NEW YORK _ In baseball, a sure sign that a season is ending is the sudden appearance of large cardboard boxes, in which players stuff their professional lives _ the apparel they accrued the past eight months, the equipment they will need over the winter or in spring training, maybe the ballpark giveaways they mostly don't care about.
These boxes first appeared in the Mets' clubhouse Wednesday afternoon, hours before the team was mathematically eliminated from playoff contention, and proliferated over the weekend as they played out the string. Before a 7-6 win in 11 innings against the Braves in the finale Sunday, players were in full-blown last-day-of-school mode cleaning out their lockers.
The season ended in truly Metsian fashion. Dominic Smith, in his first at-bat in more than two months after sitting out with a stress fracture in his left foot, hit a walk-off three-run home run when the Mets were down to their final out.
