PORT ST. LUCIE – He doesn’t mean to sound so nostalgic, and doesn’t want anyone to think of this season as any kind of thanks-for-the-memories victory lap. But it’s hard sometimes. Mike Piazza has enjoyed his time in New York. He has enjoyed being a Met. And the clock is ticking on all of that, louder and louder, faster and faster.

He thinks about his legacy. He thinks about the way he’ll be remembered here, whenever the time comes. And he worries if it will ever truly be what it could have been.

“It’s been an incredible experience, something I wouldn’t ever trade for anything,” Piazza said yesterday. “I don’t think of this in terms of something maybe coming to and end. I’m thinking of as ending this seven-year commitment on the right note. That’s what’s most important to me.”

Piazza understands that right now, entering the final season of the $91 million contract he signed in November of 1998, his legacy as a Met comes with certain qualifications.

Yes, he restored instant credibility when he arrived in May of that year. Yes, he almost single-handedly willed the Mets into the playoffs that season with an extraordinary run of clutch hitting. Yes, he led the Mets to two straight playoff berths, three playoff series victories, and the brink of the 2000 World Series and hit that forever home run off Steve Karsay when baseball returned to New York in September 2001.

Yes, when healthy, he’s been every bit of a first-ballot Hall of Famer.

Yet there is a gnawing sense of incompleteness, and there should be. After 2000, his supporting cast withered and died. After 2000, his own health and his own numbers began to waver. After 2000, he’s seen the growing frustrations of Mets fans, even if he’s mostly been spared their wrath.

“It’s funny,” he said. “Think of the perception. If you flip-flop my first three years here and my last three, then it would be a lot different, because the most recent memories would have been the best ones. But that’s the way things go. That’s baseball. You look up, and before you know it, seven years have flown past in the blink of an eye.”

He looks as fit and as powerful as ever. His swing is still a thing of beauty, and his spirit, after so many years of abandonment, is back where it used to be. He enjoys every pitch he receives from Pedro Martinez. He enjoys watching Carlos Beltran make the game look ridiculously easy. He enjoys being a foot soldier in Gen. Willie’s brigade. He won’t ever wear a captain’s “C,” it’s not his nature. But there is something different about him now. He knows it. He feels it. He recognizes it.

“I think of it as a rebirth,” Piazza said. “I look at this as a chance to make a lot of things right, with the fans, with the team . . . ”

“And with your legacy here?” I asked him.

“I don’t like to think about it,” he said. “But yeah, sure, I wish there would have been more satisfying results at the end of the last few seasons. I remember what Shea was like when we were rolling in 2000, and in ’99, and it’s just the most incredible high you can imagine . . . “

He stopped, shook his head, took a deep breath, smiled.

“I’d better stop,” he said. “I’m getting too excited.”

What Piazza sees is a seventh year that will make years four through six vanish in a haze, that will conjure years one through three, that will allow New York City to forever recall his time here fondly.

He needs that. He needs to leave a permanent stamp on New York’s memory bank, a permanent signature, one that will be remembered the way Derek Jeter is bound to be remembered, the way old Mets heroes like Keith Hernandez and Tom Seaver are remembered.

“It’s why I’m so excited,” he said. “I look around this room and I see a team that’s capable of doing some special things again. I’ve seen a lot in my time here. It’s been an interesting ride. But it’s got to start going in the other direction. It’s got to.”

He didn’t add, “because I’m running out of time.” Only because he didn’t have to.

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Back to the future

Entering the final season of the seven-year, $91 million pact he signed with the Mets in 1998, Mike Piazza is hoping to rekindle the kinds of numbers he produced in years one through three of the contract, rather than four through six. Here’s a closer look:

Years 1-3 of contract

Season G HR RBI AVG.

1999 141 40 124 .303

2000 136 38 113 .324

2001 141 36 94 .300

Average 139 38 110 .309

Years 4-6 of contract

Season G HR RBI AVG.

2002 135 33 98 .280

2003 68 11 34 .286

2004 129 20 54 .266

Average 111 21 62 .276