Oh My GOD!!!

Well hey everyone - freshly back from Baltimore where we saw the Yankees win one and lose one en route to the 2007 post-season. We were supposed to go to all three games, but after a busy weekend full of activities down in Charm City, we decided to blow off today's final game and drive back early. Heck, I have work tomorrow, so it just made sense.

On the way home up I-95 we kept flipping between the Yankees game (which had all the flow of Maine molasses in January) and the Mets game. You know the story - the Mets had to win to guarantee at least a tie with the Phillies (after beating the Marlins Saturday night). A Met loss and a Phillies win would mean the Mets would have completed the biggest collapse in baseball history. Watching the Mets drop five out of their previous six games and whittle away a 6-game lead down to nothing has been nothing short of hysterical. All weekend I've been thinking of how delicious it would be if the Mets didn't even make the post-season.

So imagine the heights of euphoria I reached when we tuned in to hear the Mets losing 7-1 IN THE BOTTOM OF THE FIRST! Mon and I cackled like delighted school children. We started flipping back and forth between the Phillies game and the Mets game. From then on it was a matter of counting down the innings while the Mets folded like a house of cards in a hurricane and the Phillies tacked on runs against the Nats in Philly.

The Mets lost 8-1; about five minutes later the Phillies won 6-1. Cars on I-95 (south of Philly) honked wildly. It was a beautiful moment, a moment made all the more sweet by the dribbling bullshit I have had to endure from slack-jawed Met fans ever since the Yankees' ALCS loss in 2004 (which, unlike this majestic masterpiece, was simply a three-game losing streak at a bad time). In that one instant, as the crowd cheered at Citizen's Bank ballpark, I thought of how ironic, poetic and fitting it was that the 2007 Mets had just let Gene Mauk and the 1964 Phillies off the hook, bettering their famous collapse by a couple of extra notches in futility.

From now on, when people ask "what team had the biggest collapse in baseball history", the 2007 Mets will roll of the tongue. To quote my friend AJ (who sent me an e-mail about this earlier this afternoon), "it was like watching the best porn ever".

It couldn't have happened to a better group of fans. I'm sure Mike Lupica (and the other Midget Mets out there) will be crying himself to sleep tonight.

Karma: it's not just for breakfast anymore.