Mr. Met saw Tug McGraw beat Sandy Koufax. He was in Toots Shor's the night Casey Stengel broke his hip. And, he knows all the words to the Schaeffer Beer theme song. These things make Mr. Met a good guy to have around, especially if you're out to have fun.

And that's what Mets fans were looking for as they embarked on the Mets Express up the East River to Shea for Game 5. Dan Reilly, your host and the original Mr. Met from 1964, was up to the task.

"Everybody's pretty excited as it is," Reilly said as the New York Waterways ferry pulled away from the 91st Street Seaport and headed for the not-quite-open waters of Flushing Bay. "They don't need to hear my spiel."

This was a hopeful voyage. Undaunted by the threat of elimination, these seafaring Mets fans had eschewed the subway in no small measure to spend time with Dan Reilly, their captain in song and spirit.

The first to don the giant white head -- and big league baseball's first live mascot -- Reilly is a living link to decades of Mets glory and failure. These fans want to hear his spiel. So after leading a brief and only mildly painful rendition of M-E-T-S, Mets, Mets, Mets (a derivative Jets cheer, by the way), Reilly got down to business.

The southern sky had gone blue and orange, as the original Mr. Met, quietly but with feeling, intoned the first few lines of the team song, Meet the Mets, and as all the kiddies joined in, it was clear this crowd was ready for the time of their lives.

But alas, it wasn't to be.

A couple of homers, a two-out walk and a single up the middle dashed the dreams of another Miracle, and made the boat ride home feel as lively as a prison barge.

Sitting on a bench near the ferry's bridge, commiserating with his fellow passengers about what might have been, Reilly was reluctant to get on the mike. "They're pretty down," Reilly observed, "Maybe I should just let 'em be." But as we approached Hell Gate, the roiling intersection under the Triborough Bridge where the East and Harlem Rivers converge with the Long Island Sound, one of the somber sailors called up from the bow.

"Sing the Rheingold song!" he yelled, a request Reilly was happy to honor. Once done, the audience demanded the Schaeffer ditty. (Ballantine, a longtime Yankees sponsor, was off limits.)

Suddenly, things didn't seem quite so desperate. The Mets had taken their fans on a damn good ride, and the view sure was pretty. So when the Original Mr. Met wrapped up the final verse of the final song after the final game of the 2000 season -- East side, west side, everybody's coming down. To meet the M-E-T-S, Mets of Noooooo Yorrrrk Towwwwn! -- it already felt like next year.

Brendan O'Connor covers baseball for ESPN The Magazine. You can e-mail him at brendan.o'connor@espnmag.com He'll be back on the boat on Opening Day 2001.