Uncorked in the Mezzanine

The cork shot out of the right field mezzanine in the early evening Saturday, burst out of every section of Shea Stadium, exploded from the souls of Mets fans wherever they were watching or listening. Our bottle had been plugged up tight, but Fernando Tatis pushed from its upper neck the last vestiges of the stubborn stoppage that had kept our sanity, our happiness, our self-esteem from flowing freely for far too long.

All Tatis did was single home Nick Evans. All Tatis did was put the Mets up by a run in the bottom of the eighth. All Tatis did was finalize a three-run rally to overcome a two-run deficit. Tatis didn't win the game right then and there, the Mets didn't win the game right then and there, the Mets didn't clinch anything right then and there.

Yet we popped our corks as if he had. It was high fives all around. My bloggingly brilliant companion, who grew up almost down the block; who came, by his calculation, to 51 games in one season of his adolescence; acted as if he had never seen the Mets score a run before. High Five! The loopy woman behind me, with vocal cords obviously fused together with the Queens DNA of Edith Bunker and Estelle Costanza (WILLLLIIIE! USE CAAAASSSTRO!), spoke to me the language of palms. High Five! Man to my right, alternating hopeful exhortation and groaning acceptance all afternoon, had just hit the jackpot. It paid off for both of us in a High Five!

High Fives…I was giving as good as I got.

It had been a while, a very long while, since I had exchanged high fives of any length, of any force, in any multiples to everybody in sight at Shea Stadium. A fiver here, a fiver there, but no velocity, no urgency, no sense that every hand within lunging reach in my row, in the row in front, in the row in back had to get slapped. Fivery had grown cold at Shea in 2008 — until the eighth. First Beltran's hang glider of a homer warmed us up, now Tatis' single brought us to a sizzle.

High Fives all around. High Fives for the Carlos homer. High Fives for the Fernando single. High Fives for the closer firing 15 pitches, 11 for strikes, 3 for swinging strike threes. High Fives for the successful reopening of Sanchez Bridge, the span that guarantees safe passage from the seventh to the ninth. High Fives for the put-upon starter who sucked up breaking bad and hung in like a mad man. A funny thing happened on the way to New Orleans for Mike Pelfrey: his trip was cancelled.

A High Five, too, for Endy Chavez. Endy Chavez battled the hell out of Chad Billingsley to close the seventh inning. Endy Chavez brought Mookie and Dunston to the plate. Endy Chavez, with catchers at the corners (everyone but CAAAASSSTRO!), took a ball, a strike and another strike. One-and-two, two down, two on, two out…and would have you bet a third of those wouldn't follow in a sec? That the Mets would waste this opportunity as they had wasted all others Saturday and for that matter Friday? That Billingsley would put away Endy and the Mets? That a second loss in a row, a second dismal loss in a row, was a sure thing? That the same old same old was in full effect as if Fernandomania had never broken out as recently as Wednesday?

But Endy Chavez battled the hell out of Chad Billingsley. Billingsley was supposed to be striding triumphantly to the dugout seconds after he went one-and-two on Chavez. But Endy fouled off the fourth pitch of the at-bat. And the fifth. He took a ball. Then fouled another pitch. And another. And another. And still another. Then he took a ball to make it three-and-two.

Then he fouled off another.

Endy Chavez wasn't giving up. Endy Chavez is on the Mets. Pythagorean Theorem demands we infer that the Mets weren't giving up, therefore how could we the Mets fans give up? Endy Squared + Mets Squared = LET'S GO METS! Squared. First and third, three-and-two, Endy up, Billingsley's pitch count crashing through triple-digits, the Mets still in this thing…

OK, so Endy popped to short. So the Mets didn't score. So it was still two-nothing Dodgers as it had been for what seemed like hours, seemed like days. But the Mets were somehow less dead than they had been since Thursday, less dead than we had grown used to them being during 2008, certainly less dead than they'd been at any juncture of any of my four previous trips to Shea (Opponents 27 Mets 12).

We could believe. We could sing along to “I'm A Believer” in the middle of the eighth. We're supposed to sing along to “I'm A Believer” every middle of the eighth but I've noticed that when the tenor of the times go awry, such as when the Mets are trailing 13-1 or 10-4 or 9-5 after seven-and-a-half, nobody is expected to believe anything but the worst, thus the singalong is shelved. Sing about believing when the Mets trail depressingly and probably insurmountably? What's the use in tryin'? All you get is pain. When we needed sunshine, we got…

Wait a sec. It didn't rain Saturday, not during the game. The forecast insisted there was an 80% chance of rain, floods, locusts, darkness, rivers turning to blood, all your popular plagues. There was a tornado warning in five New Jersey counties. Thunder was rocking Long Island as I prepared to take up Metstradamus on his sudden and gracious invitation to Cap Day. I was going to need more than a cap Saturday. I was going to need an ark.

Or so I thought. I stepped out of the house and there was not a drop of rain falling from the sky. I was outfitted in my trench coat and hauling a golf umbrella, but both were extraneous as the Mets' bats the nights before. It was warm and it was dry. And now, as late Saturday afternoon turned to early Saturday evening, it was bright as all get-out at Shea Stadium. I adjusted my cap to keep the sun from blinding me. Endy adjusted my mood to keep precedent from drowning me.

The Monkees did their thing. Duaner did his. David doubled. Carlos homered. The other one singled, too, setting off a chain of events that climaxed in the firelight, Fernando. There was something in the air this night, all right. Billy shut the Dodger door. Slammed it, actually. The fourth-place Mets had gotten back to .500 at the end of May. But nobody was combing for details after Wagner's final furious fastball. By then the cork was out, all hands were red and our crowd could not stifle itself. If ever tens of thousands of kindred spirits needed lifting, Saturday evening was then.