By Mike Vaccaro

ST. LOUIS — The pity, of course, is that as great a catch as it was, as great a moment as it was, it is destined never to be remembered as reverently as it should have been. You can make the argument – and I have been making it nonstop, for six months – that the catch Endy Chavez made last October against Scott Rolen, Game 7 of the NLCS, was the greatest defensive play in the history of the baseball postseason. Willie Mays? Great over-the-shoulder grab. Willie lost his cap. He made that amazing wheel and throw, meaning it wasn’t only a long out for Vic Wertz, it didn’t even advance any base runners. Chavez’ catch was better.

Al Gionfriddo? Great hand-eye coordination, managing to snare Joe DiMaggio’s ball before impaling himself on that low left-field fence at Yankee Stadium. Inspired that forever dirt-kick by DiMag just in front of second base. Chavez’ catch was better.

Sandy Amoros? Chavez’ catch was better. Tommie Agee once, Tommie Agee twice? Chavez’ was better. Ron Swoboda? Chavez was better. And those are just the catches that were immortalized in the video age. Maybe, just maybe, someone on the Tigers or the Pirates made something special happen somewhere in the 1909 Series. Sorry. Didn’t see it. Chavez’ catch was better.

“I didn’t think I had a chance, I really didn’t,” Chavez says of what is certain to be the defining moment of his career unless he happens to hit in 57 straight games sometime, or hit .425 in a season, or hit 74 home runs, or change positions and pitch to a 1.10 ERA. “When the ball was hit, I figured I had a 10 percent chance of getting to it. If that.”

There is rarely a moment when Chavez isn’t near a reminder of that moment. There is usually a fresh stack of pictures, sent to him by fans from all over the world. One day in sprint training, he signed about 15 of them but it took about 15 minutes to take care of them all because each time Chavez saw a new picture, a new angle, he found himself staring at it.

“Even if I got to it,” he says, “I was running full speed. It’s a wonder the ball didn’t pop out of my glove, as hard as I hit the fence.”

What Rolen remembers best about that moment is how puzzled he was at the explosive, concussive ovation that spilled across Shea Stadium. Rolen has played enough baseball in his life, hit enough balls on the sweet spot of a bat, to know when he’s just crushed a ball. And he’d crushed that Oliver Perez meatball. Shea Stadium can be fickle, especially in October, so there’s never any telling when a gust of wind might knock a ball down. Even a ball like that.

“Worst case,” he said, “I figure that’s a double. Even after he jumped and made the play. No way he makes that catch. Only he did.”

The only thing wrong, of course, is that the Mets failed to win the game. Those other catches? They all came in winning efforts. Even Gionfriddo, whose Dodgers wound up losing that 1947 World Series, was able to savor his play since it came in Game 6, a game the Brooks won, extending the series an extra day.

Chavez’ catch was what the old game show hosts would call “a lovely parting gift.” It wound up an asterisk, when by rights it should have been bold face and hundred-point type forever.

“When you lose a game, it doesn’t matter if you go 5-for-5,” Chavez said philosophically. “So it doesn’t matter if you make a catch that’s great. You still lost.”

They lost, so the catch’s impact suffers, but the memory of it does not. Six months later, the pictures still trickle in through the mail, fans who can’t let go of the moment when Endy Chavez couldn’t let go of the ball. Rolen joked about it the other night, after hitting into a hard-luck double play in the eighth inning. But even he knows they weren’t the same. Even he knows he may go the rest of his life and never see a catch quite that good, with the stakes quite that high.

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