I didn’t get in trouble much as a kid, but I remember what happened when I did. There were two main things.

First, I had a friend named Drew, and we used to fool around during gym class. When the gym teacher yelled at us to quiet down, that we were ruining the lesson, our retort was ready.

“We’re not ruining anything,” we’d say. “We’re just giving a demonstration of what not to do.”

The second would happen when a friend — Drew or anyone — convinced me to do something bad. I’d get caught by a teacher or a parent.

“He told me to do it!” I’d say.

“If he told you to jump off a bridge, would you?” they would respond. 

I thought back to demonstrations of what not to do, and early disciplinary lessons about not always following friends, as I watched the Rays play the Dodgers in the World Series. Let me start by saying this: there’s a role in baseball for analytics. That much is obvious. Teams willing to embrace logic and statistics will always have an edge over those who don’t. In the long run, for all the complaints anyone can make, every team that adopts an analytical mindset will find it enormously beneficial. To not adopt analytics is, more or less, to intentionally make yourself less smart.

But analytics have limits. The Tampa Bay Rays just proved it. The consensus seems to be that the way the Rays play the game is “ruining baseball” — but far from that, their failure should improve the game going forward.

In case you’re living under a rock, the Rays, down three games to two in the World Series against the Dodgers, needed a win to stay alive. Blake Snell, their ace, was on the mound in game six, and he was shutting the Dodgers down. Snell had nine strikeouts in the sixth inning; he’d allowed two hits and no walks, and had only thrown 73 pitches. He was on track to go seven scoreless innings, easily. The Dodgers couldn’t touch him. It was obvious.

But Rays manager Kevin Cash, famous for his quick hook, took the analytics into overdrive. With Snell facing the Dodgers’ lineup for the third time, and having just allowed a hit, Cash left his dugout and removed his starter. 

Nick Anderson, largely unsuccessful this postseason, came in. A few pitches later, two runs had scored, and the Rays, whose lead Snell had effortlessly maintained all night, were losing.

It was a glaringly obvious blunder. That’s not hindsight: it was clear as it happened. Someone watching next to me asked why the Rays were doing what they’re doing.

“They do this stuff because they’re smart,” I said. “But now they’re being too smart.”

But have the Rays ruined baseball? I think not. In fact, in failing, they’ve proven that as useful as analytics are, there’s room for the old ways.

When your ace is dominant, untouchable on the mound, you leave him alone. If you don’t, it’ll come back to get you. It’s game six of the World Series, and Blake Snell doesn’t have to pitch again until February. The Dodgers couldn’t touch him. Regardless of what the charts say, you leave him in.   

I’m not one of those grouchy old legacy columnists grumbling about the old days: analytics are awesome. They’ve done all kinds of interesting things for the game. Repositioning fielders on defense based on statistics saves runs for teams that do it, even if it’s more noticeable and gives opponents of analytics an easy scapegoat when those same shifts fail. Pitch analytics resurrected Justin Verlander’s career, and seem to have turned Trevor Bauer into this season’s likely National League Cy Young Award winner. 

But there’s a limit. Sometimes, regardless of what the numbers say, an ace will pitch like an ace, and an okay middle reliever won’t. Sometimes a pitcher just has it — and when someone like Blake Snell has it, all the analytics in the world won’t make an ounce of difference, or give his opponents a fighting chance.

Analytics have proven friendly to teams like the Rays. After all, they’re in the World Series with a payroll that’s a small fraction of their opponent’s. But sometimes friends give bad advice. You’ve got to have a mind of your own; you can’t just listen to everything a friend tells you to do.

If analytics told you to lift your dominant, untouchable ace in the sixth inning of a 1-0 World Series game, would you? Obviously not. By doing it and completely failing, the Rays just proved as much. They haven’t ruined baseball. They’ve just given it a demonstration of what not to do.

I remember the first time I understood just how clueless the people in power were. I was in high school, and for one reason or another, dozens of my classmates had plans to attend a protest. My high school was big on protests.

A few days before the protest, the school sent out an email. It was basically a tip sheet: how to stay safe while protesting. But what really stuck out to me was the last line. It went something like this.

“Don’t forget to bring a sweater or sweatshirt,” it said. “Protests can get chilly!”

Here is a protest, the ultimate expression of rebellion and independence, and the school was inserting itself like a toddler’s mother? It was so out of touch, so wrong for the moment, so…misplaced.

Honestly, at my school, that kind of thing happened all the time. Senior year, my class spent months brainstorming a senior prank. We came up with something incredible: each member of our class would switch places for a day with a student at another nearby high school. We would simply create some chaos, and see what happened.

Somehow, though, some classmates of mine got the bright idea to take our prank to the administration for approval. Of course, the administration said no. “Let’s just do it anyway,” I said. I was pretty sure, after all, that that was the whole point of a senior prank. But the rest of the grade shot me down. We ended up forming an administration-mandated “senior prank committee” that included, if I remember correctly, both the dean and the principal.

The message, basically, was simple: sure you can pull a prank! Sure you can have fun! Just make sure that whatever you do, it makes the school principal feel comfortable.

Which brings me to today, and the latest hot-mic scandal to sweep the country. In a video first tweeted by @NickCocco18, Mets general manager Brodie Van Wagenen speaks in a dark, nearly empty press room. As he sits, the Mets are in turmoil: they’re still trying to decide whether or not they’ll play later that night. Given the multiple postponements already, and especially after Dominic Smith’s powerful, tear-filled postgame press conference the day before, it might make sense not to play.

“Three of us,” he says. “Can’t leave this room.” Then he launches into the substance of his point, describing the plan MLB has proposed as an alternative to postponement.

“’You know, it would be great if you just had them all take the field, then they leave the field, and then they come back and play at 8:10,’” Van Wagenen describes Rob Manfred saying. “And I was like, ‘what?’”

There’s one twist: a few hours later, Van Wagenen released a statement. It wasn’t Manfred’s idea, Van Wagenen said: it actually came from Jeff Wilpon. Regardless of who it came from, though, it was a bad idea.

It was beyond misplaced. It was completely ludicrous, almost to the point of parody. There couldn’t possibly be an emptier gesture: a casual fan who turned on the game at 8:30 might not even notice that anything had changed. Basically, Jeff Wilpon’s plan to protest social injustice was pretending that just before first pitch, there was a short flurry of rain.

Caveat: it might well be that the plan was Manfred’s after all, and that the various figures involved are casting the blame on Jeff Wilpon for some nefarious reason or another. If it was Manfred’s, it certainly casts doubt on the statement he gave in June, when he said that “we want to utilize the platform afforded by our game to be not only allies, but active participants in social change.”

But Van Wagenen has said that the plan was Wilpon’s idea, and Manfred has released a statement vigorously denying his involvement; for now, I’ll assume the plan was Wilpon’s. Van Wagenen’s statement casting the blame on Wilpon is actually hilarious. “I felt the suggestion was not helpful,” Van Wagenen says. He’s not wrong.

Dominic Smith and J.D. Davis leave the field after a 42-second moment of silence before the Mets’ August 27th game against the Marlins. The game was postponed. 

