Just...not yet.

You see, I'm going to be away the next few days - hardly available to check my e-mail, let alone watch a baseball game.

When the Mets throw that no-hitter, I want it to be a night when I'm laid out on the couch, tuned in from pitch one, and ready to celebrate when that last out is recorded.  (Best case scenario would be when I'm actually at the game, but let's be somewhat realistic here.)

I don't want it to be a day when I'm in and out of the house, catching the game in dribs and drabs.

It can't be a day where I come home in the middle of the 5th inning, having missed 12 or 15 very important outs.

And it sure as heck can't be on a Sunday when I'm out at a family event and I only hear about the historical feat after the fact.  (How could this happen in such an age of technological advancement?  Well, let's just say I'm at an outdoor barbecue at a friend's house - someone who pays no mind to the Mets.  You think someone would text me when the Mets are close to a no-hitter?  You don't know my friends.)  (Come to think of it, maybe I should create a code so that someone could drop me a note just to make sure I was watching if a no-hitter gets to the 7th inning.  Something we would never say otherwise...like:

Southern Bureau: Did you have lima beans for lunch?

Me: Lima beans? Oh! We have to get home right now and turn on the Mets!)  (I suppose I could just pop on the game on my phone at that point, rather than go all the way home. OK.  Enough with the parentheses.)

There are a few things that I don't want to just see happen - I want to immerse myself in them. A Jets Super Bowl win.  A Mets championship-clinching game.  And a Mets no-hitter.

The problem with that last one is you just never know when it's going to happen.

But that's part of the beauty of it too.

*Maybe I should have said this somewhere above: I wrote this well before Phil Humber threw his perfect game on Saturday.  Since it happened, though, I'll add this: I enjoy seeing no-hitters from other teams, but I have no grand illusions that I'll watch those games from first pitch to last.  As long as I learn about them early enough to catch the final 9, 6, even just 3 outs, I'm good.  That was the case Saturday - that was fun. Even if it was another former Met rather than a current Met making history.

*As you've probably already guessed, I loved David Wright's season-opening hitting streak and, even better, his streak of games where he reached base at least two times.  (The latter was the longest such streak in the majors since 1999...and for what it's worth, both streaks refer to season-opening for him, not counting the games he missed to injury.)  Both came to an end in Saturday's ugly, ugly win over San Francisco.  Wright has looked like he's cooling down lately...I wonder if he's pressing a bit trying to get the franchise RBI record.

*The Jets' schedule came out this week.  My number one priority was to see when they played the Seahawks, because I badly wanted to go back to Seattle.  That's not going to happen. There's potential for a late-season trip to Tennessee or Buffalo, but I'm going to say those are doubtful for this year as well.  As for home games, I need to see what my school calendar is like this year - there are a couple of possibilities out there.  One game I won't be going to is Thanksgiving night against the Patriots - instead I'll be spending that day with my Patriots fan in-laws. That'll make for an interesting post-dinner activity.

*The NFL Draft is at the end of this week.  I'm going to say this one last time: I think Robert Griffin III turns out to be a better pro than Andrew Luck.  We all know that I don't follow college football as well as others...but whenever I saw Luck play a big game, he lost. Griffin stepped up in the big games.  I don't know that it's a full commentary on their abilities in the pros - so much of that depends on who they have surrounding them.  So maybe I'll word it this way: I bet Griffin wins at the pro level sooner and more often than Luck.

*I'll admit I got a little choked up watching the Fenway Park celebration on Friday afternoon.  That was special, seeing all of those former Red Sox gathered together.  The Red Sox do that sort of thing right.  It's a shame there were some politics bogging it down, though, with controversies surrounding Terry Francona and Theo Epstein.  Also, the architect who did all of the redesigns to Fenway (ballparkitect?), Janet Marie Smith, should have been recognized.  Without her, they're probably celebrating the 10th year in the new Fenway rather than 100 years in the old park.

*With the passing of Levon Helm this week, my brother lost one of his influences, much like the effect on me when Hall of Famer Gary Carter passed away. Unlike me, my brother got to meet his guy - and this week he wrote about those experiences and what they meant to him.

*As I mentioned above, these next few days will be the longest I've gone in a long time with no sports contact. Won't be tweeting, certainly won't be blogging.  Hope I'll at least have a chance to check some scores. (The first thing I did when the NHL Playoffs schedule came out was check to se if the Rangers had a game while I was away these days...I knew if the series went six games I wouldn't see Game 6.  No one was rooting for Rangers in 5 more than me. Now, obviously, I'm hoping there will be a Game 7, as I furiously try to look at some scores Monday night.  It's the first time in my life I'm happy there's a 3-day layoff between Games 6 and 7.  I'll be the only Rangers fan happy about that break, if they force a winner-take-all 7th game.)  Hope you have a better sports week than I will.