Humberto Quintero).

Two days, two ringing hits, two darts fired at the Mets' slimming first-place lead. The Mets have seemed like a much better or at least much spunkier unit than their 2007 predecessors all summer long, not necessarily because David Newhan isn't a Met anymore but his absence, though largely overlooked, didn't hurt. His presence this weekend, however, sure has.

When I received my 2008 Jewish Major Leaguers update set, I was delighted to find portrayals of Scott Schoeneweis and Shawn Green in blue and orange that was authentic and not Photoshopped. But there was no David Newhan. I asked JML why Newhan as a Met was not included (if for nothing more than completion's sake) and was told that in light of David's chosen spiritual path — he considers himself a Messianic Jew, or what is referred to sometimes as a Jew for Jesus — "Newhan is considered 'out' in terms of current Jewishness."

Funny, I thought. He was considered "out" by most pitchers every time they faced him last year.

Well, kind of.

Long Beach Island is so far from New York City in terms of feel that it's always a mild surprise to remember that it's not far at all in terms of distance: They get WFAN down here and SNY is on basic cable. Which makes it not unlike keeping track of the Mets at home, except here the game competes with the sound of the ocean instead of whatever the heck it is one's neighbors are doing.

I hope Emily and I can be forgiven for not following last night's game with razor-sharp intensity: We had to get a comically tired child fed, pajama'ed and into bed, unpack all our stuff and figure out what needed doing this morning so we can get down to the serious business of not doing much at all. (I was proud of myself that within half an hour on LBI I was oozing up Long Beach Boulevard at about 30 MPH, in no particular hurry to get anywhere. It used to take me a couple of days to force the West Side HIghway out of driver's muscle memory.)

Oh, and the fact that it was quickly 5-0 Astros took the edge off a bit, too.

And yet how far we've come: We kept watching, which was partially because that's what we do but also because these days you never think this team is done for until the 'F' appears. And indeed, with nobody out in the eighth it was 8-3, and then there stood Carlos Delgado with two on and two out, one good swing away from making it an honest-to-goodness ballgame again. (And if Duaner Sanchez hadn't been singularly unimpressive in attempting to clean up after John Maine, Carlos would have been the tying run.)

OK, so Carlos didn't get that one good swing -- he was just off a hittable fastball from Tim Byrdak and then grounded out, and an inning later we'd lost. But man, what a difference a couple of months makes. Back then, if the Mets were up 8-3 I'd have been trying to figure out how they'd blow it. Now, they were down 8-3 and I thought, What the hey, we have a chance. I was wrong, but if you're measuring how far we've come, it really is the thought that counts.

According to the gentleman sitting behind me way up high in Section 3 of the Upper Deck Saturday night...

• The Mets were headed to "Comeback City".
• There was still "plenty of time left".
• Every ball should have been thrown "to second!" even if the play was at another base.
• CLAP!

This dude — nowhere near qualifying for the League of Extraordinary Morons, mind you — did like his clapping. The Mets left little to applaud, but he urged them on without pause.

Beat booing.

When John Maine gathered two strikes: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

When John Maine gathered two balls: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

When John Maine gave up two more runs: not so much CLAP! but lots of exhortation delivered Bill Swerski's Super Fans style (a Chicago accent in Queens is very jarring; I fully expected a call for Manuel to be fired in favor of Ditka).

The Clapper did say please and thank you a lot — as in please get a hit and thank you for retiring an Astro — but he mostly clapped. As the game wore on, he grew rhythmic. It seemed to have no connection to the action, all of which was dismal. By the eighth, I caught his pattern.

HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
MY MIND: one...two..three...go
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
MY MIND: one...two..three...go
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!
MY MIND: going...going...gone
HIS HANDS: CLAP! CLAP! CLAP!

If I hadn't been nursing a stye above my left eye, I might not have minded The Clapper's booming palms in my left ear. And if the Mets really were headed for Comeback City instead of missing the exit ramp from Futility Freeway, he would have seemed more colorful and less cumbersome.

This was the first game I'd been to in a while where a lousy Mets performance could be sloughed off as just one of those things. Usually a resoundingly noncompetitive loss in which Brandon Backe outdoes Roy Oswalt while David Newhan makes like Lance Berkman would have me ghosting suicide notes for the entire Sterling Equities organization. But I've seen the evil and the good — doctor, my stye! — enough to give the Mets the benefit of one stinker's doubt. We never did approach Comeback City, and there really wasn't plenty of time left when were down 8-1, but it was a decent night in Dairlylea Coupon Country nonetheless. It was an evening to enjoy free sportsbags, complimentary bagpipes (to honor the Irish, the Mets wore the uniforms of the O'Hfers for four innings) and the company of my dear friend Matt from Sunnyside.

That's a name accurate in terms both geographic and disposition. Earlier this season, as I was penning concession speeches, Matt insisted Pelfrey and Delgado and everybody else would come around. The Mets played lame but Matt held firm to his optimism. Poor deluded soul, I thought then. Soon the Mets were winning, Matt's faith was validated and I was recalibrating my fearful estimations for the remainder of 2008. Who, besides The Clapper, seems clueless now?

Other than achy John Maine, I mean.