The Mets and Marlins ended up taking the field at 7:10, then holding a 42-second moment of silence. Then they left the field, leaving only a “Black Lives Matter” t-shirt on home plate. They didn’t come back an hour later; the game was postponed. Thank goodness they had more nerve than my high school class.

The key takeaway, though, is just how bad Jeff Wilpon’s plan was. When the Mets wanted to do something real, he proposed the emptiest of gestures, a short delay that meant almost nothing. At that moment, the Mets were the fiercely independent, unconstrained youth, standing up and making a point that couldn’t be ignored. And Jeff Wilpon was the high school principal, admonishing his charges that they should definitely speak out and protest, but only in ways that made the people in power feel comfortable.

It’s one of the most well-known scenes in baseball history. It was May 13^th, 1947, and the Brooklyn Dodgers were playing the Reds in Cincinnati. As the Dodgers took the field in the bottom of the first, Crosley Field fans screamed with malice. Their target was Brooklyn’s first baseman, Jackie Robinson.

Brooklyn’s shortstop, Pee Wee Reese, was from Kentucky, just across the Ohio River: for him, this was basically a hometown crowd. But standing at short, Reese didn’t like what he was hearing.

As the crowd continued its verbal assault on Robinson, Reese crossed the diamond. He put his arm around Robinson, and stood with him at first base. The crowd was stunned.

Unfortunately, the story may be apocryphal. But whether or not it happened, there’s a reason it lives on in baseball’s memory. It’s the ultimate moment of selflessness, of putting the team before the individual. Pee Wee Reese had a teammate who needed support. The 27,000 fans who berated Reese didn’t matter, nor did millions more across the country. Openly, defiantly, and proudly, Reese stood with his teammate for the world to see.

I thought of that day in 1947 as the Mets took the field to play the Marlins. After police shot Jacob Blake, a black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a white supremacist murdered two protesters, several teams in multiple leagues had announced that they would strike in protest. The Mets and Marlins were playing, but the game seemed almost secondary.

The teams took the field, and the National Anthem played. Dominic Smith took a knee. And not one of his teammates joined him.

It is not easy to be Dominic Smith — a young black man — in America today. Take it from Smith himself. “For this to continually happen, it just shows the hate in people’s heart,” he said through tears after the game. “That just sucks. Being a Black man in America is not easy.” And on the day Smith took a knee — inevitably subjecting himself to torrents of abuse from fans who don’t know better, or don’t care — not one of his teammates joined him.

There’s no excuse. None. This goes far beyond political belief. Regardless of what any Met thinks about the police, you have your teammates’ back. That’s the first rule of team loyalty, from Reese and Robinson to Spartacus. Support your teammates. No ifs, ands, or buts.

It could have been that Smith’s choice took the Mets by surprise, and they didn’t have time to kneel together. Michael Conforto said as much after the game. “Conforto wishes he had been by Smith during the National Anthem today to support him outwardly, but Smith’s decision to kneel was made privately, at the last minute,” reported Anthony DiComo of MLB.com. But then Conforto ruined whatever goodwill he had built up.

He probably would not kneel with Smith even on another day, he said. And why not? “It’s what I’ve always done. I think it’s as simple as that.”

“It’s what I’ve always done.” That’s barely a reason to drink Pepsi. It’s definitely not a reason to refuse to support a teammate. It’s what you’ve always done? Respectfully, do something else.

Conforto, Tim Britton reports, says that while he won’t take a knee, “I will be there with him, and he knows that I support him.” But that’s not nearly enough. Proud, public support is what matters. Move the story of Reese and Robinson from the field to the clubhouse, and Reese’s gesture becomes a lot less meaningful.

Manager Luis Rojas said that the Mets “support every personal choice.” But Rojas said he wouldn’t kneel, because “that’s not my personal choice.”

That’s nonsense, and completely selfish. This isn’t a time for personal choice. Rojas is basically saying “I won’t support Smith, because I don’t want to.” Kneeling might make you uncomfortable. You might not want to do it. Do it anyway. Be a leader. Support your team.

Supporting Smith from the comfort of your own head is relatively easy. Taking a knee with him is a lot harder, especially if a player has friends or family who will be offended. Hell, maybe kneeling offends the player himself.

It doesn’t matter. What matters is supporting your teammates. And the only way to really support Smith right now is to kneel with him, so the whole world knows that the Mets have his back.

There’s one important caveat: Smith may not want his teammates to join him. If he asks them not to kneel, for whatever reason, they should do as he asks.

But if that doesn’t happen, then there’s no excuse. Personal opinions, family reservations, lingering uncertainties — all that be damned. Support your teammates. No matter what. If Smith decides to take a knee tomorrow, or ever again, the Mets need to kneel with him.

In its own way, the 2020 season is obviously too short, and seems just as long as ever.

On the one hand, the season is going far too quickly. The Mets have played 26 games, and have 34 left; 43% of the season has already happened. The season just started. What are we doing in the middle?

On the other hand, though, the Mets, in their special way, are managing to pack a full season’s worth of emotions into this abbreviated excuse. For one, of course, each game is a see-saw in a tornado. A four-out Edwin Díaz appearance these days goes up and down more than a Victorian novel.

The Mets are 12-14, which would be disappointing except for where we were three days ago. Back then, we were 9-14, couldn’t find a starting pitcher worth a damn, couldn’t score against the Phillies…couldn’t even do things that everyone can do, like put down tags or go from first to third on a double.

Remember how down and out we felt after getting swept by the Phillies? I do.

As I dragged myself through writing a column, I let my pessimism out.

“The standings matter less than the fact that the Mets can’t seem to stop failing,” I wrote. “Mets games are nothing more than episodes of ‘Wipeout,’ and Mets fans are the contestants, unable to enjoy themselves because they know the next obstacle will knock them off their feet any minute.”

I sat on the couch stewing in disappointment, an episode of The King of Queens that I’d already seen playing in the background. But then, for no reason besides maybe Jerry Stiller’s on-screen antics, something replaced the frustration.

Hope.

These Mets give us hope every day, whether they mean to or not, whether it’s logical or deluded. The greatest quality of the 2019-2020 Mets — and there are many — is that every player is another point of hope, a reason to believe that if today goes bad, tomorrow might be better.

In practical terms, what that means is that there’s not one player on the Mets’ roster — and I challenge you to prove me wrong — who’s not worth getting excited about. Some Mets, like Dellin Betances, inspire hope because of the heights they’ve attained in past seasons; some, like Andres Gimenez, inspire hope because of what they might do five or ten years in the future. And many Mets — deGrom, Nimmo, Conforto, Guillorme, Smith, Shreve — inspire hope not because of the past or the future, but through the things they do on the diamond every day.

Maybe all ballclubs are like this, or maybe they’re not; I wouldn’t know. But what’s undeniable is that hope and the Mets go together like Edwin Díaz and heart medication. They have since July 9^th, 1973, when Tug McGraw, in the midst of an M. Donald Grant speech to the clubhouse, began shouting: “Ya Gotta Believe! Ya Gotta Believe!”

Ya gotta have hope. So I did.

