But from start to finish, the Mets showed in their 6-3 victory over Philadelphia on Sunday night that however the season turns out, their 2008 club is a different model from last year’s.

Most obvious among these differences is the presence of Johan Santana, who entered the night with an ERA at Shea Stadium of just 1.99. Santana was dominant in the first half—in the second half, he has been even better. Santana gives the Mets quantity as well as quality, pitching into the eighth inning Sunday night for the fourth time in his last ten starts. In 2007, the Mets had three pitchers do that in the entire month of September.

But the differences showed themselves as early as the first inning, when the Mets responded to Philadelphia’s first inning run with three of their own. With one out, Ryan Church singled, one of his two hits on the night. Flash back to 2007, and Church was also hitting—but for the Nationals, in three September victories over the Mets. Church had a pinch-hit home run against New York on September 17, two hits and two RBI on September 24, and his grand slam against the Mets provided the final margin in Washington’s 9-6 victory on September 26.

Two batters later, New York had a run and two runners on for Carlos Delgado, who promptly singled in the pair to give New York a 3-1 lead it would not relinquish. And while it is easy to forget within the turmoil of last year’s collapse, Delgado was not a part of much of it, with an injury keeping him out of action from September 4 to September 21. That was far from an inconsequential loss for the Mets—Delgado was a very effective offensive player for New York in 2007’s second half, posting a .285/.375/.469 line following the All Star break.

While that is short of the .284/.380/.574 second-half line in 2008 that has catapulted him into National League Most Valuable Player discussions, he was a critical bat that might have made the difference during last year’s stretch run. That became more obvious as the night went on, and he hit not one, but two home runs to help pad New York’s lead.

In the eighth inning, Jerry Manuel showed once again why his replacing Willie Randolph as manager makes an enormous difference when the Mets play critical September games. With a 5-2 lead and one out in the eighth inning, Santana gave up a double to Jason Werth. Up stepped NL home run leader Ryan Howard, a lefty. Who did Manuel bring in to pitch to Howard? Lefty Pedro Feliciano, who grounded him out. Manuel then turned to righty Brian Stokes to retire righty Pat Burrell and end the inning.

Seems simple enough, but the Mets lost many games, particularly to the Phillies, down the stretch in 2007 when Randolph failed to play the percentages. In late August, Randolph let righty Guillermo Mota pitch to Howard in an extra-inning game. Howard homered as closer Billy Wagner and lefty specialist Scott Schoeneweis sat unused in the bullpen. Even as late as September 16, Randolph let righty Jorge Sosa pitch to Greg Dobbs, who cannot hit lefties, with the bases loaded while multiple lefty relievers were available to him. Dobbs’ grand slam was the difference in a 10-6 Philadelphia win.

The ninth inning showed another difference between the two seasons. Billy Wagner had attempted a simulated game earlier in the day, but the pain from his elbow injury was too great to overcome. So while Randolph had a legitimate closer, the Mets relied on Luis Ayala, a serviceable reliever, but not a pitcher on Wagner’s level. But while on so many occasions Randolph would not have other options warming up, even when he turned to pitchers that had struggled for months, Manuel had both Joe Smith and Al Reyes, a pitcher who hadn’t thrown for the Mets all year, waiting in the wings.

Ayala, like Church, played well down the stretch in 2007—for the Nationals, against the Mets. Ayala threw three scoreless innings in three September Washington wins over New York, even earning the save on September 26. In 2008, Ayala ended the game by striking out Jimmy Rollins, leaving him hitless for the game. Last year, Rollins had a hit in the final eight games between Philadelphia and New York—and the Phillies won all eight of them.

The Mets have now eliminated Philadelphia’s last chance to gain ground directly, but new and potentially deadly flaws may still doom the Mets—and their margin for error is smaller. Luckily, this is a different cast of characters. They have reason to hope for a different result.

Wang’s Increased Use of Slider is Double-Edged Sword

As Chien-Ming Wang rocketed to a 6-0 start, it was his strikeout rate that was particularly encouraging. At just over 4 per nine innings through 2007, he’d posted a rate of 6.4 strikeouts per nine innings, which, combined with his ability to generate ground balls, would have created a monstrously effective, and far less fielding-reliant pitcher.

