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There’s some expression about hope and spring and baseball (perhaps the expression is a cousin to Alexander Pope’s bromide that hope springs eternal) which neatly expresses my optimism about the 2010 Mets. Usually, my spring optimism is founded in self-interest; as a season ticket holder, I have a financial stake in the team’s success. As a Mets fan, I also tend to rationalize our chances for the coming season to overcome my and every Mets fans’ natural cynicism.

Certainly my optimism for this coming season in particular includes the usual doses of economic self-interest and cynical self-delusion. But in pondering the Mets’ realistic chances for battling for a playoff spot in 2010, I actually came up with 10 reasons to believe I’ll be over-paying for playoff tickets come September.

1. Ignore 2009. It didn’t happen. Tom Seaver threw out the first pitch, then Mike Pelfry’s third pitch to Jody Gerut froze midway to plate and – now it’s spring 2010. But whatever may have happened between April 13 and October 4, 2009, does not indicate a trend; it was an aberration. Many good teams suffer fallow seasons between bounteous ones, including two others this decade. The White Sox won 99 games and the World Series in 2005 and 90 games in 2006, then fell of a table with just 72 victories in 2007. A trend? Nope – the pale hose bounced back with 89 wins in 1989. A starker example: In 2003, the Diamondbacks won 84 games; the next year, they won just 51 (including a Randy Johnson perfect game), but came back in 2005 to win 77 games (a 26-game improvement), 76 in 2006 and 90 in 2007. Despite the disappointments of 2006-2008, the Mets are still a good team and will bounce back.

2. Mets Are Pre-Disastered. In the World According to Garp, Robin Williams, after watching a small plane crash into the house he and Mary Beth Hurt were about to buy, happily proclaimed they were safe because the house had been “pre-disastered.” I don’t want to jinx anything by saying “nothing else can go wrong,” but you have to admit that last year’s bizarre litany of disability was akin to a small plane crashing into a house you were about to buy. And I’m ignoring Carlos Beltran missing the first month or so of 2010 – A-Rod missed a month with the Yanks last season, and their season turned out just fine.

3. All-Star Lineup: Met fans may be cynical about a lot of things, but five of the Mets’ eight position starters have combined to earn more All-Star elections/selections, 16, than any other team in the NL save one: the Washington Nationals, who have 18, but 14 of these belong to Ivan Rodriguez. Unlike I-Rod, the Mets all-stars – Reyes (1), Castillo (3), Beltran (5), Bay (3) and Wright (4) , their 1-5 hitters – are all in what should be the prime of their careers. And remember: even with the Mets’ depleted lineup, they tied the Dodgers for the league lead in hitting (.270) in 2009. What about batters 6-8 you ask?

4. Jeff Francoeur, Daniel Murphy, Omir Santos Get Full Undistracted Seasons: The first two guys were the Mets’ leading home run hitters last season. Francoeur, who suffered through an emotionally traumatic trade from his home-town team and away from his best friend mid-season, had a combined 15 homers between Atlanta and New York, 10 in 75 games with the Mets (vs. 5 in 82 games with the Braves). In fact, Francoeur drove in 41 runs and hit .311 for the Mets, vs. 35 RBI/.250 with the Braves, which says to me he likes it here. Murphy led all players wearing only Met uniforms the whole season in HRs with 12 – after surviving the public ignominy of his disaster in left field and then trying to figure out how to play first base. Santos, who was asked to fill in for a fill in for a starter, produced 7 HRs and 40 RBI in essentially a half season of at bats. Extrapolated to a full season means 14 HRs and 80 RBI, not bad for a fourth-string catcher, if he gets the bulk of the catching ABs. With each of these three now relaxed and settled in his new city and positions, and no longer under pressure to provide all the offense, the Mets could potentially get at least 15 HRs from seven of the eight position spots in the order.