“Maybe Robert Gsellman finds his form in Miami tomorrow night, puts together a solid start, and carries the Mets to a win,” I wrote. “Maybe David Peterson continues his strong rookie showing Tuesday with another win, giving (knock on wood) deGrom the ball Wednesday with a chance to win a third straight game and pull the Mets back into the playoff hunt. In a 60 game season that’s already 23 games old, a three game winning streak can work wonders.”

We now move ahead three days, and guess what? Technicalities aside, that’s exactly what happened. The Mets are 12-14 and go for the four-game sweep of the Marlins tomorrow. Seth Lugo will start. There’s a reason to believe already.

Me — without hope, I’d be sunk. Tomorrow, as Lugo pitches to whichever pestilential Marlin is leading off, I’ll be somewhere in the air above the upper Midwest, descending towards Detroit. I’ll be decamping for the Wolverine state for the next long while, following a woman I love more than anything in the world. That includes watching Brandon Nimmo take a close pitch for a ball, so you know I’m serious.

Ya gotta believe — if I didn’t, I’d never have made it this far. College, grad school, summer jobs, real jobs, days or weeks together followed by months apart…like a Jeurys Familia outing in a close game, it wasn’t easy for a second. And now begins a new part in a new state, which won’t be easy either.

But ya gotta believe. Things will work out. I’ll land in Detroit, and I’ll probably have missed a few Seth Lugo innings and a Brandon Nimmo walk. Thank goodness I’m a Mets fan. They mess with us, this ridiculous team of ours, but they also give us reason to hope. Tomorrow I start a new phase in life. It’ll go much better when we also start by sweeping the Marlins.

NEW YORK — In the top of the fourth inning of the Mets’ Sunday afternoon 6-2 loss to the Phillies — not to be confused with their Saturday 6-2 loss to the Phillies, or their Friday 6-5 loss to the Phillies — Luis Guillorme slashed a Zack Wheeler fastball the other way with the bases loaded. J.D. Davis scored. Robinson Cano scored. Wilson Ramos took off, in a manner of speaking, for third.

Guillorme’s hit ricocheted off the left field stands to Jay Bruce. Bruce threw to third. Ramos was out by more than a Roman Quinn. He tried to slide, but ended up doing something that looked more like a flailing sideways tumble. He was out anyway.

I remember reading, a few years ago, about how bad a baserunner David Ortiz was. Ortiz, I read, scored from second on a single only once out of 40 opportunities, or some obscene number like that. Ortiz couldn’t run to save his life. Watching him tag from third and try to score on a fly ball to the warning track felt like watching an elephant race a Maserati.

Now Wilson Ramos is making Mets fans long for David Ortiz on the basepaths, which might be the most impressive thing Ramos has done as a Met. For all Ortiz’s slowness of foot, he would have struggled to do what Ramos did today.

Ramos, in case it’s unclear, stood on first. The bases were loaded with two outs, so Ramos probably could have taken a 20-foot lead if he’d wanted to. He could have taken a nice, luxurious secondary, and he certainly should have been running on contact.  And then Guillorme drove a ball down the left field line — and Ramos was out at third by 10 feet, an elephant beaten by a Maserati.

Not scoring from second on a single is one thing. Imagine not going first to third — on a ball that should be a double.

The rest of the Mets’ roster isn’t as slow as Ramos — no one really is, potentially including Newman from Seinfeld — but they’re hardly faring better. With the loss, the Mets are 9-14. But the standings matter less than the fact that the Mets can’t seem to stop failing. Mets games are nothing more than episodes of “Wipeout,” and Mets fans are the contestants, unable to enjoy themselves because they know the next obstacle will knock them off their feet any minute. Take the lead in the sixth inning? Rick Porcello can’t get away with this for much longer — be ready! Runner just took an extra base? Look out — he’s going to try to take another, and he’s not going to make it!

This will continue tomorrow, when the Mets play the Marlins in Miami. With Robert Gsellman on the mound, Wilson Ramos behind the plate, Robinson Cano in the lineup or (worse yet) the field, the entire trusty Mets’ bullpen available in relief…there are a million ways to blow a game, and the Mets have shown that they know how to find them.

On the other hand, baseball is a funny game, and the opposite is always a possibility. The Mets will hit a hot streak eventually, and there’s no reason the Miami Marlins can’t be the catalyst. Maybe it will take a Luis Rojas speech, or Brodie Van Wagenen throwing another chair. A few wins in Miami, and the sweep in Philadelphia will be a faint memory. “Remember that time Ramos got thrown out at third on a double?” someone will ask, and I’ll respond “not really…but it sounds like the kind of thing he’d do.”

Maybe Robert Gsellman finds his form in Miami tomorrow night, puts together a solid start, and carries the Mets to a win. Maybe David Peterson continues his strong rookie showing Tuesday with another win, giving (knock on wood) deGrom the ball Wednesday with a chance to win a third straight game and pull the Mets back into the playoff hunt. In a 60 game season that’s already 23 games old, a three game winning streak can work wonders.

After being swept by the Phillies, the Mets don’t have much. We have no starting pitching to speak of, a bullpen that can’t hold itself together, and defense that can’t seem to make the plays it needs to. We’ve got one catcher who can barely move and another one who’s never hit before, a first baseman who can’t find his power, a left fielder with a bruised knee, and a third baseman without a real position. With the loss, we’re last in the N.L. East, an elephant in a division of Maserati’s.

What we have, though, and what we will always have unless we give it away, is hope. Ya gotta believe. When an elephant races a Maserati, that’s pretty much all you can do.

NEW YORK — These days, people are always complaining that baseball isn’t exciting. It’s usually nonsense, of course, sort of like saying that The Catcher in the Rye doesn’t have enough car chases. But as Steven Matz crumpled against the Phillies and the Mets’ offense knelt in submission one inning after another, I almost agreed.

This happened today — the Mets played the Phillies, Steven Matz pitched, and the game ended in a 6-2 loss. But is any of it real? Could a professional baseball game possibly be so nondescript? Eight Mets reached base…besides Dominic Smith’s too-late ninth inning home run, who are the other seven? Was this all a dream?

A baseball game is a complex thing, an incomprehensible pattern of threads, all connected, some resolving themselves, some immediately forgotten. But sometimes — like when Steven Matz pitches and falls apart, and the game devolves into a long, nondescript snore — the threads cease to matter, and the game loses its meaning. Sometimes, The Catcher in the Rye needs a car chase.

If you’ve come looking for takeaways from the game, allow me to recommend psychotherapy. But in the meantime, a small sampling:

• Steven Matz needs a haircut. Matz’s hair has gotten long, and he hasn’t shaved in a while. He looks far more than a few years removed from the rookie who made the electrifying debut in 2015, and it’s translating into fastballs left belt high to dangerous hitters.
• The irregulars, as I’ve heard they’re called, continue to mash. While Jeff McNeil rests his knee and Pete Alonso searches for his power, the Mets find their offense in strange places. Dom Smith is batting .300, has homered in four straight games, and has a 1.163 OPS. Tomas Nido is batting .350; his OPS is 1.109. Luis Guillorme, after another hit, is batting .455.
• A few minutes too late to make a difference, the Mets got 3.2 scoreless innings from their bullpen. Jeurys Familia, then Brad Brach, then the mercurial Dellin Betances…besides two bad pitches from Steven Matz, the Mets played a hell of a game.

