1. Ike Davis made an ugly error last night. But you were surprised, weren’t you? When Daniel Murphy or Carlos Delgado made an error, you weren’t surprised at all. And Ike’s still learning.
2. Somewhere out there, some kid spent today staring at the back of his or her first Mets baseball card, soaking up information like a sponge and secretly delighted by how much there was to learn.
3. Pretty soon you’ll have one of those days where it’s beautiful weather, everything goes smoothly at work, and you leave a bit early because you’ve got tickets for Citi Field.
4. Pretty soon you’ll have one of those days when you saunter through the subway in your Mets gear waiting for someone to ask you who won today, because you’ve got a tale to tell.
5. We get Gary Cohen, Ron Darling, Keith Hernandez and Howie Rose to tell us what’s going on down there on the field.
6. Baseball fandom is full of Ryan Thompsons and Lastings Milledges and Alex Escobars who go from prospect to suspect in the blink of an eye. But every so often an Angel Pagan figures it out while he’s wearing your uniform.
7. Mr. Met’s new ads — yes, the ones by Citi — are fricking awesome. As is Mr. Met.
8. The black cat really did cross Beckert’s path. Swoboda really did catch it. Agee really did catch both of them. They really did nail Zisk at the plate. The Mets really did beat Atlanta at 4 in the morning. Lenny really did go deep to end it at Shea. Gary really did finally get to Kerfeld. It really did get by Buckner. Jesse’s glove really didn’t ever come down. Darryl really did hit it off the clock. Pratt really did hit it over the fence. Dunston really did work the walk. Robin really did hit it back to Georgia. Piazza really did cap the comeback on Mulholland’s first pitch. Franco really did freeze Bonds for strike three. Mike really did beat the Braves on the first game after 9/11. Lo Duca really did tag out two runners on one play. Endy really did make the catch. Close your eyes and you can see all these things any time you like.
9. There will never be another ’69, but there will be another year that feels like ’86, or ’73 or ’99 or ’00 or ’06. Sooner than you think, you’ll be jumping up and down in the stands with your arms stuck kind of halfway up, waiting to throw them all the way into the air and scream like a happy idiot.
10. That moment when you get to scream like a happy idiot again? It just got a few seconds closer.