5. Tony Bernazard Is Gone: And everyone’s hitting should improve. According to the Daily News’ John Harper, Bernazard forced an opposite field hitting philosophy throughout the organization that apparently screwed up everyone’s swing. If everyone’s swing returns to their natural pull-hitting proclivities (and it seems the easiest way to hit a ball out of CitiField is down one of the lines), the Mets home run output could double this year.

6. CitiField Is A Year Old: Everyone is now used to the place. More importantly, let’s finally debunk the canard that CitiField is the ballpark equivalent of Death Valley. The Mets actually hit more homers at CitiField (47) than away (46), and more home runs were hit in Met games at CitiField than in Met games on the road. And out of the 30 major league parks, CitiField was actually only the 12th hardest stadium to hit a HR in. With a completely healthy lineup and a half-height lowered centerfield wall, well, let’s just say the HR apple will have a lot more ups and downs (in a good way) in 2010.

7. Starting Pitching: I know this is supposed to be the big question mark for the Mets, and maybe my pre-season optimism has run amuck here, but I keep thinking about the years Maine, Perez and Pelfry had in 2007-08, which lets me know what they’re capable of. In 2008, Santana won 16, Pelfry 13, Maine 10 and Perez 10, and the Mets still won 89 games. I don’t think it’s overly optimistic to believe each one of these guys will equal or surpass 2008’s modest individual or cumulative totals (remember, I’m completely tossing last year as if it didn’t happen). And then there’s Jonathan Niese. I’ve been telling anyone who’d listen throughout this miserable winter – and before his impressive two-inning inter-squad stint earlier this week – my belief Niese is going have a breakthrough season. Add Niese to the mix, plus a powerful starting eight producing plenty of power, and I don’t think it’s far-fetched to project Santana, Perez, Maine, Pelfry and Niese combining to win 65 games. By comparison, the top five starters on last season’s 103-game-winning Yankees combined to win 63 games.

8. Frankie Rodriquez Will Be Busier (But Hopefully Not Too Busy): Frankie started last season with 16 straight saves and looked like a lock for 17 until Luis Castillo dropped a certain infield pop-up at Yankee Stadium. Frankie thrives under regular work, which the Mets failed to provide as the season wore on and down, and ended up with an ERA a run-and-a-half higher than his record-setting 2008. If – oh, I mean WHEN – the Mets provide Frankie with regular work (and if Manuel doesn’t over-use him), his ERA should sink back to his usual stingy level.

9. Jason Bay. I’ll admit I didn’t like this signing. I think Bay strikes out too much, is too streaky, may have health issues long term, and could be a defensive liability. But a couple of odd notions clacked into my consciousness. For instance, all four times the Mets have played in the World Series, they batted a right-handed cleanup hitter (Donn Clendenon 1969, Cleon Jones 1973, Gary Carter 1986, Mike Piazza 2000). I’m just sayin’. More concretely, having a right-handed cleanup hitter means the Mets are much less vulnerable to lefty pitching (i.e. Hamels and Happ)– obviously, right-handed hitters hit righty pitching better than left-handed hitters hit lefties. Plus, last year Bay played at Fenway Park, where left fielders play shallow because of the Green Monster looming behind them. As a result, a lot of soft liners and bloops caught at Fenway will drop in for hits at CitiField, especially since left fielders will have to play deep for Bay. Bay’s .267 average is his second-worse career low, and his 162 Ks are a career high, so I’m not concerned by either of these as I was immediately post-signing. Bay is a .280 career hitter and averages around 30 HRs and 100 RBIs. He may not hold up the full four years of his contract, but those numbers will be plenty for 2010-11.

10. Low Expectations. The best thing about winning only 72 games? Everyone thinks you’ll continue to suck. Good. High expectations seems to be a curse where the Mets are concerned. No or low expectations means the players will be more relaxed (the only white-knuckled Met will be Omar) and we’ll be happy with any success the Mets provide. And I’m optimistic they could provide success at least 90 times, if not more, out of 162 in 2010.

And if things don’t quite work out the way I’ve laid it out here, I don’t want to know.