The sad truth, unfortunately, is that those two misplaced Matz pitches were the difference between a close game and a laugher. In the fifth, after the Phillies loaded the bases with one out, Andrew McCutchen worked a full count. A strike could have sat McCutchen down, and gotten Matz most of the way through the jam he was facing. Instead, Matz threw a 3-2 fastball that missed the zone. Having walked in a run, Matz set out to get ahead of Rhys Hoskins, the Phillies’ next hitter, well-known for being patient at the plate. But Hoskins took a swing at Matz’s first pitch and drove it to the right-center field gap, clearing the bases and giving the Phillies a 5-0 lead.

If McCutchen strikes out, does Matz worry less about throwing his first pitch to Hoskins for a strike? Fueled by pitching his way through 2/3 of a jam, does he ride the momentum to the third out of the inning? The answers are (1) probably, and (2) it’s possible. But instead, one bad pitch leads to another, and by the time the smoke clears the Phillies are leading 6-0, and suddenly the most interesting part of the game is the bite on Brad Brach’s slider.

Unfortunately — and I hate how much I’m using that word, but it seems appropriate — that’s the kind of thing that happens when your rotation looks like the Mets’ does right now. Three of the Mets’ current five starters are plan B’s. More accurately, David Peterson, Walker Lockett, and Robert Gsellman are the Mets’ plans B, C, and D. They’re not far from an F.

Whether the Mets can turn things around and reverse their 9-13 record is a question only the team can answer. It’s also a question that shouldn’t need to be asked. Zack Wheeler will start for the Phillies tomorrow. His 2.89 E.R.A. is at least two and a half runs lower than the E.R.A’s of four of the Mets’ five starters. Wheeler is a Phillie because the Mets didn’t want to pay for him, because, so they said, the rotation was good enough already. There were options available. Options like Rick Porcello (5.68 E.R.A.) and Michael Wacha (6.43 E.R.A., currently on the injured list).

The simple truth is that the Mets’ rotation needs to pitch better, and soon. If the Mets want to have any fans left, they can’t keep putting on games like this one. Sure, the offense was bad too — but games need to be more than counting down to the starting pitcher’s inevitable implosion.

I’ll never tire of it, of course. It’s just another thread to follow in the long, complex story of a baseball season. After all, The Catcher in the Rye is my favorite book.

NEW YORK — Sometimes, there’s no mystery about how a day is going to go. You walk a six-mile round trip and realize around mile two that you haven’t eaten or drank all day, and the sun beats down on you until you’re sweating through your mask, and you finally get home and collapse just in time to hear that Jacob deGrom has been scratched from his start and Walker Lockett will start in his place. If that’s the start of your day, don’t buy a lottery ticket until tomorrow.

It was supposed to be a perfect evening of baseball, my grand welcome back to watching the Mets in New York. I’d gotten home from a summer job in Maine the night before, deGrom was on the mound, and I’d acquired several pounds of Shake Shack to celebrate the occasion. deGrom being scratched, of course, ruined the night before it began, but I convinced myself that it didn’t. “deGrom isn’t pitching, but besides that, everything is fine.” Besides that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

Sure enough, the first two Phillies reached base against Walker Lockett, and visions of a 14-1 blowout loss danced in my head. Walker Lockett — the latest spare part in Brodie Van Wagenen’s best rotation in baseball™ — entered the 2020 season having pitched 37.2 career big-league innings, and allowed 37 earned runs. That’s an 8.84 E.R.A., for those of you keeping score at home. Lockett came to the Mets, along with Sam Haggerty, in a January 2019 trade with the Indians. Kevin Plawecki went to Cleveland. Plawecki, who appears on the mound occasionally, has a 6.35 career E.R.A., which means that Lockett, the only pitcher in the trade that brought him to New York, might still not have been the best pitcher involved.

But is Lockett such a strange sight these days? Rick Porcello has a 5.68 E.R.A. Michael Wacha’s is 6.43. Steven Matz is at 8.20, and Robert Gsellman has an even 9.00. After allowing five runs in six innings, Lockett’s E.R.A. stands at 7.50, which means he ranks third among the Mets’ current healthy starters.

For at least a moment, though, it seemed that the Mets would keep pace. They hit the ball hard in the first, although bad luck and good fielding limited them to a single run, and Luis Guillorme hit an RBI single in the second that landed between bewildered Phillies outfielders. The Phillies tied the game in the bottom of the second, then Dominic Smith homered again, his fifth of the season to lead the Mets…up next, Robinson Cano homered too.

That 4-2 lead held up until the fifth, when Lockett, facing the Phillies batting order for the third time, threw a 91-mile-per-hour changeup right around J.T. Realmuto’s belt level. Realmuto, who right now is about as hot as Christie Brinkley on asphalt in July, mashed the ball into the left-field stands. On replay, there was some violence, some anger, evident in his swing. “You want me to face Walker Lockett? Again?” he was asking. “Okay…see how you like it.” Realmuto is batting .288/.351/.750, for an OPS of 1.101. He’s also a free agent after the season, which means that starting in 2021, he’s a great candidate to come to the Mets and bat .237/.289/.363 with seventeen home runs over the first three years of a five-year contract, then retire after suffering chronic damage from a rare tropical disease.

The Phillies led 5-4 after Realmuto’s home run. Guillorme had two more hits: he was three for three with a walk, and was the Mets’ lone bright spot in the game. Guillorme is batting .474, and this isn’t to say “I told you so,” but I definitely told you so. Finally, the ninth came, and with it some energy. Brandon Nimmo singled leading off, raising his OBP to .444. Michael Conforto, up next, walked. Pete Alonso and Dom Smith struck out, but Cano, finally, didn’t disappoint: he drove a single to right, and Nimmo scored the tying run. Then Wilson Ramos grounded into a force out to end the inning. Ramos also grounded into one of his patented ten-minute double plays to end the Mets’ seventh-inning threat. He’s batting .197.

Ramos could have come out for defense in the bottom of the ninth — Tomas Nido is vastly better in almost every way — but he stayed in, because why not? Seth Lugo allowed two hits in a row, then struck out Rhys Hoskins. Then Bryce Harper singled to right. Conforto’s throw home was perfect. Roman Quinn was out by 15 feet. Except Ramos held his tag a foot off the ground, as if ushering Quinn in for an undisturbed landing. Ramos missed the tag, Quinn slid in safely, and the Phillies won. That’s just the kind of day it was.

NEW YORK — I was sitting against the wall in a booth at City Diner on 90th Street and Broadway. My friend Weinstein was sitting across from me. I was trying to convince him to come to a baseball trivia event that I’d just heard about, hosted by Ted Berg, the nation’s foremost expert. Weinstein, characteristically, was underselling himself.

“I suck at baseball trivia,” he said. “The only thing I know is that in 1897, the commissioner sent out a letter yelling at players for saying ‘go fuck yourself.'”

