Four Hours Until Gametime

It is 4 hours till the first pitch and for the first time, I am really starting to feel it. The reason, a frantic IM session with Happy Will.

For a strange reason I have found myself at peace with the Mets all postseason. Maybe it's confidence, maybe it's that I have experienced so many lows that the downside doesn't really phase me.

But at 4:14 ET I officially got the first butterflies in my stomach.

It is hard to believe that this could be the end. The end of a season that opened with Brian Bannister and Victor Zambrano as our 4 and 5 starters.

With Anderson Hernandez starting at second base over the injured Kaz Matsui and the cagey vet Jose Valentin.

With our best hitter from a year ago going into a contract year, good old Uncle Cliffie.

With a setup man who looked so shaky in the WBC that memories of Mel Rojas reappeared in my head, Duaner Sanchez.

Jose Reyes saw first base 3 out of 10 times, Carlos Beltran was the biggest bust in free agent history and the only way we had a fighting chance was if Pedro Martinez put up a Cy Young year for us.

Needless to say, a lot of things have changed for the Mets.

At the same time, a lot has changed for Sip.

As my close friends and fellow Met fan brethren can attest, I was just about the most pessimistic Mets fan in the world.

AFOMG and I would joke for years about the Mets failures. We even called our favorite player, Jose Reyes, Mr. Glass because he got hurt so many times that we were reminded of the character played by Samuel L. Jackson in the M. Night Shyamalan movie Unbreakable, who had a genetic malfunction which caused his bones to break like glass.

For the first 23 years of my life, I didn't think the Mets had a chance.

Then a funny thing happened. This whole season.

Anyone who scripted 2006 like this, with John Maine and Oliver Perez pitching Game 6 and Game 7 of the NLCS, well, you should take your life now, cause it will never get any better.

But this entire year has been so fresh for Mets fans. Save a few anomalies and pretty much everything happened the way we wanted it to happen.

We crushed everyone.

We busted past the Braves like Cousin Dan mows through a plate of Blondies Buffalo Wings.

We outplayed the Yankees in our two subway series'.

We destroyed the National League.

Looking back, this team had so many excuses to fold. Pedro won 9 games, Cliff was a non-factor and our best middle man was lost to a freak car accident.

But the Mets never folded.

And we all started to believe.

Tonight we enter game 7 with a Pittsburgh Pirates castoff with a 3-13 record going up on the hill.

If this isn't an excuse to fold then there is none.

But these are the 2006 Mets, a new breed of baseball and more importantly, a new brand of winning.

Their winning all season hasn't made the most sense. They sure as hell didn't do it the conventional way, with dominant starting pitching.

All season, though, they found a way to win.

I don't want to use the word magic, I can only hope a little is sprinkled on Shea tonight.

But the fact is, the 2006 Mets find ways to win games.

They are playing home against a very mediocre starting pitcher in front of some of the greatest people I know.

If this was last year or 2000 or 1997 I would doubt us.

But like the 2006 Mets, I am a new man. I am a man who believes.

I don't want to say anything too jinxing. But man, I do like our chances tonight.

Vaya con dios,

Sip