TerMET Art: 2006 NL East Division Champions

It took a couple extra days, but it was worth the wait. The team went nuts, Shea Stadium (a heavily underrated ballpark, thank you very much) was rocking, and the players even came back out onto the field to celebrate with the very deserving fans (see above). For the first time since 1988, the New York Mets are National League East Division Champions.

We haven't covered the Mets much since that cold evening way back in April when Sweeney and I braved the elements for Pedro's first outing of the season. But that doesn't mean we haven't been watching; I've seen far fewer movies this summer than I might have had the Mets not continued to play exciting baseball month after month. The thing that's excited me the most? That adversity — so long the Mets' undoing — has frequently proven just how tough this group of Amazin's are. When Sanchez went down, Heilman stepped up. When they lost Nady, they found Green. 2006 has been nothing less than electric.

With the Mets entering the playoffs in just two weeks, expect more posts of this sort. We can't help it. We love these guys.

The image is from Yahoo! Sports -- click over there for the game recap and an amazing gallery of images from the celebration. I hope it's the first of many.