There is no baseball here. There is no righteous preparation for baseball here. There is not even much in the way of the exchange of baseball goods and services here. People, the coils of the hot stove are as black as old telephones, which is why this scribe was reduced to inspecting a tub of buttery spread for signs of the season to come. Please allow me to address this matter in further depth.

Recently this reporter, as part of his periodic food-replenishment obligations, purchased from a nearby supermarket -- the name of which I can trust and the prices at which my family can appreciate -- three 13-ounce tubs of Smart Balance® buttery spread. This is not extraordinary, as the scribe and his family consume Smart Balance® buttery spread with the reliability of ocean tides. The first two containers were festooned with August 2018 expiration dates, which is fully in keeping with expectations and industry best practices.

But the third tub? For purposes of narrative tension, I'll say that this is the very last item I retrieved from my bags, which isn't true but still ...

And its expiration date? Hills be shaken ...

Yes, the expiration date of the Final Tub is Oct. 18, 2018, i.e., a full two months later than that of its aforementioned brethren. Do you find this as shockingly inexplicable as I do? Please say yes. If recent history is any guide, then this date will fall during the 2018 ALCS and NLCS. So is this tub of buttery spread -- as starved for baseball as we are starved for buttery spread and also baseball -- trying to tell us something about the season to come via its outlying expiration date?

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Yes, I believe it is, and I'll soon demonstrate this tub of buttery spread is trying to tell us that the New York Mets will be in the 2018 NLCS. Prepare to be shocked down to your very bones ...

The anagrams

Those familiar with the dark arts know that there's no surer way to suss out what the other side is trying to tell us than the anagram. So what happens when you sort through the anagrams for "Smart Balance"? Consider these two examples:

"Mets Banal Car"

"Mets Canal Bar"

The anagram for Smart Balance® calls out only one major-league team, and that team is the Mets.

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The meaning behind the anagrams

But what of the tantalizing specifics? The first Google Image result for "banal car" brings up a photo of a Renault Avantime. Now, I would not refer to anything from the Renault family of automotive products as "banal," but I'm certainly not going to question internet search results. Now consider this excerpt from the blog post that accompanies that first "banal car" image:

"The other night I was walking home late through the East Village ..."

The East Village is of course a neighborhood in New York City, which is where the Mets play.

So what about "canal bar"? Search for canal bar and prominent among the results is the Canal Bar in Brooklyn. Brooklyn is of course a borough of New York City, which is where the Mets play. But wait: There's more. Peruse the photo gallery of the Canal Bar's website, and you'll find this image ...

Canal Bar

Yes, that's Mr. Met after the money runs out, and that's also another sign. Speaking of the signs, they mount.

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The meaning of Oct. 18

So back to that expiration date of Oct. 18. The Mets have played four games -- all postseason contests -- on Oct. 18, and they've won three of them. Their lone loss? That was a 1-0 defeat at the hands of the Red Sox in Game 1 of the 1986 World Series. Speaking of which please consider the Red Sox's lineup for that contest:

Peruse those names from more than 30 years ago. Do you see anything? Does a pattern seem to form in the ether about you? Yes, it does. I hardly need to point this out, but if you take select letters from the names Spike Owen, Marty Barrett, Dave Stapleton and Bruce Hurst then you get the the name "Smart Balance." Take another selection of letters from those very same names and you get ... "buttery spread."

I, too, scarcely believe it.

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The 2006 Quinnipiac University poll

Roughly six weeks after the Mets won NLCS Game 6 on Oct. 18, 2006, Quinnipiac University released a poll in which they asked New Yorkers what they would like to give then New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg for the holidays. Please allow these two responses to breathe:

A 29 year old woman from Kings -- New York Mets hat.

A 58 year old woman from Queens -- Smart Balance® butter substitute.

To summarize: One woman wanted to give Mayor Bloomberg a Mets hat, and another woman -- from Queens, where the Mets play -- wanted to give Hizzoner some Smart Balance. Draw your own conclusions.

The Jack Fisher connection

From 1964-67, right-hander Jack Fisher toiled for the Mets. His nickname? "Fat Jack." And what is buttery spread? Yes: A fat. Also, Fisher's first season in Queens also occasioned the Mets' first season in Shea Stadium. Know what's also a thing? Shea butter.

Speaking of which, please examine the abstract of a 1975 shea butter research study available at PubMed:

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A new triterpene alcohol was isolated from shea butter and its structure was shown to be 24-methylenelanost-9(11)-en-3beta-ol. Gas chromatographic correlations between this triterpene alcohol and other related compounds are discussed.

As you can see, the number "24" is prominent in the discovered chemical structure. As for 24, that also happens to be the number of losses in 1964 suffered by ... Fat Jack Fisher. See the 11 in parentheses above? That's how many games Fat Jack Fisher lost in 1965 ... while pitching at Shea (Butter) Stadium.

Sure, you can dismiss isolated pieces of evidence as the fruits of coincidence, but all of these together? The only conclusion is that the Mets will take part in the 2018 NLCS. They will win the game played on Oct. 18 unless, in the manner of the '86 Red Sox, you can take letters from the opposing lineup and spell both "Smart Balance" and "buttery spread." We know all that because that's all we know.

Near the top of this post, you'll find an estimation of how many minutes it will take to read this post. People, you're not getting those back.

In the name of all that is holy, someone sign somebody.