Still, that goes on the short list of most important and spectacular defensive plays I've ever seen. Perhaps the best.

I know a lot of people are partial to Willie Mays' catch in Game 1 of the 1954 World Series, but I've never drank the Kool-Aid on that one. First, it was Game 1 of the World Series, not even close to being in a fateful, deciding game. Second, this over-the-shoulder business doesn't impress me as much as it might others. It's not like nobody — or even me in softball — has never caught a call with his back to the plate. Don't football players do this all the time? Third, it would be nice to get an accurate account on how far back Mays went to make the play; was it 420 feet, 470, 4,000?

Awhile back, Jayson Stark ran down his top 10 defensive plays ever. Mays' catch is No. 1, and Devon White's grab in the fourth inning of Game 3 of the 1992 World Series is No. 2. I know we all remember how important the fourth inning of Game 3 of the 1992 World Series was.

Chavez' catch on Thursday night, though, was a game-saver, a season-saver (at least for a few innings). Don't blame him for the fact his team could barely scratch out a hit against Jeff Fucking Suppan, which is why that catch was huge in the first place.

Chavez did the robbing and then got robbed. Sometimes in sports you have such a play that waits for the final score to determine whether it's an all-timer or a sentimental flashback to a game/series that ultimately proved disappointing. Yankees fans have three such home runs (Tino and Brosius off Kim and Soriano off Shilling) in the 2001 World Series alone.

You know Chavez was sitting in the dugout thinking, "Just win this game, and I'm the on the cover everywhere Friday." Ain't gonna happen, but man, what a play!

Other Thoughts on Game 7:

• David Wright really is the new A-Rod. Wright went 4-for-25 in the series with two RBIs. Maybe they should trade him to the Cubs! I'll let you judge whether or not Wright's bloop single in Game 7 should even be considered an RBI. Then again, Luis Gonzalez's series-winning hit off Mariano Rivera in 2001 made that piece of crap look like a tape-measure job.

• The offensively loaded Mets scored 15 runs, combined, in the six games other than Game 4.

• The Cardinals won 83 games in the 2006 regular season. They would have finished 14 games behind the Yankees, who hardly fielded their A-team in the last two weeks. Now that he's done licensing urns and caskets, can we petition Bud Selig to move us to to the National League?

• Now that I've had a chance to research it, I was right (bar conversation) ... Mookie Wilson was rooting for his stepson, Preston, to advance to the World Series over his former club, the same club that hasn't won a World Series since Mookie played, oh, a pretty big role in their last World Series. I was there, man. Game 6, 1986 World Series. Thirteen years old in that toilet of a stadium, and I've never seen such bedlam, before or since.

• SI.com's headline after a classic Game 7: "Series-Bound!" Wow, when did they come up with that one, in February? Imagine what they would have written if the Mets had advanced.

• SI.com also has one of their patented "Click a million times, because we're not good enough to compete with ESPN.com for ad impressions" top 10s, this one being Baseball's Best Game 7s. They're in chronological order (which everyone always loves over an actual ranking) and a few just happen to involve the Yankees. One being my most favorite victory ever (if only because we'd already won four World Series in my adulthood), and the other the most heart-breaking.

• Mets fans, I was jealous of you Thursday night. Haven't felt that way in many, many years. Until you lost, then I felt glad I root for a team that wins a World Series more than twice in 45 seasons.