Maybe the baseball gods put the hex on the Yankees after they celebrated on the Mets home field. Nine years have passed since Mike Piazza’s flyball looked oh so close to going out, only to fall gently into Bernie Williams’ glove.

Yet, now Shea Stadium is gone and the Yankees are going back to the World Series, playing of all teams, the Philadelphia Phillies. It’s a Met fans’ nightmare. Them against them. The same type of suffering the Yankee fan had back in 1986. Does a Met fan root for a Phillies dynasty or the completed purchase of No. 27?

This is what Sam Kinison meant when he spoke about the “Big Menu.”

Even though this seems like a tough choice, it’s actually pretty obvious, Met fans need to back a New York team here. Sure it’s easy to say, “I’m not watching.” But unless you really love CSI and NCIS, there’s really nothing else on TV. Football only happens on Sunday and unless you are a Ranger fan, all the other New York teams stink.

And forget HBO, because outside of the hour of Curb Your Enthusiasm, there’s really nothing on there either, unless you are a fan of Madagascar 2.

As a baseball fan, you will watch the series and as a Met fan, you need to pull for New York here. It’s the Greatest City in the World against the Greatest American City of the 18th Century. Philadelphians have a huge inferiority complex when it comes to New York. They don’t like this city and they especially don’t like our sports teams. Sure they hate the Mets, but they also hate the eight other teams in the area. It make you wonder what makes them happier, a championship for one of their teams or seeing New York suffer with their sports teams?

Now they have a chance to be twice as excited.

Sure the Yankee fans are hard to take, especially when they are winning. But remember this is the team that your wife or husband back; the team of your father or your brother and sister. The Bombers are your best friend’s team or your co-workers. Almost every Met fan has a friend or family member who roots for the Yankees. And if you tell them up front that you are pulling for their team, the abuse won’t be so bad if the Bombers happen to win.

Remember these are your neighbors, who also back your other teams. They are Giant and Jet fans. They follow the Rangers, Islanders, or Devils. They pull for the Knicks, who need all the help they can get. There’s common ground here. There’s none of that from Philly, which looks upon New York with disdain.

So Met fans, put up your noses and back the Bombers here for the next two weeks. Don’t just relish their victory, but also the defeat of a common enemy.

And remember after the Yankees win, you won’t have to see any of those “highlights” of Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter celebrating on Shea Stadium’s field.

No. 27 will be win for all New Yorkers.

In related news, Islander fans declared they want the Cup after seeing John Tavares at rookie camp while Ranger fans took to the streets demanding Glen Sather be fired. Hey. One can dream.

So, is bringing back Lemaire the right move for the Devils? That depends on how much he learned from his Minnesota experience along with final days from the previous New Jersey stint. He gets to coach another talented player in Zach Parise, whose fresh off a 45-goal, 94-point season. What does this mean for Parise along with ZZ Popp linemates Travis Zajac and Jamie Langenbrunner?

Knowing that writing off the Devils is like killing Michael Myers, I’m not about to jump the gun. If being a Ranger fan has taught me anything, it’s that you just can’t count out the Devils. They had plenty of success under Lemaire the first time and one Brian Rolston should be quite familiar with what to expect. He played his best hockey under the defensive mind in St. Paul.

I’m more curious to see how Patrik Elias performs. He was a rookie the last time Jacques was there and the subject of controversy in a first round upset loss to immortal Damian Rhodes and the Sens. A lot’s changed since with Elias now the all-time Devils leading scorer supplanting former assistant  turned Lowell coach John MacLean. He also has won two Stanley Cups including the memorable set up of Jason Arnott’s sudden death clincher.

Puck Daddy’s Greg Wyshynski accurately points out that Lemaire’s return pits him against former pupil Marian Gaborik, who signed with the Hudson rival Rangers. That should give a little extra juice to the rivalry. Why am I not the least excited?

Lemaire is bringing Wild assistant/former Habs coach Mario Tremblay and Tommy Albelin will be his other assistant with Hall of Famer Scott Stevens expected to play a bigger role as a special advisor. What that means exactly who knows. I’ll leave that to our resident NJD blogger Hasan.

