Huge kudos to Shamik for pointing this out: Check out this highlight of Ike Davis’ ridiculous gymnastics catch yesterday. I’d embed it here but I think you need to see it in high quality. I recommend full-screen, actually.

When the ball — and Davis — come flying toward the dugout, a bunch of guys scatter and a few duck away. Then, when he makes the catch, Alex Cora celebrates appropriately and Jon Niese runs over to assist Davis.

But check out the 30-second mark in the video. John Maine sits there on the bench watching the whole thing and doesn’t react even a tiny bit. Stone faced. Is John Maine deep in some sort of Zen-like baseball trance, or is he just wholly unimpressed by Davis’ spectacular grab?

Everyone’s bitter and anxious about the economy and the government and all sorts of awful things, and now baseball — a pastime that’s always provided an escape from all those realities — is inextricably linked to them. The Mets have a brand new home, this throwback ballpark that’s become a throw-back-the-ball park, and it has a bank’s name attached to it, and all those open concourses and fine-dining options and massive team shops make the temptation to spend money even greater. And there’s just not a whole lot of cash to throw around. Plus the team’s off to a slow start after three straight disappointing finishes, and it was 90 degrees on a late April afternoon on Sunday, so maybe the specter of global warming had people hot and bothered, too.

Just so many people and concepts and environmental phenomena to jeer. What a moment for emotivism. What a time to breathe deep, rear back and boo heartily.

But David Wright? Really?

Listen: I will go to my grave defending fans’ right to boo. In the right situation, it’s one of my favorite activities. At the Citi Field opener, when I was roaming the press area of the field and the ESPN folks were setting up their broadcast, I noticed Steve Phillips chatting with Jim Duquette. It took every inkling of my professionalism (of which there is not much) to refrain from booing the pair point-blank, and it was pretty much only the knowledge that doing so would cost me my press credential — my ticket to Mets games — that stopped me….

We hear stories of Red Sox fans booing Ted Williams and Phillies fans booing Mike Schmidt and we cringe. But then here we are, booing the guy who could very well become the defining hitter of this franchise like those players were for theirs, and we’re doing it less than three weeks into a six-month season.

– Me, SNY.tv, April 27, 2009.

I genuinely liked that column, and I don’t often feel that way about the things I publish. That’s probably why I couldn’t resist excerpting so much of it here.

But I recognize now that it was pointless. Booing, like cheering, is a spontaneous, emotional response, and attempting to employ reason to argue against it is plain silly. Booing is not something you rationalize.

You never think, “Well, even though David Wright is well on his way to being the best position player in Mets history, I am displeased with his recent performance with runners in scoring position. And though I recognize that his enormous walk totals probably mean he’s not seeing a whole lot of good pitches to hit in general, I expected him to find some way to succeed in this situation and so I will jeer him now.”

You think, “F#@$ DAVID WRIGHT! THIS UNCLUTCH #@$@#$ HAS FAILED ME AGAIN! BOOOOOO!”

And that’s your right, I suppose.

I don’t do it, but only because I think the way I watch and appreciate baseball is now deeply woven into my emotional response to the on-field action. Certainly I get upset when Wright fails in a big spot, but my appreciation for Wright as a hitter, and my knowledge that great hitters will do plenty of great things with enough opportunities, overwhelm the momentary dissatisfaction. I feel lousy, sure, but not angry.

When I’m not in the press box — where booing is tempting, but a strict no-no — I boo when I feel the situation calls for it, even though I realize it’s not, you know, a nice thing to do. (As I’ve said before, if people paid as much attention to my day-to-day decisions, behavior and performance as we do the Mets, I’d get booed on the streets of Manhattan.)

Baseball is entertainment, and the most compelling forms of entertainment provide us some canvas upon which to project, contemplate and untangle our emotions. Booing is a visceral, almost primal response to frustration and anger, but it is inappropriate to boo our bosses if we disagree with their decisions or boo our friends if they fail to come through when we’re relying on them.

So, you know, f@#! David Wright.

It’s not wrong or right, I think, it just is. Mets fans have a lot of pent-up vitriol they’re eager to release, and the well-paid, handsome face-of-the-franchise makes for an easy target when he lets them down.

And I could point out that he’s got a .467 on-base percentage in 15 plate appearances with runners in scoring position, meaning he has not only succeeded in the spot this year but also that he’s probably not seeing a whole lot to hit when he can do real damage. But again, no fans factor that into their decision to boo.

I’m more likely to boo the guys that more accurately embody the things about the franchise that frustrate me, but plenty of Mets fans view Wright that way. And until he gets some big hits, and until the team starts winning, and until those fans feel better about just about everything, they’re going to boo him.

Whatever. Dude can handle it.

I didn’t ask him about being the white whale for New York-area bloggers and talk-radio callers. I kind of wanted to, but I figured that would have been awkward, plus I couldn’t come up with a good way to phrase it. “How does it feel to know that like 50% of the Mets’ fanbase has desperately wanted you back since the day you left?”

I’m going to go ahead and guess “no.”

Big Pelf’s been awesome this season, no doubt, and it’s entirely likely that there are real reasons for his success beyond a still very small sample in isolation.

Pelfrey is striking out more batters, something that’s been attributed in part to his increased confidence in his secondary stuff and a new splitter that dives out of the strike zone. He’s hardly whiffing batters at Tim Lincecum-like rates, but his K/9 has ticked up from 5.22 last season to 6.86 this year.

And Pelfrey has likely benefited from better defense behind him, as well. He’s still yielding a high rate of ground balls — 47.3% according to Fangraphs, a bit below his career mark — but he’s yet to pitch in front of the Alex Cora/Luis Castillo middle infield he suffered from all too frequently last season. Indeed, Pelfrey’s 2009 FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) was well below his ERA — indicating either bad luck or bad defense — and his 2010 FIP is well above.

Pelfrey’s 2.63 FIP is well below his career rates in part because he hasn’t allowed a home run yet, something that’s not likely to continue. When Pelfrey’s going well he’s not at all prone to the gopherball, but it’s obviously silly to expect that he’ll never allow any, just as it’s silly to expect he’ll continue to allow so few hits.

Since even with the increased strikeout totals, Pelfrey still lets batters put the ball in play a good deal, at some point soon someone will knock one over the fence and a few more balls will sneak through the infield. Though it’s reasonable to hope Pelfrey’s enhanced arsenal will help him continue to induce weak contact, it’s not reasonable to expect a guy who has yielded a lifetime .312 batting average on balls in play to suddenly maintain a .231 mark.

And it’s important to remember the whims of the sample size. Though it probably does mean something that this stretch is coming at the beginning of the season, when we know Pelfrey has made an adjustment, this is not really even the best three-start stretch of Pelfrey’s career. That came back in July of 2008, when he struck out 16 batters while walking only two and allowed just one earned run over 22 innings.

Of course, this is all pointless, because I can’t imagine any reasonable human expects Mike Pelfrey to maintain a 0.86 ERA over the course of a full season.

The important thing is that what Pelfrey has done so far is fantastic, and there are some decent indicators that he’s made real improvements beyond just pitching in front of a better defense.

It’s baseball, though, and things have a way of evening out. It will be interesting to see how Pelfrey fares once opposing teams are better prepared for his new offerings, if he maintains confidence in his secondary stuff when he hits rough stretches, and if it takes any toll on his arm over the course of a long season.