———-

Apropos of nothing, I highly recommend “The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs,” by Bill Jenkinson, who meticulously documents what many of us have sadly forgotten (including myself) – under ridiculous conditions and batting in behemothic ballparks that make CitiField seem like a Little League field, Babe Ruth was an insanely great baseball player and a tape measure home run-hitting freak of nature.

You often get the feeling that players aren’t as passionate about the same things as Joe Fan is. But it turns out, the Mets (at least some of them) hate the Phillies as much as fans do.

Personally, I don’t hate the Phillies like I used to hate the Braves. My “hatred” is more jealousy – they’ve built their team the way I wish the Mets had. And I think the Halladay deal will blow up in their faces in a couple of years. But I digress.

Last week, the Mets hosted a couple of VIP cocktail receptions for season ticket holders at the Caesar’s Club. On Wednesday, Howie Rose hosted David Wright, Mike Pelfrey, Omir Santos, Ryota Igarashi and John Maine; on Thursday, Maine and Santos returned for a second round joined by Pedro Feliciano, Daniel Murphy and Howard Johnson, all gently interrogated by Ron Darling. I attended the Thursday evening session. On both nights, all the players took questions from the audience as well.

All the players seemed well media-trained and, despite some pointed questions about Carlos Beltran (Murphy: “Carlos always has the best interests of the team at heart”), the signing of Jason Bay and last season’s miseries, kept a cool Crash Davis-coached head on their shoulders – except when a fan asked all the members of the panel if they hated the Phillies as much as the fans did. Barely missing a beat, Daniel Murphy offered this bit of bulletin board material: “I really despise the Phillies,” to the enthusiastic applause of the crowd.

Other highlights: Omar Santos re-enacted his reaction to his favorite moment of the year – his ninth-inning homer off Jonathan Papelbon at Fenway Park:

John Maine admitted he had tried to do too much lat season and pronounced himself healthy and raring to go.

HoJo told Murphy he didn’t have to be so perfect all the time and told him to take a day off from swinging periodically. Murph agreed, noting that if he got 600 ABs during the season and made strong contact in 300 of those ABs, the results would make everyone happy.

But there’s no reason to synopsize the entire event.  I recorded all 36 minutes of Thursday’s Q&A for your perusal, which are linked below in four parts:

While I was at CitiField, I snapped a couple of shots of the construction of the Mets Museum, to be located where the first base side gift shop used to be; more precisely, these are pictures of the deconstruction of the gift shop:

Mets management is reaching out to its core constituency more aggressively than I can remember in the quarter century I’ve been a season ticket holder. Last week, I was among one of the first groups invited to a season ticket holder Behind the Scenes Tour, and I thought I’d give you a photographic representation of same.

But first, here’s a shot of the bullpens, which are being re-oriented perpendicular to center field so both have a view of the action. No other changes are planned for the outfield wall – no lowering, moving in or repainting is planned.

We then got to pose with the 1969 and 1986 World Series trophies (I’m on the right, my friend Colin in the porkpie hat on the left). We also hung a bit with Mr. Met, whose silent gestulating reminded us of Harpo Marx. With an expressive thumbs-up, he agreed he could use an air conditioner or a fan inside to cool his head inside his huge baseball head. We took a picture with – him? There could have been a woman in there, I guess – but as a grown up person it’s a little embarrassing.

We started the actual tour on the press level, visiting the scoreboard control room – everything displayed on all the scoreboards is controlled from this room. Of most interest to me is how they know the type of pitch and the speed; controllers study the pitchers so they know what pitches he throws and can then tell what pitch is thrown while the pitch speed is completely automated.

The young lad in the second picture is pushing the button that raises the home run apple in center field. The whole cycle takes 28 seconds, but they’re working on speeding up the process in case by some miracle the Mets hit more back-to-back homers.

