As you've probably heard or read, the Mets and the City of New York are teaming to give you (especially if you're a season-ticket holder) a chance to buy a pair of Shea seats for the low, low bargain price of $869. A portion of the proceeds will be directed to worthy charities, the market will bear what the market will bear and at this point nobody can feign shock that stadium relics carry a high tag. It's galling and insane and all that, but I wasn't expecting those of us who've spent the rough (and I do mean rough) equivalent of 50 full days sitting in such seats to receive a diehard discount. If you've toured what one wag referred to as the FEMA trailer they've set up between the old and new ballparks to sell Final Season merchandise, you've been reminded that you can put a price on sentiment.

I don't know that I'd dig way deep for a pair of Shea seats. My lovely wife, partly being characteristically indulgent and partly as a hedge against the inevitable psychiatric bills I'd run up when it would fully dawn on me that Shea seats were available and I didn't grab two, has encouraged us to go for it (as if we have a go-for-it fund). That's an awfully thoughtful blessing on her part but it's an awfully steep bill. I just don't know.

But I do know of an added embellishment that would make the final Shea seats that come attached to a regular-season ballgame that much more valuable.

Sign Edgardo Alfonzo in September.

We were talking a post ago about Aaron Heilman starting September 28 or Jesse Orosco finishing. Neither seems likely to happen (though if I had to bet, I'd lean toward Jesse). As I mentioned, Mike Flanagan threw the final Oriole pitch at Memorial Stadium and it was a sweet deal. On the occasion of the final Giants home game at the Polo Grounds, manager Bill Rigney fielded a lineup that included recently reacquired Bobby Thomson and Whitey Lockman, 1954 Series pinch-hitting hero Dusty Rhodes, stalwart championship catcher Wes Westrum, Willie Mays (of course) and, to pitch, '54 ace Johnny Antonelli. That, too, was sweet.

What could be sweeter on September 28, 2008 than looking up at the right side of the scoreboard and seeing this notation in the two-hole?

13 2B
Yes, Edgardo Alfonzo (Billy Wagner, grab a couple of sixes). This isn't in the fanciful realm of "wouldn't it be great if some retired Met icon could be activated for one day?" Fonzie is a Met icon who is not retired. Fonzie is playing for the Long Island Ducks. Fonzie, for that matter, is tearing it up for the Long Island Ducks.

This was in Newsday Monday:

Alfonzo returned to the Ducks for the second half and is hitting .324 with 11 runs, 12 RBIs, two doubles and three home runs. He hit .266 with five home runs and 56 RBIs in 105 games with the Ducks in 2007.

The former Met spent the first few months of 2008 with Quintana Roo of the Mexican League, hitting .280 with 12 doubles and 17 RBIs in 55 games.

This wouldn't be Minnie Minoso. This wouldn't be a gimmick. OK, it would be a gimmick, but not an implausible one. It would be an appropriate one.

Granted, if the Mets are fighting for a playoff spot in Game 162, you might take a different tack (though if Fonzie's batting .324, maybe he should be called in from Islip sooner). But if it's devoid of implications beyond the one implication we've had circled on the schedule for months, then why not? Surely the 40-man roster can stand some juggling for one September day. Surely Luis Castillo will need to keep flexing that hip to make certain it's strong for 2009. Surely the Mets organization for once in their stupid lives can do something beautiful and relatively inexpensive.

I'd make the offer to Mike Piazza, too, except Mike did retire and I can't see Mike going for it. Besides, Mike had his last day in a Mets uniform duly noted. It was beautiful, actually, more beautiful than anticipated because the scoreboard carried this notation in the cleanup slot that Sunday:

31 C
That was one of Willie Randolph's best moments, penciling in Mike Piazza to bat fourth on his final day as a Met. Removing Mike Piazza before the game was over was not his shiningest hour, but let's stay positive. If Mike called Jay Horwitz (all Hall of Fame-caliber former Mets catchers call Jay Horwitz when they want something) and said "I've been working out, I'd like to come back," I'd say sure, make it Mike and Fonzie. I'd throw Brian Schneider, Ramon Castro and Robinson Cancel under the bus so fast, it would make Gary Carter's head spin.

But that's not gonna happen. Mike stopped playing. Fonzie, however, hasn't. Fonzie was hitting .324 through Sunday in a reasonably competitive league. Fonzie was auditioned in Norfolk in 2006 and it was only, if I followed the dots correctly, because Castro went on the DL and the Mets had to sign Kelly Stinnett out of nowhere as a precaution for October, that he didn't get a Lee Mazzilli recall that jubilant September.

Make amends Omar. Make it up to us. Make it up to me, the fan who's spent the rough equivalent of 50 days, about three hours per game over almost 400 games, sitting in a Shea Stadium seat that you're going to sell to someone more well off financially and mentally than me. Give us one fantastic Shea throwback for one fantastic final Shea experience. Give one authentic Shea icon who deserved a legitimate sendoff but never received one a last afternoon in the sun. Give us our Mike Flanagan, our Bobby Thomson.