I paused.

“What?” I said.

It was true. Weinstein pulled out his phone and googled it. Seconds later, he began a dramatic reading. And my life hasn’t been the same since.

I am passing the contents of this letter along, because I really do believe that they deserve to be known far and wide. Here is how the letter, which was really sent out by the commissioner of organized baseball in 1897, begins:

SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS TO PLAYERS:

In a contest between two leading clubs during the championship season of 1897, the stands being crowded with patrons of the game, a gentleman occupying a seat in the front row near the players’ bench, asked one of the visiting players who was going to pitch for them. The player made no reply. He then asked a second time. The gentleman, his wife who sat with him, and others of both sexes, within hearing distance, were outraged upon hearing the player reply in a loud, brutal tone, “Oh, go fuck yourself.”

On being remonstrated with by his fellow-players, who told him there were ladies present, he retorted he didn’t give a damn, that they had no business there anyhow.

This shocking indecency was brought to the attention of the League at the Philadelphia meeting in November, 1897, and a committee was appointed to report upon this baseball crime, define and suggest for it a remedy.

Weinstein was in the midst of a dramatic reading, but when he reached the line about a committee investigating the baseball crime, he broke character and burst out laughing. Then he pulled himself together and continued.

In response to nearly one hundred communications addressed to umpires, managers and club officials, soliciting definite, positive and personal knowledge of obscene and indecent language upon the ball field, the committee received a deluge of information that was so appalling as to be almost beyond belief, showing conclusively and beyond contradiction that there was urgent need for legislative action on the part of the League.

He took another pause to comport himself. Then he read the last paragraph.

That such brutal language as “You cock-sucking son of a bitch!” “You prick-eating bastard!” “You cunt-lapping dog!” “Kiss my ass, you son of a bitch!” “A dog must have fucked your mother when she made you!” “I fucked your mother, you sister, your wife!” “I’ll make you suck my ass!” “You cock-sucker!” and many other revolting terms are used by a limited number of players to intimidate umpires and opposing players, and are promiscuously used upon the ball field, is vouched for by the almost unanimous assertion of those invited to speak, and who are competent to speak from personal knowledge. Whether it be the language quoted above, or some other indecent and infamous invention of depravity, the League is pledged to remove it from the ball field, whether it necessitates the removal of the offender for a day or for all time. Any indecent or obscene word, sentence, or expression, unfit for print or the human ear, whether mentioned in these instructions or not, is contemplated under the law and within its intent and meaning, and will be dealt with without fear or favor when the fact is established by conclusive proof.

I don’t remember what I said when he finished reading, but the commissioner would have hated it. And then my mind drifted to Juan Soto, and I had a laugh thinking of how angry he would make an 1897 baseball commissioner, and how funny it would be to watch.

NEW YORK — The Mets have hired Carlos Beltrán as their manager, which seems to have aroused in Mets fans all sorts of pro and anti-Beltrán stances. We all remember Beltrán, and the moment that divides fans so strongly. It was an unhittable pitch. He had a great series. We didn’t have to wait until the ninth inning to put together a scoring opportunity. But the facts remain.

Personally, I’m a Beltrán fan. You don’t judge a career by an at-bat, and Beltrán, with his 400 home runs and 300 stolen bases as a switch hitter, had a helluva career. Now, he’s all the more likely to enter Cooperstown with a Mets cap on his head. But forget 2006 and his Mets career for a moment: judge Beltrán as a manager. He knows baseball and can handle New York, and as such, he will do just fine.

I’m not too concerned with who the manager is, if we’re honest. I could have learned to love Joe Girardi — although I don’t understand where Mets’ fans’ sudden fervent zeal (Zeile?) for him came from — just as I’m sure Beltrán will do the job admirably. I cared far more about last offseason’s GM search than this year’s parade of interviews, and since the Wilpons passed on Chaim Bloom and let him turn some other team into a powerhouse instead, Beltrán, or anyone else who got the job, was going to manage Brodie Van Wagenen’s team. Managers are temporary. Ripple effects of GM moves — Jarred Kelenic has left the building — can be forever.

In fact, Beltrán wasn’t the only Mets outfielder in the news. The Mets officially declined Juan Lagares’ $9.5 million option, making Lagares a free agent. Besides 2014 and other occasional flashes, Lagares never managed to turn himself into a complete hitter at the plate. The field, of course, was a different story. Lagares won a Gold Glove in 2014, and if he’d stayed healthy and hit well enough to play every day, surely would have won several more. His defense was so good that it earned him a $23 million contract extension in 2015.

The offense, just good enough (.281/.321/.382) to keep his glove on the field in 2014, faded. But Lagares’ glove was always there, lurking just out of sight. A line drive to deep center evoked familiar worry, but also excitement: what’s Juan going to do this time? He became an offensive liability, but never seemed disgruntled or angry. He worked quietly and hard, always hoping to return to where he’d once been, but never quite getting there.

Now, though, we have one of those good problems. Michael Conforto and Brandon Nimmo each hold down outfield spots; Robinson Cano is anchored, all too literally, at second base, which means that if Beltrán wants both Jeff McNeil and J.D. Davis and their formidable bats in the lineup every day, one will have to play left field while the other plays third base. Lagares, then, does not have a starting spot, and to Wilpon and company, a reserve outfielder is not worth $9.5 million.

I remember the last time I thought very specifically about Juan Lagares. It was August 4^th. The Mets were below .500 but rising fast, beating up on the Pirates. I was in a boat whizzing around a lake in southern Maine, making sure campers didn’t moon houses as we passed, or whatever campers might find funny these days. I was also tracking the Mets game on my phone.

Top of the sixth. Lagares is taking his first at-bat of the game; he came in earlier to replace Michael Conforto in center. Conforto moved to right to replace Jeff McNeil. McNeil moved to second to replace Robinson Cano, because Cano came up limping as he tried for second on a line drive off the fence, because he is 36 and too fragile to dive or run fast.

So Lagares hits. He’s batting .186. But he gets a pitch down the heart of the plate, and he doesn’t miss it. A double down the left field line, a run coming home, Lagares trotting into second.

It was baseball justice. Vindication. A lollipop down the heart of the plate, and Lagares smacked it. Saw his pitch and hit it. It’s a lesson, indeed, that our new manager would do well to impart to his players, and also to fans who may dislike him: there is justice in baseball. No matter how many called third strikes you’ve taken, how many plays you haven’t made, how many hanging curves you’ve fouled off…eventually you’ll see a meatball and mash it for extra bases, and things will fall right back into place.

I don’t know where Juan Lagares will end up, or indeed, whether there’s a chance he stays in Queens. But I hope he comes back to Citi Field eventually. I’ll wear the snow-white LAGARES 12 jersey I bought in early 2014, and cheer on a kid who worked his heart out. Maybe he’ll smack another one of those doubles down the left field line, and I’ll think of August, when the sun was hot and the water was cool, when Juan Lagares was a hero and the playoffs were on the horizon and there was always another chance to make things happen, whether Carlos Beltrán struck out or not.