We also got to visit the SNY broadcast booth named for Ralph Kiner and peaked into a couple of other broadcast booths and the lengthy press room. Behind all these facilities is the press dining room, and our guide painted a word picture of seeing Peter Gammons chowing down while chatting with Keith Hernandez. And, yes, the press has to pay for its grub.

There’s an auditorium overlooking the first base side of the Jackie Robinson Rotunda used for corporate gatherings and team meetings. It’s available for rent, if you’re interested.

We toured some luxury suites – all they needed was a bed and a shower in the bathroom and I could have moved in – a couple were larger than my Manhattan apartment.

We then went down to the field, got to see ourselves on the video board as we wandered around the warning track in front of the Mets’ dugout, then hungout in the dugout. I got a photo of myself faking a call to the bullpen, which I now consider nearly as embarrassing as my picture with Mr. Met.

At the end of the dugout are the steps down to a hallway running track where pinch runners warm up, adjacent to the indoor batting cages when pinch hitters can warm up.

Just down the hall is the copious and comfy Mets’ locker room. Off the locker room is the Mets game room, complete with pool tables with blue felt and what must be distracting Mets logos in the middle, flat screen HDTVs and Rock Band instruments; apparently Nelson Figueroa is quite the rock star. I can’t shake the nagging feeling about how these literally plush surroundings may have introduced a degree of complacency. I kept flashing back to the scenes toward the end of Pride of Yankees, the scene in the spartan concrete locker room filled with high school-like lockers and short three-legged stools. I’ve been in the locker room at old Yankee Stadium and seen Gehrig’s and Ruth’s lockers at the HoF in Cooperstown, and the movie depiction isn’t far off. Maybe the Mets need the creature comforts removed like in Major League to fuel some righteous indignation and re-stoke their competitive fires – even if it requires voodoo.

Across the hall is sickbay (considering the misfortunes of last season, “trainer’s room” seems an inadequate appelation), which seemed oddly vacant considering the action it must have seen. The beds are on the left side, the desk with the meds on the right where windows provide a view of the enormous weight room.

On the wall between sickbay and the weight room is a framed blueprint of CitiField signed by all the players. Oliver Perez’s John Hancock elicited the most comments, none of them complimentary and few printable.

Our final stop was the press conference room; since we’ve all seen the Omar Minaya-Adam Rubin footage from there, I see no reason to post the hokey photo of me addressing a non-existent press corps. More photo embarrassment avoided.

Upon entry to the stadium, we all got bright orange wristbands, which granted us a 25 percent discount at the Mets’ store. Colin bought one of the new jerseys, a David Wright model. I like their look. A lot. I should have taken pictures of them and didn’t think of it. Brain fart.

My thanks to Mets management, regardless of their reasons, for giving us a glimpse behind the scenes.

Now that the kerfluffle over who to root for in the World Series has (hopefully) subsided and we have entered the cabin fever-inducing “who to sign/trade/trade for” hot stove kerfuffle, I’ve had a chance to ponder the vehemence over my and everyone else’s post-season rooting interests. Forgive me as I briefly wax philosophic. My rooting rumination was reinforced re-reading a book I wrote in 1995, Bums No More! The Championship Season of the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers, in preparation for a Kindle (and other e-book) edition (this is not a plug – the book’s long out of print). While researching the book, I spoke to three dozen fans who attended Dodger games during the 1955 season. Reacting to the World Series and especially the Yankees in 1955, I found it startling how opposing fans’ opinions about the U.S. Steel of baseball hasn’t changed in 50-plus years.  Consider this opinion from a 1950’s Brooklyn rooter: Yankee fans have an arrogant, pompous way about them, you know, like they’re the greatest and nobody’s better. They keep calling on all these statistics as if they really have some meaning. They never believed that the Yankees could ever lose. And consider how a Dodger fan named Larry Zeiger – now better known as CNN talk show host Larry King – explained his love/hate relationship with their Bums, and how his optimistic pessimism parallels our own mixed emotions about the Mets: Once the Dodgers got good, I always expected them to win. We also expected to lose as well.  If we were ahead by three games, we’d figure out how to lose three in a row, and if we were behind three games to nothing, there was still hope.  We expected to win, we expected to lose.