But over his past three starts, Wang has begun to leave the slider, the pitch that seemed to create more swings and misses, up in the strike zone. Not only is it far easier to get extra-base hits against Wang when he does so, but each slider Wang throws is one fewer sinker that are likely to pound into the ground. Thus, a consistent increase in his use of the slider will allow him to strikeout more hitters, yes—but the pitch, which he clearly doesn’t yet command as well as his sinker, makes him more like other pitchers. And after his past three starts, Wang’s strikeout rate now stands at an ordinary 5.2 per nine innings.

Oliver Perez May Not Need Fixing After All

While various media reports (and Billy Wagner, the teammate who cried traitor) had Oliver Perez headed to the scrap heap after a poor April 30 performance, Perez has gone at least six innings in each of his last three starts, posting a 3.66 ERA, walking 8 and striking out 15 in 19 2/3 innings, with each start better than the last. Sunday night, his start was cut short not by ineffectiveness, but merely to save him with an 11-2 lead, after he’d retired six in a row.

Derek Jeter is Still the Ultimate Met Killer

After putting up a 4-for-7 weekend against the Mets, Derek Jeter has posted a .386/.436/.602 line against them in 254 career at-bats. Jeter hit a two-run home run as the keynote address for Saturday’s game, and singled ahead of the Yankees’ two-run blast from Hideki Matsui Sunday.

By contrast, Chipper Jones, who has a much better established Met-killing reputation, has posted a line of just .328/.417/.569, a good 52 points of OPS below Jeter’s. The Phillies have a pair of Met-bedevilers, Pat Burrell (.251/.364/.546) and Jimmy Rollins (.269/.327/.450). None of them measures up to Jeter.

Certainly, four World Series titles in Jeter’s first five seasons helped to create his legend. And it’s easy to see how his performances against the Mets, as strange as it may seem, have been an afterthought.

Wright May Be the Mets’ Jeter

David Wright terrorizes the Yankees at a greater clip than Jeter kills the Mets. Wright entered Sunday’s game with a career mark of .343/.425/.671, good for a 1096 OPS. He added a single and a double to his totals Sunday night.

How differently might Wright be perceived if the Mets had held on to win the 2007 NL East title? Well, he hit .394/.516/.657 in August 2007, .352/.432/.602 in September 2007, and likely would have cruised to his first MVP award. Make no mistake about it: Wright didn’t collapse last year, and certainly doesn’t seem to have a problem shining on New York’s biggest stage.

There Is Life In Carlos Delgado’s Bat

Leave aside that Delgado was robbed of a home run last night by a terrible call from the umpires, or that Delgado is now hitting .281/.321/.453 in May, which is well within the realm of acceptable for the first baseman. Delgado managed a ninth-inning RBI single Saturday against Joba Chamberlain, fighting off pitches and pulling an inside fastball into right field.

Delgado pulling a 98-MPH offering from Chamberlain is the surest sign yet that he can provide the Mets with the decent bat they need at first base—he seemed chronically unable to reach such pitches for nearly all of 2007, but has done so repeatedly over the past several weeks. To pull Chamberlain makes a statement—Delgado isn’t likely to get inside fastballs much quicker than Joba’s.

Baseball Needs Instant Replay for Home Runs

No one is calling for an end to umpires. But when the vast majority of regular season games involve four umpires, none closer to the outfield wall than second base, calls that often involve multiple-run swings need to be addressed, quickly and forcefully, by using the video technology available to anyone with a laptop. And as anyone with that laptop could see, the umpires got Carlos Delgado’s fourth-inning drive off the left-field foul pole wrong.

And no, this will not slow the game down. Taking 60 seconds to make a final ruling is in no way slower than taking five minutes to discuss, followed by an argument by one manager, after which the call is overturned, which then leads to a second manager discussion, followed by an ejection, and another five minutes of said manager “getting his money’s worth.”

Notice how managers don’t argue balls and strikes, because they are ejected automatically when they do. Apply the same rule to instant replay home run calls, which are likely to pop up once a month per team at most, anyway. The failure to do so actually slows down the game—and someday soon, a team is going to win or lose a pennant over it.

But this is serious stuff.

The season numbers of the 35-year-old Delgado so far have been underwhelming, particularly by the Hall of Fame standard he has set. (His career batting average, on base percentage, and slugging percentage stand at .280,.386 and .549—this season, his marks are .255,.329 and .445.)

But those numbers have been steadily improving since late May, after an uneven start to the season impaired by two separate surgeries on his right wrist and left elbow over the off-season.

In the 85 games since May 22, when Delgado’s season line stood at .209,.288 and .313 with just 3 home runs, Delgado has managed a .279 batting average, .353 on base percentage, and .510 slugging percentage—still below his career rates, but more than sufficient for a first baseman hitting in the middle of the order.