Closing Day, like its older, cooler brother Opening Day, seems to have a habit of presenting perfect backdrops for baseball. My memory is certainly flawed, but I can’t remember a Closing Day that wasn’t bright, sunny, and warm; one last invitation to take in the Summer Game before the calendars and the climate turn. It’s proof, if nothing else, that baseball really is America’s Game, and that on the last day of the season, whoever’s running things up there wants nothing more than one last perfect ballgame.

It certainly seemed that way, anyway, when I got to Citi Field to watch the Mets close out their 2019 season against the Braves. I arrived minutes before the ballpark gates opened, and waiting in line, if anything, the weather was too bright and hot. I covered the back of my neck with my hand and pulled my cap low over my face, and when I finally got into the stadium, my eyes took a long moment to adjust to the darkness of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda.

The Rotunda. Last time in there for a while. Last time at the Mets Team Store for a while, which I suppose justified the four t-shirts I bought. John Franco and Tim Teufel were signing autographs in the Mets Hall of Fame — last time there for a while too — but as I waited in line for signatures, a door in the back of the Rotunda opened, and J.D. Davis walked through it.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected. The Mets’ website had advertised players surprising fans at the gates before the final game of the season, which was why I’d been keeping such a close eye on the door, which I knew led to a tunnel straight to the clubhouse. And I’d even fantasized that one of those players might be J.D. Davis, as close to a mythical figure as I could think of. I’d prepared for it: on my phone, I’d pulled up a picture of my graduation cap from May, the one I’d decorated with a simple phrase that, since then, has  proven true over and over again — and, I’m fairly sure, has infiltrated Mets Twitter. “J.D. Davis is a Professional Hitter.”

I snaked my way out of the Franco/Teufel line — a security guard looked at me disapprovingly, but I persevered — and slowly but surely forged my way through the Rotunda to where Davis was standing by a gate, shaking hands with fans as they entered, surrounded by handlers. They weren’t allowing pictures, but I shook Davis’ hand and showed him my cap. He laughed.

“Love it,” he said.

It was fitting, I suppose. J.D. Davis is the closest thing there is to a symbol of everything the Mets went through this year, and everything that Mets fans went through with them. Davis is an excellent player, on the border of stardom, but certainly not perfect. He has his ups and his downs, but ultimately gets the job done — and then some — while being, as his new unofficial nickname “Sun Bear” might suggest, entirely too lovable to handle.

Davis has also gone from being a player who seemed fine, to someone who I defended from what I thought was unwarranted criticism, to a player I genuinely liked, to a player I list among my favorites. The thing about the 2019 Mets, of course, is that there are six or seven players among my favorites, which was part of the reason I was so unprepared for Closing Day. I loved the 2019 Mets in a way I don’t think I have before, even when the 2015 team was taking our breath away. To see them cease to exist, therefore — as we must every Closing Day, sad as it always is — was going to be an emotional gauntlet.

I needed food, and I knew exactly what I wanted. There are all sorts of fantastic options at Citi Field — I’ve grown partial to the Chicken Parm hero in the outfield on the field level this season, as well as the Arancini stand in the upper deck — but today, for such an emotional occasion, I needed a comfortable classic.

From one of those stands that are everywhere at Citi Field, but seem to close their doors one at a time as seasons go on and attendance drops, I ordered two hot dogs and a lemonade. The classic. Two hot dogs and a lemonade has been what I’ve eaten at Citi Field since going to Citi Field has meant anything. Late in the 2014 season, as I started my senior year of high school, I found that I could spend more or less every free moment I had at Citi Field, and no one would mind. So I did. And hot dogs and souvenir lemonades were my fuel. If I have a soul, it is made of Citi Field hot dogs and souvenir lemonades, and it is sitting in the upper deck at Citi Field watching the 2014 Mets, and realizing that maybe they’re not so bad after all.

***

The story of the 2019 Mets started exactly one year before Closing Day, when David Wright left the field for the last time, leaving the captain’s position, and the role, vacant. The story continued with the hiring of “Mad Men” extra and former agent Brodie Van Wagenen as General Manager, and the first twists appeared when Brodie sent Jarred Kelenic, outfield prospect and (to me, anyway) surefire future Hall-of-Famer, to the Seattle Mariners, in exchange for — don’t laugh — offensive powerhouse Robinson Cano and Edwin Diaz, the best closer in baseball.

Really, though, the story got going, as it usually does, in Spring Training. Pete Alonso’s first swing of the year hit a ball about 450 feet to center. Jeff McNeil hit the ball everywhere. Jacob deGrom looked strong. Brandon Nimmo, when he wasn’t deathly ill, couldn’t stop walking. They were more or less the same team that we remembered, except that we would get a full season of McNeil (and, it turned out, Alonso); Wilson Ramos and his steady bat would take over behind the plate; Jed Lowrie would help all around the infield (ha!); and Edwin Diaz would nail down the ninth inning just like he had in Seattle the year before, when the Mariners hadn’t lost a single game that they led in the ninth inning. We had a solid young core, and we’d added strong win-now pieces; things wouldn’t be easy, but our team, we were sure, was at least pretty good.

But as they always do, things didn’t all go as expected. McNeil and Alonso exceeded expectations; Diaz and Jeurys Familia didn’t. J.D. Davis was a breath of fresh air, a ray of light; Jed Lowrie, meanwhile, sat around somewhere in a dark basement getting mildewed and stale. The season was over by July, except suddenly it wasn’t; we won 15 out of 16 and moved into playoff position, only to promptly fall out of it; things came down to the wire, but we fell short with less than a week remaining.

Throughout all the ups and downs and sudden left turns of the season, though, one thing didn’t change. These 2019 Mets never lost their lovability, their wonder. In fact, as the season went on, it only increased. Whether we were 10 games over .500 or ten under, there were players to root for. deGrom pulling himself together after a rocky start to emerge as a front-runner for a second consecutive Cy Young award. Pete breaking free of the Home Run Derby curse to barrel past the all-time rookie home run record in the second half. McNeil hitting for average, then adding power, and all the while eking out hits like a madman. Davis hitting the ball harder than anyone. Nimmo running harder than anyone. Seth Lugo spinning curveballs, pitching multiple innings, and providing a steady presence exactly when Diaz didn’t.

I loved the 2019 Mets more than any other Mets team I’d ever watched, because I loved the players. I had six favorite players on the 2019 team: Pete, Jake, McNeil, J.D., Nimmo, and Conforto, rock solid, always hitting or walking, setting career highs in home runs and RBIs.

2019, of course, didn’t end the way anyone wanted it to. Seasons rarely do, if you watch baseball at Citi Field and orange and blue are your favorite colors. But it had to end eventually, and regardless of how it ended, I knew that I’d rather it didn’t.

***

From my seat in the upper deck, I watched Mickey Callaway bring out his lineup card, and wondered whether it was the last time he would do so. At the time, Mickey’s future with the Mets was unclear: he’d given some strange for missing the organizational meetings the Mets would hold the next week, which hadn’t seemed to augur well for his prospects, but he’d also held meetings the previous week that indicated he might stick around. Or something. Frankly, it barely mattered to me whether he stayed or left. Mickey always seemed about average as a manager, his faults canceling out his strong points, both minimal. His absence will not be the reason the 2020 Mets fail or succeed.