Sound familiar?

While re-reading these half-century old opinions, I got to thinking: What made these fans, and us, so rabid about their teams, then and now? After all, we aren’t any more or less enthusiastic about the Mets as, say, Cubs fans or Red Sox fans – even Yankee fans – are about their teams.

Why did we – and you – become a Met fan? Is it mere geography or heredity, or is there something more? I’m actually a Mets convert. I was a huge Sandy Koufax fan growing up, getting to see him pitch only on NBC’s Saturday Game of the Week or when they played the Mets or during the 1963, 1965 and 1966 World Series. By extension, I rooted for the Rams (Roman Gabriel, Deacon Jones) and the Lakers (Jerry West and Wilt Chamberlain) as well. My Dodger dedication was constantly tested. With no Internet or ESPN, it was really hard getting late night Dodger box scores and stats in New Jersey. In 1969, I was infected by what I thought was a temporary fever for the Amazins and kept a newspaper scrapbook of the season and Series, pictured above.

I continued to root for the Dodgers and all L.A. teams until one late summer afternoon in 1983. I and a companion went to a Dodger-Mets game at Shea. We sat in nosebleed seats, the back row of the upper deck, and watched Fernando Valenzuela face off against Tom Seaver (I think – I can’t find the program). I started out consciously rooting for the Dodgers, but after a couple of innings something strange happened. While shouting encouragement to Fernando, I felt my gut pulling for the Mets. I was startled by this betrayal by my innards. I fought it for an inning or two, but I finally succumbed. The fever I caught in 1969 lay dormant until my trip to the upper deck 14 years later. I moved into Manhattan the following year and became a Mets’ season ticket holder and a devoted Mets fan.

While I accept my Amazin affection, I can’t for the life of me figure out why the Mets are so important to me or why I was so bothered when my Met allegiance was challenged by Yankee haters on this blog who branded me a traitor for rooting for the New York American League team during the recently concluded playoffs. Why should I – and do I – care about and spend so much on a bunch of game-playing, pajama-wearing multi-millionaires?

So take your mind off John Lackey and Matt Holliday for a moment and share with us a reflective story about how you became a Met fan and why this team – and rooting to begin with – is so important to you.

Mets fans’ heads are exploding now that the Yankees and Phillies have pounded their way into the World Series. I, however, won’t have trouble deciding who to root for:

The Yankees.

A few weeks ago I expressed the same intention and was dubbed the anti-Christ by one charming commentor and another questioned my Met blogging legitimacy. Knowing full well I’ll be in for a similar blog-flogging with this full-fledged declaration, I nonetheless intend to make my case.

First, even though it galls me no end, I feel I need to establish my Met fan bonafides.

I have been a Mets season ticket holder since 1984. I have not missed an opening day in that time. I keep score at every game I attend. My keychain pendant is a souvenir 1986 World Series medallion given fans Opening Day 1987. The side of my refrigerator is covered with magnetic Mets schedules, much to my wife’s chagrin. I have every Mets yearbook since…well, every yearbook, and every media guide since 1988. I have a Mets seat pillow (really, a pillow, not one of those flimsy foam cushions), a dozen or so fitted Mets caps (including one with the Chinese character for “Mets”), souvenir cups from nearly every season and a can of Mets grapefruit soda from Japan. I have ticket stubs from every playoff game the Mets have played in the last 25 years save two (don’t ask), and playoff tickets bought for playoff games never played (e.g. 1987). I also bought my Loge reserved seats from Shea.

I will match my Mets fandomness with anyone decrying my rooting for the Yankees.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to the heart of the matter.

I am not just rooting for the Yankees this year. I root for them whenever they are not playing the Mets. I was even a season ticket holder at Yankee Stadium in the late 1980s and early 1990s, but had to give them up – I couldn’t afford seats at both Shea and Yankee Stadium. Obviously I chose the Mets.

