THIS was a different kind of adventure for Mets fans yesterday afternoon, the daylong struggle to keep themselves from staring the hands right off of the clock, the hours-long marathon of a countdown before 8:19 p.m., when Oliver Perez would fire the first pitch of Game 7 of the National League Championship Series toward home plate, toward David Eckstein.

Yankees fans are the ones who consider them connoisseurs of all things October, and so they could nod their hands in understanding, in agreement, in something that almost resembled sympathy.

“I remember 2003 and 2004,” a Yankees fan named Phillip Benton said yesterday, as he filled his gas tank at a service station near the Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge, recalling the Yankees’ epic back-to-back ALCS collisions with the Red Sox.

“I remember how awful those days were. I was sick to my stomach the entire day, and it seemed like the game just never got there. They’d be showing some mercy to make it a law that if there has to be a Game 7, it has to be held no later than 1 o’clock.

The wait is murder.

“I remember that everything that happened after that was almost terribly anticlimactic. In ’03, by the time Aaron Boone hit his home run I was catatonic. And in ’04, the Sox killed us so badly that it was hard to feel anything but numb. But the waiting – man, that was awful.” Last night was only the fourth Game 7 in the Mets’ 45-season history, and only the fifth decisive postseason game the franchise had ever played (if you include Game 5 of the 1973 NLCS back when that was a best-of-five affair, and exclude the one-game playoff game they won at Cincinnati to qualify for the 1999 playoffs, a game that was technically part of the ’99 regular season.

Mets fans who have been around long enough to remember all three Game 7s know that all three provided textbook examples of three different ways Game 7s can go for you.

In ’73, the Mets had carried a 3-2 lead in games back to Oakland with them (in much the same way the Cardinals brought a 3-2 lead back to New York with them this time around). Mets manager Yogi Berra could have thrown George Stone in Game 6 and kept Tom Seaver in reserve for Game 7, but Berra opted to pitch Seaver on short rest in Game 6 (he was outdueled by Catfish Hunter) and then had to throw Jon Matlack, a lefty also on short rest (a la Oliver Perez), and Matlack gave up two early homers to Bert Campaneris and Reggie Jackson and the Mets were never in the game.

In ’88, the Mets trailed 3-2 to the Dodgers by the time they arrived in Los Angeles for Game 6, and David Cone pitched the first of what would become many memorable October gems in pushing the Mets to a Game 7, throwing a complete game in beating the Dodgers 5-1.

But Ron Darling had nothing in Game 7, getting knocked out early, a bad thing to do against Orel Hershiser, who was baseball’s most dominant pitcher that year.

So that’s the bad and the ugly, for Mets fans.

The good? That was Game 7 of the ’86 World Series, postponed initially by rain so that it came two days after the 10th-inning forever miracle that had rescued Game 6. The Mets fell behind 3-0 early, and that 3-0 deficit was against Bruce Hurst, who’d already throttled them twice in the series.

“Here’s the thing, though,” says Darling, who started that game before giving way to Sid Fernandez.

“I don’t care how many runs we spotted the Red Sox that night. I played baseball for a lot of years, and played in I don’t know how many games, and I never ever believed that I knew the outcome before the game started. Except in that case. Against the Red Sox, in that Game 7, I absolutely knew we were going to win, no matter what. No questions asked.” If any current Mets were that confident before last night, none of them said. Soon enough – though not soon enough for their clock-watching fans – they’d all find out.

SCANNING THE 7s

The Mets played their fourth Game 7 last night. A look at the first three:

NLCS

October 12, 1988 at Dodger Stadium

Dodgers 6, Mets 0

WORLD SERIES

October 27, 1986 at Shea Stadium

Mets 8, Red Sox 5

WORLD SERIES

October 21, 1973 at Oakland Coliseum

Athletics 5, Mets 2