I finished a hot dog and my fries, and as I was storing the second hot dog in its Nathans’ container under my seat for later, Noah Syndergaard took the hill. Noah’s season was fairly average, which for him means it could have been better. There were flashes of brilliance, and too often stretches of mediocrity; clearly, he can go pitch for pitch with anybody in the game, but over multiple innings, he sometimes makes one mistake too many. But know this. Noah will be back in 2020, and he’ll be better — write that down. On 2018’s Closing Day, he pitched a complete-game shutout, and as he took the mound a year later, I was hoping it would prove part of a pattern.

Syndergaard allowed a run in the top of the first, on an RBI single by Adeiny Hechevarria, but limited the damage. The bottom of the inning: Alonso singled with one out, and went to third when Conforto singled off the tip of Ozzie Albies’ glove. Already, it seemed that the bounces were going in the Mets’ favor, which didn’t surprise me. The Mets have a penchant for winning in games that, while symbolically significant — Opening Day, Closing Day, 9/11 — do not matter more in the standings than any other game. Cano, up next, hit a deep fly ball to left, and Alonso trotted home uncontested. In the year of the juiced ball, a clean sac fly felt like an antique.

Davis came up. This season, he has hit the ball harder than just about anybody, and he seemed thirsty to continue proving himself. With the count 3-1, he lined Mike Soroka’s pitch over the left field fence at 106 miles per hour. His 22^nd home run of the year, a two-run shot, and the Mets led 3-1.

After the first, the innings began to speed by. Noah let the Braves tie the game in the fourth, when Rafael Ortega, average hovering below .200, launched a monstrous home run onto the Shea Bridge. The Mets’ offense, meanwhile, threatened but could not muster a run. A hit here and there, sometimes a runner in scoring position, but never anything more.

The regulars began to exit, as is Closing Day tradition. First it was Todd Frazier, who singled in the fourth and was replaced by Luis Guillorme. Frazier exited to modest, polite applause. He was dreadful in his first season as a Met and solid in his second, and may well never play for the Mets again. After a “tailgate trivia” game in the middle of the fifth that was far easier than it should have been — I won a few weeks ago, and my questions were way harder — Joe Panik replaced Cano on defense in the sixth. In the bottom of the seventh, Callaway decided that Noah was done, and he sent out Sam Haggerty to pinch-hit.

Haggerty, just up from AAA this month for the first time, did not yet have a hit, although he had scored multiple runs in pinch-running appearances. If my memory is right, I have seen every single one of his at-bats, and each time I have rooted hard. I have never seen a Met’s first hit in person (again, if I’m remembering correctly), and it’s something I’d like to experience. This time, in any event, Haggerty struck out, and one batter later, the game went to the eighth inning, still tied at three.

It was impossible not to think of David Wright’s final game. That one went 13, and all anybody wanted was for it to end, regardless of the outcome. This time, a Mets win was the distinctly preferable result. But extras? Free baseball? It’s hard to say, even in hindsight, whether I wanted to see them or not. It’s more time at Citi Field, but it’s bittersweet, marred by the fact that each extra inning just further drives home the point that this is it for the year. Still, though…extra innings meant more time at Citi Field, if they happened, so I think I wanted to see them. Unless, of course, it meant the Mets had blown a lead. Who wants to see that?

***

Paul Sewald pitched the top of the eighth, and did so scoreless, which, for those of us used to watching Paul Sewald, seemed like a miracle on its own. In the bottom of the eighth, Alonso and Conforto, each taking what might be their last at-bat of the season, made outs. They jogged off the field to warm ovations, Alonso’s louder but both appreciative. With two outs, Joe Panik came up.

The Giants non-tendered Panik in August, and a few days later he was a Met. Immediately after coming over, he hit well for a few games before reverting to his .240 self. But I’m a fan of Panik. He’s not a great hitter, but he’s also not a clueless hitter. He takes competitive at-bats, even if they don’t often end well. If the Mets can’t find a better infield bench option, and Jed Lowrie remains moribund, I hope Panik is back next year.

Am I biased? Maybe by recency. Because Panik hit the second pitch he saw into the second deck in right field. Mets lead 4-3, three outs between us and victory. In 2019, the year of six favorite players, of course the crown belonged to Joe Panik. If there’s one lesson to be learned from watching Mets baseball, it’s that things never go the way they’re supposed to. Like in David Wright’s final game. He comes up in a perfect spot, man on third, one out — almost any contact drives home a run and sends the crowd into a frenzy. So David doesn’t make contact. He walks, probably the worst good outcome in that spot, the opposite of the Hollywood version. Not a Hollywood story, but a Mets story, told to perfection. That’s usually how it goes.

Three outs to get; three outs to send fans home with a happy Closing Day to wash away the sour taste of elimination. So Mickey stuck with Paul Sewald. J.D. Davis was out of the game by now; he’d been replaced by Rajai Davis after singling in the eighth, and departed to an ovation somewhere between Pete’s and Conforto’s. He finished the year with a .307/.369/.527 line on offense, good for an .895 OPS. Adeiny Hechevarria led off the ninth.

Among Mets fans, Hechevarria became known this season for an unfortunate confluence of events. He played for the Mets, until they released him, likely in order to avoid paying the $1 million he was due the next day. He bolted town and signed with the Braves, and seems to have hated the Mets ever since.

Was it wrong to cut Hech in order to save a few dollars? Certainly. Did it come at great cost to the Mets? Not at all: as a Brave, Hechevarria has been supremely unimpressive, not as good as Luis Guillorme, who replaced him in Queens. The entire argument, really, seems uninteresting and overblown. All we know for sure is that Hechevarria hates the Mets with a passion.

As he led off the ninth, it had started to get colder. There was a chill in the air that hadn’t been there even the night before. It’s funny: sometimes, just as baseball can go off-script and do the opposite of the Hollywood version, it will go the other way, take itself far too seriously and start getting gratuitous with the symbolism. Yes, it’s fall now. But starting the day warm, as if it’s the middle of summer, and then getting progressively colder just to drive the point home? It’s overkill. It’s like that scene in “Interstellar,” where the character meant to represent the idea that man is his own worst enemy is named “Dr. Mann.” Baseball can crush our hearts and send us off into the cold of winter, as it does every year, but please, at least be subtle about it.

Hechevarria lined a ball into the left-field stands for a game-tying home run.

Really, why not? Closing Day is when it all comes together, when the narratives of each season are sealed up and written in stone. Really, it made sense. Perfect sense. If Adeiny Hechevarria wasn’t going to take his revenge, what had this all been about?

Sewald got one more out, then Mickey came out and got him. The crowd was booing as Mickey took the ball: I couldn’t tell who they disapproved of more, the pitcher or the manager who had just sent him packing. Daniel Zamora came in and finished the ninth inning scoreless; in the bottom of the frame, Nido grounded out, and Jed Lowrie and Sam Haggerty, despite the perfect story it would have been, both failed to get their first hits of the season.