There’s really not much else to say. This was expected once  Brent Sutter predictably quit to be with older brother Darryl in Calgary. At least the Devils brought in a coach who is passionate about the job and knows what to expect. Say what you will about Lemaire’s system but you’ll at least see more grins on that bench and a little more persona during the postgame.

Maybe it’s not all that bad a move. The Devil D didn’t exactly get the job done against Carolina. I guess we’ll leave the final verdict to Hasan.

Apparently, it’s not the same old song anymore. The fiery Tortorella benched Nikolai Zherdev for the rest of the game getting the rest of his team’s attention. The fire was lit as they scored three unanswered in what amounted to the biggest win of the season, prevailing 4-2 over Nashville.

As noted earlier, it started alright with Zherdev helping setup Sean Avery’s first in his Ranger sequel. Tortorella wanted more traffic following a token showing in which Cam Ward blanked them. Interestingly, the team’s first three goals all were a direct result of players in front getting the uniform dirty.

On the opening goal, Zherdev worked the puck to Scott Gomez whose initial shot was stopped by Dan Ellis. But Avery stuffed it home for his fourth at 3:38.

Instead of building on the lead, penalty trouble put the Rangers in trouble. It started with a lazy Zherdev slash. Though it was killed, Markus Naslund followed the trend with a bad interference penalty. This time, they weren’t so lucky as Shea Weber took a nice Steve Sullivan feed and blasted his 18th off Henrik Lundqvist’s right shoulder and in tying the score.

Suddenly with momentum, Nashville continued to come on getting seven of the last eight shots. They would go ahead off a blatant Zherdev turnover. Circling the net like it was the Ice Capades, the enigmatic 24 year-old Russian forced a pass to a covered point which was picked off starting an odd-man rush the other way.

By the time it concluded, Sullivan, David Legwand and beneficiary J.P. Dumont combined for the go-ahead goal with the former Sabre catching a break when his pass banked in off Dan Girardi’s stick past Lundqvist at 14:56.

The period ended with the Preds beating a suddenly listless New York club to every puck on the forecheck. Perhaps that was the final straw. Who knows what was said or if anything was thrown.

Minus Zherdev, whose butt was glued to the end of the bench the rest of the night playing only 6:01, a different Ranger team emerged outplaying the Preds by a lot. Not only did they outscore them 3-0 the rest of the night but outshot the hosts 26-11.

With Tortorella mixing up his lines even giving Colton Orr a shift with Naslund and Lauri Korpikoski, the Blueshirts responded with two goals in a dominant second doing all the things required of winning hockey.

Some hard aggressive work by Avery created the tying goal. Forcing Ellis to move the puck, the turnover led to Ryan Callahan’s shot that Gomez deflected home for his 16th at 3:01. Though Avery didn’t get an assist, he deserved it. The Preds had no answer for him all night.

Suddenly, the Blueshirts began to take control forechecking the Preds to death. They still needed two gigantic saves from Lundqvist, who made NHL history becoming the first ever goalie to win 30 games in his first four seasons. Only required to make 19 saves, King Henrik came up with a couple that mattered thwarting a breakaway and then stoning David Legwand off a two-on-one.

The clutch netminding allowed his teammates to continue taking it to Nashville. Tortorella basically used three lines getting the trio of Gomez, Avery and Callahan out as much as possible. That’s how dominant they were every shift creating havoc. Not shockingly, it was their play that led to Marc Staal’s deciding marker.

Off a quick rush, Avery found Gomez for a point blank chance but Ellis padded it away. However, some hustle from Girardi kept the puck in leading to a quick shot from Avery from the slot that narrowly missed hitting the outside of the net. Avery and his linemates kept going with Callahan and Gomez coming away with the puck. While confused Preds looked for it, Staal quietly snuck in and fired a shot past a helpless Ellis for his first since Jan.28.

Gomez got the primary helper for his third point while Callahan added a secondary for his second assist.

Up one, the Rangers ran into some penalty trouble but a huge defensive play by Staal led to a crushing shorthanded goal. With Brandon Dubinsky in the box for high sticking, Blair Betts won the draw clean to Staal, who fired the puck around the boards hard. Due to the velocity, Ryan Suter couldn’t keep it in falling down leading to a two-on-one.

