Dear Baseball Gods/Santa/Hanukah Harry,

With an hour before game time, I send this urgent plea for your help. Pedro Martinez takes the hill tonight in his most important game in a Mets uniform. Please help our default staff ace, tonight. Help Pedro go complete and keep Mota, Sosa, and even Billy a nice evening of ass cramps from sitting in the bullpen.

I’ve been a good fan. I live far away from Shea, but I watch every game, I wear my Mets colors whenever possible. I buy all my team’s crap with about 40% of my total salary. I try not to take pleasure in other teams fans suffering. I’ve never sworn an allegiance to any other team, through all the bad times and all the horrific times, I’ve stuck by this team that breaks my heart time and time again. I was crushed in 1988, a heartbreak amplified in the terrible years to come. In 99 I believed in the dream and felt elation again at rooting for an exciting team, only to have that elation snuffed out by Kenny Rogers in the other game six. I knew it was over after that 99 NLCS for the Mets for a long time to come. I stuck through the end of Bobby’s era, through the Art Howe light up the room era. I was patient, well as patient as one could expect. Sure last year’s loss to the Cardinals in the NLCS hurt, but that hurt faded at the thought of this year’s season that started out so full of hope and now looks so utterly bleak.

I’m a good fan, I don’t ask for much-well I never get much. Please give Pedro the strength to be quick and effective, keep his pitch count low and grant him extra control. Please give our boys the ability to find it again for the last of the regular season, they can figure the rest out for themselves in the playoffs. Not just for me but my fellow fans, the ones cheering tonight for hope, the ones huddled next to a radio, in front of a TV or computer. The faithless, the cowards and the bandwagoners are long gone now. Be kind to Mets fans.

Thank you, Amen, Play Ball,

Lonestar Mets

P.S. Give us this and I promise to never ask for a no-hitter again.