How can I root for both the Mets and Yankees?

Let me answer a question with a question for all you Yankee haters.

Why is it necessary to HATE the Yankees in order to root for the Mets? To me, this is like hating apple pie to justify liking cherry pie – and I’m presented with that choice far more frequently than the half dozen times I root for the Mets over the Yankees. I don’t have to hate red in order to like blue, I don’t have to hate John Wayne westerns in order to like Clint Eastwood westerns, I don’t have to hate Windows to like Mac, I don’t to hate anything in order to like something else.

Here are some of the reasons I hear on why people hate the Yankees:

1. The Yankees buy championships. Yes, the Yankees are a rich organization. But the Mets’ payroll has been second only to the Yankees the last few years. Where did that spending get us? The Yankees have not won a World Series since 2000, so where did all that spending get them? No, you cannot win simply by buying talent. It helps, but you need more than money to be a winner. And it’s hard to yell they buy championships when the Mets spend nearly as much – just not as well.

But that’s besides the point. The core of the current Yankee dynasty is Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera, all home grown players, all there since 1996. The Mets don’t have a single player on its roster from its last NL pennant winner just nine years ago.

2. Yankee fans are arrogant/cocky. It’s called swagger. You remember swagger, Met fans, don’t you? The 1986 Mets? Hell, I was obnoxious that year. Fans of winning New York teams get to be obnoxious. It’s damned annoying when it’s not the team you’re rooting for, but all New York sports fans suffer from it and Yankee fans just seem to have a corner on it since they win more often. I can’t blame them, though. Shoe on the other foot, I’d be cocky, too.

3. The Yankees win too often. I also hear this from people rooting against Tiger Woods. This just baffles me. Since when is consistant high-level success something to root against? Accomplishment and winning at the highest level are reasons to admire, not hate. And using this logic, you’d hate the Mets if they won too often? Me, I’d risk it.

4. George Steinbrenner. I’m sorry, what position does he play? Oh, right, he doesn’t. Steinbrenner may be many things, but he wants to win and has done everything he can – good and bad – to make that happen. As a Met fan I find it hard not to want to the same attitude from the Wilpons.

So, to get back to the original question: Why do I root for the Yankees?

I am a baseball fan. The Yankees are baseball’s foremost, most storied and most winning franchise. The Yankees are baseball’s ambassador to the world. Everywhere I’ve traveled around the world I’ve seen kids wearing Yankee hats. American is synonymous with Yankee. A baseball fan who hates the Yankees is like a film buff hating Alfred Hitchcock, a literature fan hating Shakespeare, a nature lover hating the Grand Canyon.

Most of all, I’m a proud New Yorker, proud of my city and proud of its rich baseball heritage. My city has two baseball teams. I see no reason why I should not exult in the achievements of both since their objectives conflict only six days a year. That leaves me free to root for both the other 359.

The Yankees are inexorably entwined with being a baseball fan and a New Yorker. How one can claim to be a baseball fan and a New Yorker and at least have some grudging respect for what the Yankees mean to the sport and to this city.

Here’s what really baffles me: how a real baseball fan can also be a football fan. But perhaps that’s best left to either George Carlin or another post.

I smell a repeat of this debacle.

Earlier this week, I argued the Mets should essentially stand pat for 2010, let the injured heal, the young mature and everyone jell, and let’s see what happens before we dive into the trade or free agent pool.

Aside from my previous arguments about being able to field an 85-win team with what we already have, there are two other reasons why I think we should stay pat.

Over-reaction and over-paying.

Omar Minaya is under time pressure to do something/anything to “improve” the Mets. My fear is that he will do something – for the sake of doing something.

All I want, as the Mets plot their moves in the off-season, is for Minaya and the powers that be to heed what emergency room doctors are taught: it may be better to do nothing than to do something that risks causing more harm than good.

