Mike Celizic

In 44 years of existence that began with a record for losing that’s never been broken, the Mets have had their share of great moments and great players. If they hadn’t, New Yorkers wouldn’t be referring to them as “The Amazin’s.”

But the team’s resume is lacking in two curious regards. The first is that a team that has distinguished itself with its pitching has never had a no-hitter. The second is that a team with two World Series titles and four Series appearances has never had an MVP.

The no-hitter you figure will come some day. But you have to wonder when the Mets will ever get that most valuable player award, because this year they have the man who is having the year of which such things are made, and still Carlos Beltran isn’t going to get the hardware.

The Mets won’t mind if their year takes them to another date as one of the last two teams playing the game’s ultimate series. And it’s hard to argue that Beltran should win the award when two players, Philadelphia's Ryan Howard and St. Louis' Albert Pujols, are having even more spectacular years than Beltran.

Still, that won’t diminish what Beltran has meant to the Mets this year as he’s piled up numbers that are fast reaching totals never seen in the history of the franchise. The team has a great lineup, but no one in it is better than the center fielder who has overcome a lousy 2005 to take his place as one of the elite players in the game.

Without him, the Mets may still have been able to win the NL East this year, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as easy.

The Mets have never been known as a team of thumpers. Over the team’s 44 previous seasons, it has never had a player hit more than the 41 home runs Todd Hundley collected in 1996 nor driven in more than the 124 put up by Mike Piazza in 1999. The following year, Piazza set the team mark for slugging at .614, and he remains the only Met ever to finish a season with a slugging percentage above .600. And Howard Johnson has the record for extra-base hits with 80, set in 1989.

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As of Tuesday morning, Beltran was sitting on 40 home runs, one off the team record. He had 112 RBIs, a dozen short of Piazza’s mark. His slugging percentage was .622, which would be the record if the season ended right now. With 77 extra-base hits, he seems a lock to add that record to his haul.

When a team has been around more than four decades, a really good hitter might walk in and knock off one big offensive record in a really good year. That’s obvious with the Mets from the fact that three different players hold the four records for home runs, slugging, extra-base hits and RBIs. And Piazza set his two team records in two different seasons.

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But to threaten all four numbers at once — and Beltran is all but certain of collecting the home run and extra-base hits records — is something that only a truly great player can do. And Beltran stands poised to take over from Piazza as the best power hitter in Mets’ history. If you want to say he deserves that title already, I won’t argue with you.

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