Stairway to Kevin: Stick to Chicken and Country Music

Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Kenny Rogers!

"The Gambler" took a golden opportunity on Tuesday night to display his extraordinary incompetence, choking on Gerald Williams's bat and spitting out a season-ending run after eleven innings--and an entire summer--of unforgettable baseball.

Because of Kenny, the New York Mets are dusting off their fishing rods and planning winter vacations to Bermuda instead of buying their MetroCards for a subway ride to the Bronx.

Because of Kenny, Mets fans are donning their Yankee caps to cheer on Bernie and Derek as they demolish the putrid Atlanta Braves.

And because of Kenny, a Yankee fan like me has a sly smile on his face this morning. See? Told you so.

"Everything you've done in the past they'll forget about and remember this," The Doctor of Choke told the press after the game.

Not exactly, Ken. I'm not going to forget everything else--I'm just going to add this to the top of my list: Top 100 Reasons Why Kenny Rogers Stinks.

As I watched the bottom of the eleventh unfold, I could see it coming a mile away. He'd done it to the Yanks about 8,000 times.

A quick double off the bat of Gerald Williams knocked the first string loose. A sacrifice moved the winning run over to third, leaving Rogers unraveling faster than the plot of a Very Special "Blossom." Kenny was hanging by a thin strand--the Metropolitans were a mere 90 feet away from a very long winter.

And then Bobby Valentine proved why he's the biggest turkey this side of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Walking Chipper Jones after Williams' double was understandable. And walking Brian Jordan to set up a force at any base would, in any other situation, be a wise move.

But he obviously forgot who was on the mound. When he walked Jordan, he forced Rogers to throw strikes.

And forcing Kenny Rogers to throw strikes is like forcing Peter Warrick to pay for a T-shirt--it doesn't look like it's ever going to happen.

All Andruw Jones had to do was stand in the batter's box. He never lifted the bat from his shoulder and watched six pitches sail past him.

As he walked to first, Williams ran home, and the Braves celebrated. And Kenny Rogers walked into the clubhouse and started packing.

If I were Kenny, I'd wear a bulletproof vest for the next couple of days. Granted, that won't protect him from the back pages of the tabloids, "Vinny from Queens," or any other unemployed Mets fan that will undoubtedly call for his head on WFAN every day until he's gone.

He deserves it. He deserves it because the Braves should not be playing for the World Championship-- they should be back home in Atlanta making tee times and building a giant cage for John Rocker.

The Mets made fools of the Braves in Games Four, Five and Six, showing a passion, intensity and desire to win that Bobby Cox and his thugs were unable to match.

Starting with John Olerud's two-run single in the bottom of the eighth on Saturday night, the Mets were the Austin Powers of the postseason--stuck in 1969 with full control of their mojo.

When will any baseball fan ever forget the image of Melvin Mora and Roger Cedeno leaping into each other's arms behind home plate, with Rocker watching angrily from the mound? You know you smiled.

It didn't matter that no team had ever rebounded from a three-zip deficit.

"Someday, somebody's going to do this," Valentine said after the game, and we had every reason to believe that it was going to be the Mets' year.

Then there was Sunday's epic Game Five, which will go down in history as one of the greatest postseason baseball games ever played.

It didn't matter that Robin Ventura never got past second base after hitting the game-winning grand slam in the bottom of the fifteenth. The score will go into history books as 4-3, but it will live in our memories as 7-3.

So it appeared that the stars were aligned for the men in orange, blue and black on Tuesday night. When they came back from a five-run first-inning deficit and took it into the tenth, no one in the world thought for a second that the Braves were going to win the game, much less the series.

Then Kenny came in, and the subway series was derailed faster than you can say Triboro Bridge.

By this time, we Yankee fans were already gearing up to face the Braves.

We remember October 1996, when Rogers was lifted after the second inning in the division series against the Rangers. And again when he was yanked in the fourth inning against the Orioles in the ALCS.

His two-inning, five-run debacle in Game Four of the World Series (against, yes, the Braves) was the icing on the cake.

Back then, there was still a teeny, tiny bit of hope for Rogers, who surfaced for air with a ghastly postseason ERA of 14.14.

""I know Kenny is capable of pitching well, and I know he's capable of pitching well in big games," said his manager Joe Torre. "He just has to show it. If Kenny pitches the way he's capable, we'll be fine."

He didn't, and he was gone.

After going 6-7 with a 5.65 ERA in 1997 for the Yanks, he was exiled to Oakland--far enough to exorcise the demons of New York City.

But when he resurfaced in Flushing this summer and was hailed as a prodigal son, the Yankees fans knew better. And after Tuesday night, baseball fans around the world also know better.

Ball Four.

So much for the miracle.