Unfortunately, because of the pressure to win, Met GMs can’t bask in this wait-and-see luxury. Our oft ill-considered rush to win has cost us dearly in the past. I am reminded of the Mets failures in the early 1990s and management’s over-reaction to same, resulting in the acquisition of such big name disasters as Frank Viola, Vince Coleman, Bobby Bonilla, Frank Tanana, Tony Fernandez, Eddie Murray and Bret Saberhagen. And do I have to go through the litany of equally disastrous young/core players for “big names” trades the Mets regularly have made?

Adding to the problem is the dearth of available free agent talent. I keep hearing “We need a bat and an arm.” But I have yet to hear anyone realistically discuss who would want to  voluntarily commit themselves to the Citi insane asylum, or that the Mets could realistically sign at reasonable rates.

The top free agents desired by the Mets and fans – John Lackey, Matt Holliday, Jason Bay, Randy Wolf and Jason Marquis – all will be playing in the post season. We will get a closer look to see how they perform under pressure (and, likely in Marquis’ and maybe Holliday’s and Wolf’s case, against the Phillies), a prerequisite for playing in the glassed-in prison cell of New York City.

But let’s say all five pass the post-season pressure test. What then?

Just because we want them doesn’t mean we’ll get them. And just because we can get them doesn’t mean we should get them. But these aphorisms aside, I just can’t see Lackey, Holliday or Bay signing with the Mets.

Lackey hails from Texas and has pitched his entire career in Southern California. Why would someone exposed to this much country life want to play in New York? (Especially since he wears 41, which he couldn’t wear as a Met; I could find no evidence he wears that number because he was a Seaver fan, however.) I smell Ed Whitson II.

Holliday is purely a Midwesterner – born in Oklahoma, played in Denver and St. Louis. Sure, the Cards may think he’s too expensive and we might be able to sign him – but will he be comfortable in the big city? He couldn’t make it in Oakland, for crissakes.

Bay was once a Mets’ prospect – albeit for four months. Would he want to come back? Should he come back? His power would be muted by CitiField’s dimensions. And Bay isn’t exactly Endy Chavez in left field. Remember what a couple of muffs in left field did to our view of Daniel Murphy?

I honestly don’t know enough about Wolf other than he played for the Phils and seems to enjoy big city life, but I truly believe Niese could be a much cheaper version of same and ought to get the chance to prove it – here.

I know why one of these free agents might sign with the Mets. Because Omar, in an attempt to grab one or more of them just to be able to say he grabbed one or more of them, will be tempted to overpay.

No, check that. We will overpay. With so few quality players and so many teams chasing them (yes, other teams need a bat and an arm as well), this will be a seller’s market.

The one realistic signing the Mets could make is Jason Marquis. According to the NY Post (I know, not exactly the most trustworthy source), Staten Island native Marquis actually wants to play for Mets, perhaps lured either by Citi’s copious dimensions, dementia or both.  Works for me (I always thought you had to be a little nuts to want to live here), but, again, not for the Oliver Perez money it might take to land him.

It’s not that I don’t want the Mets to bulk up. What I’m afraid of is that Dr. Minaya will metaphorically prescribe expensive steroids for quick results rather than stick to the old fashioned way of diet and exercise. The latter route may take longer, but it’s ultimately healthier and will produce longer-lasting results.

Random thoughts:

* Was that a great game yesterday or what? Wow.

* But wasn’t it weird hearing Ron Darling’s voice without Gary Cohen? Boy, is RD smart! Why hasn’t someone hired him to manage? Say, the Mets?

* I’m rooting for the Yankees. I live in New York and I’m rooting for my home team. This differs from most Mets fans who would like to see the Yankees eat s…er, fecal matter… and die, like Stan, an usher at CitiField and an old-time Brooklyn Dodger fan who vividly remembers attending the final game of the 1950 season when Richie Ashburn threw out Cal Abrams at the plate after a base hit by Duke Snider, who told me in a game between the Yankees and the Russians, he’d root for the Russians. He’d be disappointed. I’m pretty sure the Russians suck at baseball.