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Maybe if Lincoln Mercury manufactured the ol' bullpen cart... Speaking of which, tonight's scheduled Countdown Like It Oughta Be number is 62 and it's being taken down by your bullpen coach/tomato tender of yore, Joe Pignatano. He was the planter, the farmer and the inspiration, to say nothing of a pretty fair tutor of relief pitchers across 14 seasons.

Department of useless qualified predictions colored by frostbite and frustration from last night: June 10 vs Arizona sees a new Met manager (Manuel's my guess, followed by Oberkfell, dark horse is Jose Valentin). As mentioned upthread, I believe Willie gets May out of fairness and gets the Dodger series so as not to make Torre's return to NY extremely circuslike. That sends him on the West Coast trip. And then he gets it IF the Mets are a sub-.500 team by then and IF they slip let's say seven out of first. The record is a distinct possibility, the margin maybe not as much since it would take a hot streak by Philly or Atlanta to distance themselves from a floundering Mets team that much...or it would take the Marlins, three up at the moment, being for real. This season is beginning to feel very 1991ish.

It struck me tonight, as I was among the 800 or so who remained at game's end that Carlos Delgado would be the last out and therefore would bear the brunt of the futility. But he wasn't booed at all. Because when there are 800 people, you can be picked out of a crowd by a large man with a bat. Also because once we dipped into triple-digits, we were all kind of in this loss together.

I know he was essentially a warm body thrown in with the cash Mrs. Payson sent Horace Stoneham and that Willie Mays was no longer Willie Mays by 1972...but to be the guy traded for WILLIE MAYS...that's almost as cool as being the only Met born in Flushing.

Great gimmick coming up Thursday when Gary, Keith and Ron ascend to Gary's old haunt in the Upper Deck to broadcast. Welcome to our world, jocks!

Keith did deliver the hit that turned the tide in the seventh game of the World Series played at Shea. That's got to be a little more special to him than the batting title. C'mon Mex -- no I in team!

You might guess Willie Mays would be the more popular lookup. But you can go anywhere to find out about him.

I found it a little disappointing that Keith's favorite Shea memory was Cardinal-driven. Not devastating, just disappointing.

Yeah, I originally wrote 154 and realized that was off, though you know, if Sky hit 'em in Philadelphia they went up on the LGA radar. He did hit a bus in the parking lot as a Giant youngster.

If you like climate-driven irony -- and commerce-driven reality -- then tonight, amid forecast 40-degree wind chills and probably not quite enough rain to wash the damn thing out (he says as a ticketholder who wouldn't mind staying home as a nor'easter batters the area), 64 is slated to be revealed by "a representative from Bermuda Tourism". Perhaps Casey and Gil will make it rain out of vengeance for this blatant placement of sponsorship grabass amid what should be a sacred exercise. In Oughta Be land, we assigned this date and the removal of originally scheduled 63 to Anthony Coscia, chairman of the Port Authority, the agency that runs LaGuardia Airport, so as to acknowledge all those incoming and outgoing flights that have forced all those batters and pitchers to call time out and all those fans to pause their conversations. And because nobody knows who the hell Anthony Coscia is, we have him joined by the Met who disrupted more air traffic than anyone else, David Arthur Kingman. 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.

AG/DC wrote: On and off, for a few weeks, and then I had to wait with great anxiety for the prototypes to reach me in the mail, before maiking final adjustments. Call it a month. But we have others in the works. Grote is actually a vestige of an earlier design when I was going for the best soundalikes for Johnny-Joey-DeeDee-Marky and went with Swannie-Grote-Reedy-Hardtke. That would have been more fun, but only for about 10 minutes, and we wanted something with some legs. (Plus, who ever called him "Reedy"?) KC suggested that we go with Mets representing each era, and Grote survived, because, well, you don't get too many chances to give Tom Seaver back the cold shoulder he's given to the fans these many years since his retirement. So his red-ass catcher gets the nod, alongside three of the otherwise fan-friendliest Met legends. Mikey sounds Ramonesish, if not, well, what he was called. Fonzie left at the starting gate again. (The best stuff is the stuff others pick over from afar; nice job all around.)

I appreciate Steve's kind words and, more to the point, the attempt he made to track what the Mets are doing, even if what the Mets are doing is half-hearted and half-assed. Bringing back the Jets (which got rained out), bringing Ed Charles back on Jackie Robinson Night, bringing three '64 Mets in on the anniversary of the stadium opening -- fantastic. Random sponsors, Kids Clubhouse hosts who just got the job, Cyberchase mascots -- oy. Thank you for indulging the Countdown Like It Oughta Be. Highlights will continue to be presented here and, as Steve indicated, CLIOB continues in real time at Faith and Fear.

I really like the inclusion of Grote of all the "ee"s that could have been chosen.

Today's 65 in the "real" countdown was Gretchen Randolph and Willie's Kids, for Mother's Day. Nice enough gesture, borderline significance to the scheme of the things. Better than bringing out the regional manager for Toyota, sponsor of the pink caps.

Snacking is not an excuse. 64 Countdown Like It Oughta Be: Salute to Shea's predecessor, the first home of the Mets, the Polo Grounds. We bring back three PG Mets who had their days at Shea as well � Frank Thomas (opening day LF 1964) � Roger Craig (came back as a visitor from '64 on) � Choo Choo Coleman (snuck back in as a Met in '66, bub) and leading the pack for the peel... � Ted Schreiber, the last batter ever at a Major League Baseball game in Manhattan (GIDP). Schreiber's only year in the Majors was 1963, so it is with special pride we finally bring him to Shea. 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.