Give us this one and make some diehards happy.

So I'm working on a computer I haven't used in years, one that dates back to Aaron Heilman's rookie year. Back then, this computer seemed very promising. Now it's outdated and clunky and the only reason I'm using it is because until my usual computer is pronounced fit, it's all I've got.

Hit you over the head much? No more than the Jody Gerut did to Aaron Heilman. We won, so bygones can be bygones for a night, but ninth innings are obviously not Aaron's bag, baby. Until he becomes a free agent and signs with the Cardinals and Tony La Russa converts him to a starter (or a shortstop; it is La Russa), he's stuck in the bullpen with the rest of the well-meaning schlubs who couldn't close a jar of Taster's Choice, let alone a baseball game.

But I like Aaron. He gives me no reason to, but he seems not unlikable. Forlorn, actually, is what he seems. He struggled his first couple of years, was turned to amid desperate straits in early 2005 and threw a complete game one-hitter. There is not a single Mets starter in our pretty good rotation who has thrown a nine-inning one-hitter for us. Yet they're all still in the rotation. Aaron was asked to leave the rotation not two months after his one-hitter and was never invited back. He got pretty good at pitching a given inning, whether it was the seventh, the eighth or, on occasion in '05, the ninth. As with this computer (which I schlepped home as part of a severance package because I once read an article that said if you're laid off, demand your computer), I thought that was only the beginning, that this thing is going to keep unveiling marvels and wonders for us all to enjoy. Instead, Aaron, like this 2003 iMac, peaked quite a while ago. Now and then he gives it his all and it's a big, big help. Other times he gives it his all, and a four-run lead grows lonely quickly.

Aaron Heilman has been a Met pitcher longer on a consecutive basis than any other Met pitcher (Pedro Feliciano, up in 2002, never pitched for another big league team but he did wander outside the organization a couple of times). That puts Aaron in Jose/David territory as far as homegrown pitchers who never pitched anywhere else go. But that's about as far as that analogy will fly. Aaron Heilman, No. 1 draft status and all, has never been a golden boy on this team. He's never had a role that quite suited him. He may still produce wonders and marvels in his career, but it won't be as a Met.

But I have a consolation prize for him. I've been rereading one of my all-time favorite baseball books, Ballpark by Peter Richmond. It's about how Oriole Park at Camden Yards came to be, about what a unique idea it was, how all involved took great pains to create (not imitate) the retro ballpark style, why it replaced locally beloved Memorial Stadium. Columnist John Steadman wrote during the period when not every Baltimorean was sold on the Camden charm, "If it's being built to look old and rundown, we already have one of those."

As the Memorial finale approached, it became a sentimental mission in Baltimore to have Mike Flanagan throw the final Oriole pitch. Flanagan, a 23-game winner for the A.L. champion Birds of '79, came up in 1975. He was the next in a long line of great Oriole pitching products. He lasted a dozen years before being traded to Toronto in a classic deadline deal in which a veteran is sent from a lousy team to a contending team. The Oriole Way by then, 1987, was just a memory. In 1991, at age 39, he came home to Baltimore to relieve and, by his own admission, maybe throw that ultimate Memorial Stadium pitch. On that Sunday afternoon, the fans clamored to have him come in from the bullpen and finish off an era. He did, and it was, Richmond recounts, beautiful.

When I reread that passage, it got me thinking about who should start the final game at Shea. I mean really should. If we leave out fantasy picks like Seaver and Gooden (who's only 43, y'know), I concluded, sadly, there's no obvious choice. None of our current starters has that kind of Met tenure that demands the ball. Yeah, I thought, Pedro, kind of, but...ah, not really. I'm more concerned that Pedro has a next start, not a last start. Santana, as much as we're relying on him for now and beyond, doesn't speak to Shea's history. Pelfrey is mildly appealing in this context as potentially the next righty flamethrower to dominate the National League, an extension (we hope) of the Tom & Doc lineage. It's not a great fit, but it would do by default. (And unless you're yearning for time to almost literally stand still on September 28, I don't think there's enough of an emotional connection to sign Steve Trachsel to a one-day contract.)

Tuesday night, however, it hit me. It hit me like Gerut hit Heilman. Let Aaron do it. Let Aaron have that final start at Shea Stadium. Let Aaron, who was a batterymate of Piazza, who was on the same staff as Leiter and Franco, who was drafted by the defending National League champions, who threw a complete game one-hitter, take the ball. Let Aaron Heilman have one final moment he can enjoy at Shea Stadium. Aaron's sucked up a lot of thankless innings (and, yes, given up a lot of long home runs), but he's likable enough. Give him the ball.

Besides, if we're gonna rely on him to close anymore this season, it's not like that final game is going to have implications beyond the sentimental.