All the Mets have in common with the Yankees is that they are in the same city. They are in different leagues, different boroughs, and have different fans. Try asking any Yankees fan what they think of the Mets or vice versa.

So don't take out your Yankees schadenfreude on the Mets. It just makes you look dumb.

I would've felt the same way about the Mets as you, but this past summer moved to a place where I get every single Mets game. I have to admit, they've grown on me. They have great announcers, a likable team, and they're NOT the Yankees -- easy to forget they haven't actually won anything in the postseason since 1986. I was sad to see them go out like that.

That said, the Mets were dead men walking from the moment Billy Wagner went down. Even if they'd backed into the playoffs, they were toast. For those who were able to see it, we got to witness exactly what happens when a team loses all faith in its bullpen.

The offense starts pressing. That was the real, or corollary, failure. The inability to score runs with a man on third and nobody out in three consecutive innings last week against the Cubs is what killed them. And they scored, what, five runs in the Marlins series? Not getting it done...

I look at the Mets' collapse as Buckner's revenge.

Hey King-

F**K You!

and Omar Vizquel went a useful 1 for 2. Ichiro went 2 for 4 and Jeter picked on his toes in the dugout.

No one outside of the South Side of Chicago and St. Louis hates the Cubbies. 63 years since the last World Series appearance and 100 years since the last World Series victory. That's longer than Joan Walsh's attachment to Hillary Clinton.

On the hate meter, the Mets, Dodgers and Red Sox don't even come close to the Yankees. This is largely due to Boor Hall of Famer George Steinbrenner who along with fellow New Yorkers Donald Trump, Al Sharpton, Yoko Ono, Rush Limbaugh, Peter Vecsey, the late Leona Helmsley and the entire Wall Street Journal Editorial Board comprise integral parts of the inner circle of hate.

Don't get me wrong, all Cub fans hate the Mets because of 1969.

The White Sox better win their next two games because if they do not, Barack Obama will be in a foul mood all week. The country can't afford that.

I've read your column since its inception. Occasionally, I have benefitted as a fan from your insight. But after your mean-spirited, ignorant column today, you're benched, put back on the bus and reassigned to single-A (the Nome, Alaska WhaleHunters need a groundskeeper).

I mean, if you can't tell the difference between the Mets organization and the Yankees, how can we rely on you for insight into other issues? And knowing that you have a bias against my team, and feel free to vent that spleen when the hurt of another screwed-up season is freshest, I'm not inclined to trust you anymore.

I've been a Mets fan since 1967. I was visiting a relative, who took me to see a game. When Salty Parker shook my hand and promised me a win since I came so far to see a game (I was five years old, and coming from West Virginia, you don't forget that) I was on the Mets wagon for good.

My dad hated the Mets (You had to be a winner every year to count for anything with my Dad) and since he didn't like me, either, I figured the Mets and I had a common bond.

There's a lot of us out there - people who have a deep, decades long attachment to their teams. We don't mind legitimate criticism - the bullpen stinks, the management couldn't spot a pitching prospect if he threw a 98mph heater through their windshield - but just nasty old gloating from a sportswriter who is supposed to be a professional, that's over the line.

Kaufman, you're OUT!

"King, how dare you make a joke we are incapable of understanding! How dare you, sir!"

Snort.

The Mets have one very over-rated player. Omar Mimaya. His infatuation with older, high risk players has now cost the Mets two years in a row. Anyone remember that El Duke was a Mets starting five player at the beginning of the year and Moises Alou there everyday Left Fielder.

And don't forget the bull pen. Wagner wilted last year in the stretch and it shouldn't have surprised anyone that he wilted again, this time for good as far as the Mets are concerned. Then there is the strange case of a multi-year pact for Castillo that hog tied the METS to second base because no one wanted to admit the 4 year twenty-million contract was money down the drain.

The one find they should keep in Jerry Manuel. Manager of the year in the hearts of Mets fans, this one anyway. They also have a core that should get better. But the bull pen which blew more saves and lost omre 9 inning leads that any other team must be revamped. The issue is whether Mimaya can do it?

I've been a fan of this team since they were bad their original ineptitude. I guess people outside our area enjoy hating any team with an "NY" on their uniforms. But to lump the Mets, perennial second-class citizens in their own market with the Yanks suggests someone who doesn't real pay that much attention to them. The Mets with the exeption of '86, the Mets have spent the last 4 decades teasing their fans with near-misses, and disappointments.

But that's why we're Mets fans. If we cared only about championships, we've got another team just a few miles away that has 26 of them (as if their fans would ever let us forget that). So to be a Mets fan is to put your heart in something that you know is going to let you down. And next Spring, we'll be ready to give our hearts to the blue and orange once again.

We're Mets fans because most of us are optimistic sorts (why else would you still be a fan?). We have enough of a sense of humor to appreciate the classic kitsch of Mr. Met (and Lady Met), the home run apple, Mettle, "Meet the Mets," "the happy recap," and Ralph Kiner's malaprops. We realize (at least with a little sober reflection) that it's just a game, and the journey is more important than the destination. We know Shea Stadium has been a shabby dump of a ballpark, but we'll be sad when the cranes come to rip it down. We know that royal blue and orange are silly colors for a grown man to be seen in, but we wear them proudly anyway.

There was a little bit of solace at the end of the day yesterday. The team held a funeral of sorts for the Big Shea, and unlike the pomp and circumstance of the last game at the other NY ballpark, the Mets had a more low-key event. Of course the big names were there: Seaver, Piazza, Koosman, Mays, Berra. But fittingly, they also invited fan favorites like George "The Stork" Theodore, whose earnest goofiness made him a fan favorite. As I watched the ceremony with my sons, I actually got a little sad, realizing our decrepit stadium is going away. I spent a lot of days and nights there, and it was cold, run-down, and most of the seats had horrible views. I'm not one of those sentimentalists about the game and the players of bygone eras, so I surprised myself with my reaction to the closing of Shea.

In some ways it's more fitting that the last game at Shea ended the way it did. More often than not, that was the team's lot while they played there.

So King, have some fun at our expense. Mets fans deal with derision every single day from the Yankee fans who outnumber us on all sides. We can take it.

It may not mean much to anybody outside the blue and orange, but we had a pretty nice end yesterday to a pretty dismal afternoon. Tom Seaver stood on the Shea mound, and threw one last pitch to Mike Piazza. Then they took the ball, walked out through the center field exit, and literally closed the gates on the old ballpark. It was the happiest recap we could have hoped for.

Let's Go Mets!

Meet the Mets, meet the Mets,

Step right up and greet the Mets.

Bring your kiddies, bring the wife.

Guaranteed to have the time of your life.

Because the Mets are really socking that ball

Hitting those home runs over the wall.

East Side, West Side

Everybody's coming down.

To Met the M-E-T-S Mets of New York town.

Of NEW YORK TOWNNNNNN!!