Those stats, prorated over a full season, would place him fourth among all National League first basemen in slugging. His on base plus slugging would rank eighth, but within hailing distance of all but three: Prince Fielder, Albert Pujols, and Ryan Howard.

Over his last nine games, Delgado batted .389 with four home runs in 36 at bats. The injury, in other words, came just as he finally found the hot streak everyone had been waiting for.

Neither of Delgado’s likely replacements are capable of that sort of production.

Shawn Green figures to get the lion’s share of the playing time against right-handed pitchers, while newly acquired Jeff Conine is the likely candidate against lefties.

With manager Willie Randolph spotting Green against primarily lefties, August was his best month since a torrid April, posting .293/.382/.397 marks. But that slugging percentage is ugly—Green has just one home run in 184 at bats since beating the Cardinals with a long ball on June 25. Delgado, in his role as sixth hitter, provided protection for Moises Alou. It is hard to imagine Green will do the same.

The other half of the would-be platoon, Jeff Conine, suffers from a similar problem. His season slugging percentage is .405, which itself is not a particularly impressive number.

But Conine played his home games until two weeks ago at Cincinnati’s Great American Ballpark, a venue so generous to fly balls that Paul Lo Duca hit two home runs in one game there Tuesday night. Conine’s season splits reflect this: at home, .309/.369/.526, away, .231/.285/.315.
But all this is moot, because the Mets’ Vice President of Player Development Tony Bernazard said Delgado would be out “7-10 days”, right?

Anyone familiar with the Mets’ timetables needs to treat that prognosis skeptically.

When Endy Chavez hurt his hamstring on June 6, the Mets estimated his time to return at 2-4 weeks. He returned on August 28. Catcher Ramon Castro was day-to-day after an MRI on his back revealed mild arthritis on August 12. Castro was placed on the disabled list August 18, and has yet to return. And Moises Alou was placed on the disabled list May 16 with an eye on returning as soon as he was eligible.

Alou planned to return “by next weekend,” he told reporters May 27. “I should be 100 percent then.” Alou returned to the lineup on July 27.

Mets fans should just hope that he’s back in playing shape for the postseason.

Last September, Delgado posted numbers of .253,.326 and.458, eerily similar to his 2007 season line of .255,.329 and .445.

His postseason numbers? A .351 batting average, .442 on base percentage, .757 slugging percentage, and a team-high four home runs.

He will be missed until he returns. Whenever that is.

“That’s where I’m headed next,” he said.

Maybe it’s Easley’s unrelenting search for self-improvement. Or maybe all he needed was a change of scenery.

But the fact that the affable 37-year-old middle infielder has settled comfortably and gainfully into a first-place Mets team is another surprising bend in a career path that has deviated significantly from the normal curve of success and failure.

New York signed Easley, a native of the Bronx, to a one-year, $800,000 contract to back up both Jose Valentin at second base and Jose Reyes at shortstop. Though the seemingly inexhaustible Reyes seldom comes out of the line-up, Valentin suffered a partially torn anterior cruciate ligament in his knee on April 28, relegating him to the disabled list and thrusting Easley into the starting spotlight.

Easley has not missed a beat, hitting .265 with seven home runs through Tuesday’s game, solidifying a position for which the Mets had few viable alternatives, and cementing his own position as a vital part of a winning team.

Even the Mets couldn’t have known precisely what they were getting in Easley, a five-foot-eleven baseball enigma who has at various points in his career played the role of non-prospect made good, light-hitting defensive replacement, franchise cornerstone and high-priced disappointment.

He was picked up by the California Angels in the 30th round of the 1989 draft—the 767th player chosen that year. He showed good speed but little power in his four minor league seasons before being called up in 1992.

Early on in his Major League career, Easley provided valuable versatility in the infield, but was decidedly undistinguished at the plate, hitting .239 over five seasons with the Angels, including marks of .215, .216, and .156 in last three years.

“I had to make major physical and mental adjustments when I got to the big leagues,” Easley said in an interview before Tuesday night’s game against the Giants. “The pitchers in the major leagues all have scouting reports on you. They force you to adjust by honing in on your weaknesses. For me, it was finding the ability to pull the ball. Coming up, I was more of an opposite-field hitter. But I was able to figure out how to pull the inside pitch.”

In July of 1996, the Angels traded Easley to Detroit for the forgettable relief pitcher Greg Gohr.