Betts patiently waited before passing across for Freddy Sjostrom, who wristed one upstairs for his first in nine games (sixth overall) for the huge insurance goal at 7:59. It was his second shorthanded goal of the season.

Of course, it didn’t come easy with captain Chris Drury taking one of those needless delay of game minors. But the aggressive No.2 ranked PK was up to the challenge making it a relatively easy night for Lundqvist. How many times have we said that this season?

Notes: The win was the Rangers’ fourth in five and allowed them to move back into a tie for seventh with Carolina, who fell in Dallas 3-2.  They also got help from Buffalo, who got a big home win over Florida 3-1 to stay in the mix.

The Pens meanwhile used a three-goal rally in Columbus to steal a point losing a shootout 4-3. They’re sixth while the Canadiens are a point up getting a point in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Islanders with Kyle Okposo getting the winner. It was the improving rookie’s fourth goal in four games.

Rangers (35-25-8, 78 Pts) have a huge home-and-home this weekend against the Flyers (36-20-10, 82 Pts), who were edged by the Caps 2-1 and are still catchable. The Blueshirts head to Philly for a Saturday matinee before returning to The Garden Sunday for an NBC Game. The two Atlantic rivals have four games remaining versus each other which could go a long way to determining each club’s fate.

And maybe it was more fitting that the current Rangers and Leafs were set to battle after Bathgate’s No. 9 and Harry Howell’s No. 3 were raised to the Garden rafters.

Yet maybe that’s what made this day so special for the two former Rangers, as their great wait is now over and their day in the sun finally arrived.  The ceremony, like all the other Garden celebrations, was fitting for the honorees, while distinctive in its own right.

For these two distinguished gentleman, the night was about the Original Six, a brushed aside era for the Rangers due to the futility of the team on the ice. “When it happens, you never expect it,” Bathgate said. “When you don’t win any Stanley Cups, there’s sort of a gap there and you get forgotten.”

But even with no cups to show for their efforts in New York and a second class treatment by Garden ownership, which evicted them during the playoffs in favor of the circus, both seemed to love New York.

“Is there a better place to play hockey in the whole damn world than in New York?” inquired Bathgate as he began his speech.

“I played 1,160-plus games for the New York Rangers and I always wanted to be a New York Ranger,” Howell, who also said he grew up a Ranger fan in Maple Leafs territory, Hamilton, Ontario. “After I left New York, no matter where I played, I always said I played in New York and for the New York Rangers.”

Both players had reason to brag, since they were two bright spots.  With Bathgate, the Rangers had that star forward that could compete with the other star scorers in the league, while Howell was that stay at home defenseman, which every team needs to succeed.

Yet, even with Hall of Fame credentials, the Rangers seem to forget about them over the years. With almost 20 percent of the 1994 team had their numbers retired, the organization did the right thing for once, giving Howell and Bathgate their due.

While honoring the two former greats, the Rangers also honored the Original Six era by inviting eleven of their former teammates and Hall of Famers Red Kelly (Detroit), Dick Duff (Montreal), Frank Mahovlich (Toronto), and Stan Mikita (Chicago) to represent the Rangers opponents. (Milton Schmidt was supposed to be at the Garden to represent the Boston Bruins, but could not attend due to an illness).

And there were gifts with both men receiving Panerai watches from the organization, and a seven day Alaskan cruise.

Of course there were speeches, with Rod Gilbert introducing Howell and the other No. 9 Adam Graves saying a few kind words about Bathgate.  But the guests of honor were the highlight of the night, both of which reflected upon their careers.

The actual number retirement followed and Michal Rozsival also came out to relinquish jersey No. 3 to Howell, now going with No. 33.

“I was very nice of him,” Howell said. “I asked him what number he was wearing and he turned around with No. 33. So he’s No. 33 on the ice and I am No. 3 in the sky.”

But one major difference tonight, as Mark Messier didn’t break down and cry. So the honorees had to get choked up for The Captain.

“My wife gave me a shot in the ribs,’ Howell said. “I can understand why people get emotional. I was not an emotional player, but I was emotional tonight.”