“It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone.”

-Bart Giamatti

Here’s some salt for our wounds  as we  watch the post- season from our couches. There will be a number seven leading off the game on Tuesday, a middle infielder with a lot of talent who is finally living up to his potential.  He is unquestionably his team’s sparkplug, and he seems to be getting better at teh plate with every at bat. Hold on to your hats- It’s Kazuo Matsui who has led his team to the promised land, and not Jose Reyes.

When his team was down, it was Matsui, the shortstop with the 10 foot range, the guy who looked like a rambunctious, overmatched little-leaguer at the plate when he donned Mets uniform, who put a charge into his dugout and his fans with a leadoff double in the bottom of the 13th.

For all of his faults and failures in Queens, at least the Japanese second baseman always took his job seriously, never argued with an umpire or at teammate, and hustled on every pitch of every game. Matsui wanted nothing more than to please his unforgiving fan base and live up to his contract. Perhaps he could never get out of his own way because he cared too much.

I don’t know about you guys, but going up and down the Mets dugout, I’m thinking we can use more guys with Matsui’s heart.

But don’t worry Met fans, Tom Glavine feels your pain. After the worst performance of his career cost his team a chance at the playoffs, Glavine was quick to say how “disappointed” he was.

I don’t think I’ll be running into Tom Glavine on line at CVS when I’m buying my fifth bottle of pepto-bismol to try to cure this chronic nauseating stomach ache I’ve had since 2pm Sunday.