Not for the last time, a move to a new environment had a profound effect on his career. In the hitter-friendly confines of Tiger Stadium, Easley hit .343 over the season’s final two months of 1996. In 1997, he became a full-blown revelation, hitting 22 home runs as the Tigers’ everyday second baseman. The next year, he became an All-Star, hitting 27 home runs and driving in 100 runs.

The Tigers, an unusually young team at the time, decided to invest heavily in Easley, signing him to a five-year, $30 million contract after the 1998 season.

He never lived up to it.

In 2000, when the Tigers moved to a new venue, Comerica Park, Easley’s offensive numbers slipped to .259 with 14 home runs in 2000, then to .250 with 11 home runs in 2001, then .225 with 8 home runs in 2002. Each year, he hit worse at home than he did on the road.

The team had enough. Easley was benched, losing his job to the lightly-regarded Damian Jackson and Ramon Santiago.

Easley contends now that the stadium, rather than the contract, was what got inside his head as his production decreased. But the Tigers’ decision to cut him before the 2003 season at age 33, even with a then-record $14 million plus still owed to Easley, did not leave him bitter.

“I’m realizing a dream every day by playing major league baseball,” Easley said. “I was just determined to hang on as long as I could.”

Over the next three seasons, he would go on to play for three different clubs.

After a brief stop in Tampa Bay, Easley provided middle-infield depth and plus power off the bench for both Florida in 2004-2005 and Arizona in 2006. He hit 9 home runs each year, and in a part-time role produced slugging percentages of .457, .419 and .418--impressive for the typically weak-hitting positions he plays. As he mulled over his options for 2007, he had contract offers from both the Mets and Yankees--and a desire to win a World Series before his career wound to a close.

“So far, it’s looking like I made a good decision,” Easley said with a smile of the choice to play at Shea.

Unlike the Easley of years past, he has determinedly not let Shea, a pitcher’s park, affect his mental approach. Since Valentin went down and Easley assumed the everyday role, he has not only provided unexpected production, but six of his seven home runs have come at home.

He also provided one of the biggest moments for the Mets so far this season. He’d played only sparingly, with two starts and a .100 batting average to his name, when he came to the plate April 24 with the Mets down 1-0, and two out in the tenth inning. He battled Colorado closer Brian Fuentes to a 2-2 count, then turned on an inside fastball, pulling it into the left-field bleachers to tie the game.

“At that point, you start to feel like a part of the team, when you’ve contributed to the team’s success,” Easley said. “At this point in my career, I knew that I was going to have my share of big hits. My experience has taught me that.”

With Valentin, also 37, on track to return next week, according to Mets General Manager Omar Minaya, it appears that Easley’s position as an everyday starter will come to an end. But his success at the plate--particularly against left-handed pitchers, who often baffle the switch-hitting Valentin--virtually assures that he’ll get significant playing time, at least in a platoon situation.

Easley’s numbers were nothing short of astounding over his first 61 at bats this year, when he hit 6 of his 7 home runs. His pace has slowed of late (just one home run since May 16), though he’d hit in seven consecutive games heading into the game on Tuesday night.

From the dugout over the first two innings, Easley watched as the unfamiliar Lincecum threw his 96-98 fastballs by the first few Mets batters with disturbing ease while mixing in both a hard and soft curve.

He braced himself for the hard stuff. Coming to bat in the third inning, Lincecum hadn’t allowed a hit. Easley watched the slow curve dip out of the zone for a ball, then tried to muscle up on an inside fastball. The pitch jammed him, and he lofted a harmless fly to left field.

After a long at bat by Paul Lo Duca produced a walk in the fifth inning, Easley stepped up for a second chance to do something.

On the first pitch, he watched a curveball break away from the plate.

Lincecum snapped off another curve for a strike.

Easley mustered a defensive swing on the third pitch, fouling off a breaking ball. Lincecum reared back and threw a high fastball. Strike three.

Ultimately, it was a lost night at the plate for Easley, who went hitless in five at bats. “It’s a simple case of timing,” Easley said after the game. “I don’t get too carried away with success or failure. When I’m hitting home runs, I’m getting those pitches to hit and driving them. The past week, I’ve been getting those pitches, and fouling them off. I can’t explain when it’s going to come back. Baseball’s funny like that.”

If you want to know why New York has become the Mets’ city, don’t look at today’s standings. Look at today’s pictures – the pictures from last night’s 5-4 Met win over the Giants at Shea Stadium.