The Mets took the field. Tyler Bashlor came in. Extras!

***

At least it was early. This wasn’t like the David Wright game, when my mother started telling me in the ninth or tenth inning that my brother, at the game with me, really had to get to bed. It was just past 6:00 in the afternoon, as dark as 8:30 in July, plenty of night left for baseball. It was, however, getting colder.

Bashlor, intimidating and erratic as ever, got through the tenth unscathed. With one out in the bottom of the inning, Conforto singled, and Panik, suddenly the Mets’ best hitter, singled him to third. Up came Davis, the left fielder, Rajai instead of J.D.

I can’t even count how many times Mickey Callaway has been burned by bringing in his defensive replacements before the offense has finished its’ day’s work. Today was no exception. All we needed was a ball in play. J.D. Davis, I told myself, could have done it. Rajai, 38 years old, .200 hitter, couldn’t. He struck out, and Amed popped up before you could say “sure he’s gotten better but he’s still really gotta improve his approach at the plate,” and now Walker Locket was coming in to pitch the 11^th.

You know where this is going. I knew where this was going. “Gotta pitch to Hechevarria with the bases empty,” I muttered to myself.

Billy Hamilton singled leading off the inning, but somehow, a pitchout worked perfectly, the way you almost never see, and Tomas Nido cut down Hamilton at second. Hechevarria, sure enough, would bat with the bases empty.

Good thing, too. I thought I knew where this was going, but even I wasn’t prepared for exactly where it was going: into the second deck, a shot of Alonsic proportions. Hechevarria must really have wanted that $1 million. Up next, Adam Duvall also took Lockett deep. And as the stadium groaned, I just sat in my seat laughing.

It’s always good to be reminded that whatever may happen, these are the Mets, and things are going to get silly. Adeiny Hechevarria is going to hit not one but two soul-crushing home runs. Jon Niese will shut us out as a Pirate. Mike Scott will learn the spitball. Oliver Perez will come back to New York reinvented as a reliever and shut us down every time he pitches. “LOLMets” isn’t just a quirky thing people say: it’s a tortured expression of the truth of the world, which is that if Mets fans cannot laugh they will cry, and there’s no sense crying on Closing Day, at least until the game ends.

6-4 Braves. Chris Mazza induced a double play to stop the bleeding, but the damage was done. Three outs to play with, three outs to salvage not quite a season, but at least a good feeling. Three outs between me and the inescapable, eternal feeling that maybe, if Mickey had stuck with J.D. Davis for another turn through the lineup, everything would have turned out fine. Guillorme, Nido, Haggerty. Go get ’em, boys!

Luis Guillorme is an interesting player. On a far less fortunate Mets club, he might just be my favorite: he plays hard, defends beautifully, and is competent but refreshingly imperfect, or imperfect but refreshingly competent. Now that he’s proven that he’s a not-bad hitter at the big-league level (.246/.324/.361, and he passes the eye test), Guillorme might be a piece of the Mets’ future, especially if Jed Lowrie’s season is any indication of his future capabilities. Guillorme took a tough at-bat, in any case, and singled to left. Nido came up, and I wondered whether Mickey had forgotten to pich-hit Ramos for him. After Nido struck out, sure enough, Ramos pinch-hit for Haggerty and singled, and I wondered whether Mickey had forgotten to pinch-run for him. Rene Rivera pinch-hit for Mazza and struck out, and only then did Mickey pinch-run Juan Lagares for Ramos, leading me to believe that for one batter, he probably had forgotten about pinch-running. Ah, well. These things happen.

In the tenth, after Hamilton’s single, Mickey had made his final applause move of the night: he called on Dom Smith, out of action since July, to replace Alonso. Pete got some of the loudest applause of the night as he took his exit, and Dom, a fan favorite for his exhuberance and hard work, was well-received too. But now he was batting in Pete’s spot — coming up with two men on and two outs in extra innings, representing both the last out of the season and the winning run.

Brian Snitker came out to bring in a lefty. Dom stood in the box, his familiar crouched stance a welcome sight, if not the first thing you’d like to see in that situation. I knew how improbable it was, but I couldn’t help thinking…“those right-field stands are calling your name, Dom, just a little poke right there…be a hero, send us all home happy.”

And unbelievably, almost cinematically, he did.

A line drive, deep to right, towards the fence…outfielders backing up, giving chase, reaching the track…and then, the ball falling out of sight, the stadium exploding into a roar of incredulous satisfaction, Dom rounding the bases, flinging his helmet in the air, landing on home plate as the Mets danced and celebrated around him…and then, all of a sudden, baseball season was over.

Everyone celebrated for a while, and as the park emptied out, the mood became more and more reflective. The players handed their jerseys to season-ticket holders assembled by the Mets’ dugout. They milled around shaking hands and slapping backs. Then, one by one, they made their way into the dugout and up the tunnel to the clubhouse, and thus, the 2019 Mets were written into history, and that was the last we saw of them.

A photo montage started up on the scoreboard, and “The Scientist” came over the P.A. system. I stood at the back of my empty section and watched as slowly, the 2019 Mets, my favorite Mets team yet, disappeared for the last time, as their best moments flashed by on the scoreboard. The end credits to the greatest movie I’d ever seen. The backup first baseman hits the walk-off homer to end the season three games out of a playoff spot. Never a Hollywood story, but a Mets story, told to perfection.

Nobody said it was easy

It’s such a shame for us to part

Nobody said it was easy

No one ever said it would be this hard

Oh take me back to the start…

I waited for the song to end. Then, dark sky beyond the outfield stands, fall breeze getting colder still, I took one last long look down at the field. And I left Citi Field, and the 2019 Mets, for the last time.

***

Out in the parking lot, the long walk to the subway, the last one for a long time. So long until we’ll be back again.

I stopped on the subway steps and walked down again, taking one last look up at the stadium. Brightly lit up against the Queens night, overhead lights still shining…if I hadn’t known better, I would have thought it was any other game. I knew, of course, that it wasn’t any other game, and in fact, for the longest time, there wouldn’t be any other game.

But I’ll be back, and the offseason, as it always does, will end. There’s the coat drive and the food drive and a few other miscellaneous events that serve as enough of an excuse that they justify getting back to Citi Field for an afternoon and seeing those beautiful bricks again, even if they’re not quite the same without the sun shining and a ballgame on the schedule.

I’ve spent my entire conscious life as a Mets fan, and leaving baseball behind every September has never gotten easier. And with a team I loved as much as the 2019 Mets, this one may have been the most difficult of all. These Mets will never be back, even if the most important pieces return. Something will be different. Something is already different. Life without the 2019 Mets is colder, darker, less joyous and fun. Life with the 2020 Mets, we must hope, will be every bit as enjoyable as these past six months. 172 days from now, when baseball resumes in Queens, we’ll have that light and joy back again. Until then, all we can do is muddle through the cold, dark winter.

As I stood on the first step of the subway stairs, I realized that I’d forgotten something. Talk about symbolic overkill. Leaving Citi Field and the 2019 Mets for the last time, I’d left a hot dog and a souvenir lemonade in my seat for the winter.