Hard to get inside the heads of every booing fan. I took the eighth-inning dismay as just booing of the general unraveling of events, not of Sanchez per se. He wasn't throwing hard but he didn't give up a single scorcher. If the booing was of the "you suck, Sanchez" variety, then I'm with Gary on this one.

65, in our world, goes down today/tonight, and the honors are left to Eddie Boison (Cow-Bell Man) and Richard Ehrhardt and Bonnie Troester, the son and daughter of Karl Ehrhardt, the Sign Man.

Those July '84 wins rate a mention to be sure. The Mets barreled into first place at the break and showed their love to the crowd by tossing their caps to the orange seats. I'm almost certain that the first time I saw Shea Stadium, from the Grand Central, the Mets were playing the Reds. It was a Sunday and we were driving a family friend to LaGuardia, 1970. I remember mentioning to our passenger that Tom Seaver was pitching against Jim McGlothlin that day (which the record indicates would have made it August 23). He insisted that he himself was pitching. I protested that he was mistaken. I may have been seven, but I wasn't an idiot.

Ralph went to a steakhouse between games of the only Mets day-night doubleheader Shea ever hosted prior to 2007. Such a Ralph thing to do.

Not definitive, not painstakingly ranked, but some memorable visits by Cincy to Shea: � Pennant! 10/10/73 � Rose v. Buddy, 10/8/73 � Rose's Revenge, 10/9/73 � Tom's Return, 8/21/77 � Pete Streaks On, 7/25/78 � Darryl Debuts, 5/6/83 � The First Ten-Run Inning, 6/12/79 � Armando Short-Circuits Junior ('Frequency' Night), 4/25/00 --Ken Griffey's first game at Shea; he's booed for not being a Met; both teams wear faux-'69 unis; last out on a very cold night is Benitez striking out the interloper; no sign of Dennis Quaid � Juan Samuel Goes Out Kicking, 7/9/89 --Melee; Samuel's only contribution; it was supposed to get the Mets going; it didn't � The Jose Cycle, 6/21/06 --Ruined by Wagner minutes after Keith said it was the loudest he'd ever heard Shea � HoJo Calls It A Night, 5/4/89 --Walkoff blast � Bobby Bo Divests Dibble, 8/30/92 --Sunday night game; '62 throwbacks; Bonilla homers to end it; Dibble flings his vest on the mound and never looks back � Seaver Wins, Go On Strike, 6/11/81 --Zachry loses; poetic justice? � Sweeping Into Serious Contention, 7/21/97 --Mets made Reds miserable all weekend; got Ray Knight fired; got Deion Sanders praying for Mets fans who harassed him; sent Mets soaring toward West Coast trip with Wild Card lead oh-so-close � First A Bobble, Then A Retirement, 7/27/03 --Bob and Ralph bobbleheads given out; Murph announces retirement mid-game; and I, like an idiot, left just before he did � Two Wins, Empty Feeling, 5/19/98 --A fine doubleheader sweep by a gritty ballclub; it's memorable because nobody was in the park and it was this lack of attendance that contributed (contemporary legend had it) to ownership's determination to nab Piazza days later � Rose Takes Bloom Off Doc, 5/11/86 --First loss of '86 for Gooden when Rose singles in three runs; off Teufel's glove; seemed to break the spell once and for all Dwight held over N.L. � Pete Has Power, 4/29/78 --Three home runs for first time in Hit King's career (gawd, he was annoying) � Ralph's Night, 7/14/07 --Lovely ceremony, lovely win � Pedro's Punctuation, 6/22/06 --Last really good start before the DL became part of Pedro's Met life � June Surge, 6/30/90 --Mets had wallowed; Buddy took over; Mets took off; they reached first place by end of month; too bad it didn't last

AG/DC wrote: The Crane Pool Resident 1983-Heads are having our annual chapter meeting tonight in my bed. Sorry, we don't make housecalls.

Today's Flashback inspired a little by this discussion of attendance and some by the thread on the 25th anniversary of the first blossoming of Strawberry (and mostly by the general malaise in Metsland caused by our pretty good team not being great). Thought resident 1983heads might enjoy it.

Since Premio makes Shea's signature Italian sausages, I'll allow it (even if it's because they're sponsoring a giveaway cup). Tonight's Countdown Like It Oughta Be (peeling 66 in our rain-free universe), last series against the Reds, brings out all-time Shea opponent/villain Pete Rose, though before you choke on the choice, understand that his number is sponsored by the good folks at the Glass Distillery Packaging Association, every fan coming through the turnstiles receives a commemorative Pete Rose bottle of whiskey and every fan is encouraged to drink it and, you know, get rid of the bottle in a meaningful way.

The fairer metric is how the Nats are drawing in 2008 versus 2007 at RFK. Lots of crowds in the teens in April '07. More in the 20s this year, with a rise for popular visitors Mets and Cubs. Last-placeness probably going to take the edge off novelty factor after a fashion. Thought it a pleasant place, marked improvement over Federal Baseball Penitentiary encampment, ultimately the epitome of nothing special. But I was just day-tripping.

Good time capsule material for Mets fans if nothing else. While I'm not a fan of either the authors as newspapermen in the 21st century, I found their take on life with the high-rolling Mets interesting.