Predictably enough, there were a lot of smiling faces around home plate last night after Carlos Delgado won the game with a 12^th inning homer. The Mets have had a lot to smile about in recent weeks, so in some ways, the pictures from last night’s game are a variation on a cheerful theme.

But those pictures tell another story, if you look closely enough. One smiling face stands out: Oliver Perez. The 25-year-old lefty started the game for the Mets and pitched effectively (save for those three solo homers he gave up) for seven innings. He didn’t get the win, but it was another quality start for a young man who has resurrected his career in New York.

Here’s the interesting thing about Perez: In the picture I’m staring at, he’s in the middle of the Met mob – in uniform -- waiting for Delgado to cross the plate.

Starting pitchers sometimes hit the showers when they’re done. Heck, these days, some of them (er, one of them) may even leave town after a hard six innings.

Oliver Perez stuck around right through the end, and was one of the first to slap Delgado on the head in the bottom of the 12^th.

As a longtime Met fan and Yankee detractor, I’ve spent the last decade insisting, much to my surprise, that the Joe Torre Yankees were a likeable team. It’s easy to despise Yankee fans, who believe they are entitled to the services of any major league player with above-average skills. It’s easy to mock the absurd frontrunner John Sterling. But the players? How can you not like Derek Jeter? How could you not like Bernie Williams? Paul O’Neill? Torre himself?

But Yankee likeability, like the team itself, just ain’t what it used to be. In Queens, however, there’s a lot to love. This edition of the Mets probably will not put together a run like the Yankees had from 1996 to 2006. But players like Perez, Jose Reyes, David Wright, Carlos Beltran and Endy Chavez are going to be putting smiles of the faces of Met fans for years to come.

It helps, of course, that the team is terrific. But terrific teams aren’t always lovable. Terrific teams don’t always have the spirit and joy of the Mets’ dugout. Terrific teams don’t always have starting pitchers who wait around until the 12^th inning to celebrate with their teammates.

Take a look at those smiles from last night. Take a look at the faces of New York baseball.

Another passenger, sitting across the train, announced that he’d gotten a score on his cell phone: Yankees up 4-0 in the bottom of the first.

The fans with the beers swore. Shit! Fuck! Already? Four-nothing?

Then one of them brightened. That’s O.K., he declared. Randy Johnson’s pitching.

It was a statement that was breathtaking in its arrogance, but one that also turned out to be justified. (The Mets did indeed come back against the five-time Cy Young Award–winning pitcher, beating Johnson and the Yankees, 7-6.)

It was also the sort of thing that, for most of the two decades since the Mets last won a World Series, has been the exclusive provenance of the triumphalist, ascendant fans of their rivals in the Bronx. Ranging from the devotees of the lean Andy Hawkins years to the 1996 bandwagon jumpers, Yankees fans have dominated the city’s baseball topography, with the streets and subways littered with pinstripes and dark blue hats.

But now, buffered by a first-place team, it’s the beleaguered, envious and loud Mets fans who are pounding their chests and swarming onto streets all over the New York area in numbers not seen since the mid-1980’s glory days of Doc, Mookie and the Straw.

They’re everywhere.

“There’s just a lot of excited Mets fans—I see it in my everyday travels,” said Dale Berra, the son of baseball deity Yogi Berra, who hung out in the Mets clubhouse as a kid and played shortstop for the Yankees in 1985 and 1986. “In the grocery store, on the golf course, there are just a lot more Mets fans, and there’s plenty of them to go around.”

Or, as ESPN baseball analyst Bob Klapisch put it, “After so many years of desperation, the dam has burst.”

If you don’t believe it, just ask a Mets fan. Then stand back.

“It’s payback time for all the Yankees fans who have been talking shit all these years,” said Jon Anatra, an 18-year-old Queens native who was taking shelter during a rain delay at Shea Stadium on Monday. “Every time we see them, we’re gonna abuse them the way they’ve tortured us.”

But just where do Mets fans get off, exactly? It’s only Memorial Day, so does it really matter that the Mets are in first and the Yankees in second in their respective divisions?

After all, the Yankees drew four million fans last year to Yankee Stadium and are expected to draw that again. Their television ratings have been unmatched. And a comparison of their recent record—four championships and six pennants in the last 10 years—against that of the Mets is about as lopsided as the fateful match-up last week between Barry Bonds and the luckless Byung-Hyun Kim.

