No, no, Manuel wanted everyone to understand he believed in death, taxes, and the cold, hard fact that the 2007 Mets did indeed blow a seven-game lead in the National League East with 17 games to play.

"I think I would have brought more attention to it and used it as a springboard to get us to play at a different level," he said in June, with the Mets playing poorly enough to get Randolph fired. "We will carry that (collapse) until we get back, and hopefully that will strengthen us in what it takes for us to become a championship ballclub."

Right then and there, Manuel became an easy figure to pull for. He became the first sportsman in recent memory — maybe the first in the history of big-league baseball — to admit that his team had completely choked and that the gag job would haunt the Mets until they did something about it.

Well, the Mets are sure doing something about it.

They're trying their damnedest to repeat it.

Not that this year's in-the-making collapse is quite the same animal as last year's never-happened-before collapse. In 2007, the Mets went 5-12 down the stretch, losing to the likes of the Marlins, Nationals and Cardinals, opponents that would finish a combined 42 games under .500 and 41 games out of first place.

That was a franchise-wide failure of epic proportions, topped off by a Hall of Famer, Tom Glavine, who took 303 career victories to the mound on the season's final day, only to surrender seven first-inning runs to Florida while recording one precious out.

This year? The Mets have never held a seven-game lead; in fact, around the time of Randolph's dismissal, they were counted among the divisional dead. Manuel drove them past the Phillies and into first place, where they appeared destined to stay until Billy Wagner was declared out for the year (and next year, too) and the bullpen he left behind became a place where the simplest dreams went to die.

If the Mets again miss the playoffs, the blame will be largely assigned to a single component of the roster, a bullpen that just wasn't good enough to reach October. The relievers' incompetence will be best captured by Sunday's disastrous loss to the Braves, who erased a 4-2 deficit by scoring five runs in the ninth.

But still, the Mets have lost four of five since they hit the same turn — 17 games to go — where they steered the 2007 season off a cliff. The teams that have beaten them, Atlanta and Washington, are a combined 42 games under .500 and 43 games out of first place.

So they definitely would be considered chokers — no, repeat chokers — if they can't hold on. And unless you hate the Mets, or love the Phillies, that isn't the way to root.

Why? Because honesty should be rewarded in this case, that's why.

Manuel's honesty. His willingness to admit to obvious human weakness at a time when a vast majority of coaches and athletes never do.

You need five letters to spell "choke," but it's the most vile four-letter word inside any locker room dictionary. Coaches and athletes would rather lose a big game than admit that pressure adversely affects their performances in a big game. It's a manhood thing.

Only it's clear that thoughts of past failures in big moments race through the minds of those who find themselves locked in another big moment. Human nature, they call it.

No matter what he says, Alex Rodriguez squeezes the handle tighter when confronting a critical at-bat, and you would, too. Fair or not, A-Rod knows that legions of baseball fans see him as a spectacular talent and a title-free choker. He carries that luggage to the plate.

No matter what he says, Greg Norman blew his six-shot Sunday lead at the '96 Masters because he'd blown other majors in the past. It's the chief reason he shot a closing 78 three days after shooting an opening 63.

"Choking comes from the throat tightening, a response to anxiety," Dr. Frank Gardner, a sports psychologist, once told me. "Does anxiety affect athletes and their ability to perform? Yes."

The very mention of the word "choke" can push an athlete to the boiling point. At the 1986 U.S. Open, Norman threatened to pummel a fan who called him a choker. Eight years back, at the Buick Classic, Sergio Garcia was carrying a three-shot Sunday lead to the 11th tee when a fan leaned over the ropes and shouted, "Don't choke, Sergio."

"Don't you worry about that," Garcia responded. "I like it right where I am."

Sergio would snap-hook his drive and lose the tournament before ripping the gallery in his post-round news conference.

Philadelphia Phillies News News » Mets, Manuel don't deserve to choke again
Mets, Manuel don't deserve to choke again
On introduction as manager of the New York Mets, Jerry Manuel called the team's collapse the year before "a catastrophic demise." Manuel then embraced that catastrophe as if it were a soft teddy bear, a lavish contract extension, or both. Manuel announced he wouldn't go down the path traveled by his predecessor, Willie Randolph, who treated the historic meltdown like most adults would the Easter bunny — as a figment of someone else's imagination. Slipping away The Mets aren't the only chokers in sports history. Check out our list of the 10 all-time worst right here. Fight for the playoffs: Slumping Mets fall out of first place Howard lifts Phils into NL East lead MLB playoff central