PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - The game was over. The players had left the field. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.

Except that Omar Minaya couldn't seem to get out of his seat behind home plate after an early-March exhibition game at Tradition Field. Fans surrounded the Mets general manager, wanting to shake his hand, get his autograph, have their picture taken with him.

A few months earlier, that scene would have been unthinkable. On Sept. 30, 2007, the Mets had completed one of the most epic collapses in baseball history. Holding a seven-game lead with just 19 games left to play, they won just five more times and were beaten out on the final day of the season by the Phillies.

Shake his hand? The people would have been more likely to want to grab him by the throat.

What changed, of course, was that Minaya came up with an industrial-strength hangover cure named Johan Santana at the end of January. And, just like that, everything changed.

"He's one of the best pitchers in the game and it brings a lot of positive energy," said third baseman David Wright. "Last year, with the collapse and how miserable that ended, it brings a lot of positive light and allows us to focus on this year and the future rather than what happened in September."

Wright, one of baseball's brightest young stars, said that one move changed the whole tone of the spring.

"There would have been a lot more questions about what happened last year than Johan Santana. With Johan coming over, we get a chance to think less about what happened last year and more about what's going to happen this year," he noted.

Minaya is aware that getting the star lefthander from the Minnesota Twins for four top prospects (outfielder Carlos Gomez and righthanders Philip Humber, Deolis Guerra and Kevin Mulvey) acted like a magic eraser to help wipe out what could have been an indelible stain on the team's aspirations going into 2008.

He also insisted that wasn't the primary motivation.

"It's part that," he said. "There's no doubt that the way the season ended wasn't the way we wanted it to end. The reason we got him is because we think he's a good pitcher and is going to make our team better. But it just so happened that it happened this winter, after what happened last year. You've got to turn the page and move forward."

Turning the page and moving forward, though, is often easier said than done.

Nobody knows that better than the Phillies. They're still hearing about having a 6 1/2-game lead with 12 to play in 1964 and somehow managing not to win the pennant, still the collapse against which all others are measured.

And it's not just the nuisance of having to keep hearing about it, either. The Phillies didn't make it to the postseason in 1965. The Red Sox didn't make it in 1979 after frittering away a 7 1/2-game lead with 32 to play the year before. The 1969 Cubs blew a 9 1/2-game lead on Aug. 14 and didn't win in 1970, either. Same thing for the Giants after 1993 (up by nine on Aug. 11), the 1987 Blue Jays (ahead by 3 1/2 with seven to go) and the 1995 Angels (leading by 11 1/2 on Aug. 9) the season after they fell apart.

So changes had to be made. "It would have been tough to bring back the same team," Minaya said. "And, you know, we made a couple other changes, too. By bringing in [catcher] Brian Schneider and [rightfielder] Ryan Church, I felt we improved our defense, which was very important."

The Mets are also counting on the return of a healthy Pedro Martinez - pitching coach Rick Peterson said he appears to be all the way back from shoulder surgery that kept him out until the final month of last season - and the fact that having him and Santana at the top of the rotation will allow John Maine and Oliver Perez to slip into more comfortable roles.

They need first baseman Carlos Delgado, who had his fewest RBI (87) and homers (24) and lowest average (.258) and slugging percentage (.448) since becoming a regular in 1996, to bounce back.

They need All-Star shortstop Jose Reyes to recover from his second-half funk when he swung at and missed too many high fastballs.

They need setup reliever Duaner Sanchez to come back from the serious shoulder injury that caused him to miss all last season.

And, like any team, they need to stay healthy, which they had a difficult time doing in spring training. Leftfielder Moises Alou will miss the start of the season following hernia surgery and at one point was one of six projected regulars sidelined, along with Delgado (hip), Church (concussion), Schneider (hamstring), centerfielder Carlos Beltran (knees) and second baseman Luis Castillo (knee).

Still, there remains a sense of optimism around this team.

"The mentality is 100 percent different this year," Wright said. "We're a little more intense. There's a little more fire than what I've been part of in the past. Everybody's kind of got a little chip on their shoulder from what happened last year. And then you add a guy like Johan into the mix, it makes the will to win, the will to go out and get your work in, that much stronger in spring training."

Owner Fred Wilpon, in his annual spring-training chat with reporters, made it clear that his expectations are high.

"It's a championship season," he said. "We expect to be in the playoffs and deep into the playoffs. That's our expectation. That's everyone around here, players, manager and everyone that's around the club."

While that could be interpreted as placing manager Willie Ran-dolph squarely on the hot seat - teams officials insisted that isn't the case - Randolph shrugged it off. "I'd rather have it this way than the other way around, an environment where you don't have a chance to win," he said.

Getting Santana has allowed the Mets to put last year's collapse behind them. But nobody is pretending that it didn't happen.

Minaya thought over the winter about how the organization should approach the subject. "To be honest, just say what you feel," he concluded. "Talk about it because you can't only talk when things go great. You've got to be able to talk when things don't go well. As an organization, we didn't set out an agenda. I just told people to be honest, say your true feelings and move forward."

Randolph said he planned to address the team about it . . . but only after the final roster is set. That way he'll be talking mostly to the players who actually went through it.

"Why express something that was painful to a bunch of guys who weren't even there?" he reasoned. "They can't understand or feel what that is."

Getting Santana is meant to ensure that they'll never have to feel that way again. *