“These Mets fans, these Mets fans,” said Leon Cataderas, who works on the technical-help desk at ING, during a night out at a bar near Times Square. “When they lose, you don’t see them, but now that they win, I just see these Mets jerseys everywhere. Oh my God, I just want to tell them: ‘Relax, man, relax, just wait till the end of the season.’”

Of course, with the Mets out to a torrid 31-19 start this season, relaxing is the last thing on the minds of their fans right now.

“They’re out, loud and annoying,” said Mike Riordan, a bartender at Harry’s in the financial district and a Yankees fan. “By September, there will be a lot more of them, and they’re just going to get louder and more obnoxious.”

For those obnoxious fans, this is why it matters: They’re tired of holding back. For the first time since the 1980’s, they smell an opportunity to be something more than a sentimental favorite of a minority of baseball fans in New York.

“These fans have suffered through enormous embarrassment,” said Klapisch. “But now there isn’t this terrible anxiety among the fans that they’re going to blow it. It’s dawning on the Mets fans that they’re on the brink of something really good, and it reminds them of the 80’s. They’re eager for it.”

Take, for example, the scene last Friday afternoon at the Mets Clubhouse Shop in midtown. The small, oblong store was packed and bustling, with fans picking up jerseys and tickets and fingering T-shirts that read “Dynasties and Empires Fall. Long Live the Mets.”

“Look at this,” said Steve Lefkowitz, a salesman pointing to the 20 people crammed into his shop. “This store has always been a ghost town, and look at it now.”

But surely these blue-and-orange-clad lunatics packing the store on Fifth Avenue had to have been from Long Island, or at least Bayside, right? After all, Mets fans have long hailed from the outer boroughs and suburbs, leaving Manhattan as a steely bastion of support for the Yankees. (A recent Quinnipiac University poll—yes, someone polled this question—showed the Yankees enjoying majority support in all boroughs except Queens, where they were tied with the Mets.)

But even the traditional strongholds of Yankee support might be under assault by the resurgent followers of the team that plays out by La Guardia Airport.

“I was at the Equinox,” said Gay Talese, the famous New York author and a lifelong Yankee fan, “and one of the locker-room attendants came up to me and said, ‘Delgado’—the Mets’ first basemen, Carlos Delgado—‘is working out upstairs.’ He didn’t say Carlos Delgado. It’s one name: Delgado. Most people in this neighborhood are Yankees fans. I don’t even know a Mets fan. And here’s Delgado working out, and he obviously impressed the locker-room attendant, who is a Yankees fan too.

“The Mets are penetrating Manhattan, an East Side of Manhattan that has traditionally gone for the Yankees. If they keep doing this, they’ll be rivals here.”

That, for some, may be hard to imagine. New Yorkers may like to think of themselves as pulling for the underdog, but that garish color scheme? That awful, multi-purpose monstrosity of a stadium in Flushing? How can this be? Could it possibly be cool to be a Mets fan again?

There are signs—judging by those human barometers known as front-runners—that it is.

Larry Giles, a 22-year-old from the Bronx, stood outside a convenience store on 14th Street, resplendent in a new-looking Mets cap and jersey. Between puffs on his cigarette, he explained to a reporter that he had worn a Yankees cap for years but abandoned it two weeks ago.

“It was kind of like a fad where everyone was wearing a Yankees cap,” he said. “And, you know, now I’m seeing less and less Yankees stuff and the Mets are doing really, really well, and now I got to rock with the Mets.”

If there is a collective shift in allegiance underway, according to one wise old baseball writer, it may be due to the fact that the Yankees have simply been winning for too long.

“There seems to be a sameness about the Yankees,” said Murray Chass, the hall-of-fame baseball columnist for The New York Times. “They just get an expensive hitter here, an expensive pitcher there. The Mets just have a much more exciting team.

“If you want to compare things, Reyes and Wright are to the Mets what Jeter and Rivera were to the Yankees in the late 90’s. These were the young and exciting players, and the Yankees were winning the World Series. But now the Mets have these young guys and new faces and the more exciting team for it. They’re fresher.”

Mike Wallace, the semi-retired 60 Minutes anchor, has been a devoted Yankees fan for more than 50 years. But now, with a lot more free time to watch baseball, who’s the 88-year-old rooting for?

“I care more about the Mets than I do the Yankees now,” he said.

And why is that? Wallace couldn’t quite say.

“This is the first season I’ve felt this way, I mean come on,” he said, pausing again. “They just hit me in my gut more than the Yankees do.”

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