Johnson made most of her last chance Photo by Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images	while Li Shanshan could not  Photo by  Lluis Gene - AFP=Getty

You can’t beat the Olympics for poignancy, for pathos, for drama.  One chance.  That’s all you get for gold.  A body of work means nothing.  As opposed to professional baseball, a sport for which it’s all in the body of work, and individual failures can and usually are overlooked, especially if your team manages to be successful.

<>Never were these truths more evident than last night, when strange mishaps befell favorites in the 100-meter hurdles and 400 meter run while a decision on a start value in the balance beam  saved gold for one of my favorites in these Beijing Games.  And, thousands of miles away, the Mets won another with an assist from one of their formerly vilified relievers who got still one more chance. 

I almost cried for Shawn Johnson as it became evident that the little pixie would win her first gold.  For a few minutes there, I thought that the beautiful Nastia Liukin would edge Shawn out again in the balance beam competition.

<>To be honest, Liukin’s performance looked better to me.  But it didn’t carry the difficulty value of Shawn’s.  So Shawn finally took gold after winning three silvers.  With gold for both U.S. roommates, they can now draw lots for who gets to use the shower first.  Now there’s a picture. 

But even if Shawn had fallen right on her pretty little head, her failure wouldn’t compare to that of the favorite in the 100-meter hurdles, Loli Jones, whose heel clipped the penultimate hurdle hard enough to make her stumble, thus enabling the other young women to pass her by.

<>She said later that she knew she had the lead, and she was going hard, and the hurdles were coming back to her so fast.  One can only imagine how quickly those hurdles were coming to her as she sped over them like Mercury on mescaline. 

There was the 400 meter, and a great start for Sanya Richards that may have brought on a fateful cramp.  Whatever the cause, it spelled gold and silver for two others but just bronze for Sanya.  And weeping in the wings as the full realization of her misfortune overwhelmed her.

<>There was the renowned Chinese hurdler who had been regaled by his countrymen for months before straining his Achilles so badly that he couldn’t make it much past the starting blocks, producing still another poignant moment for the world and NBC. 

One chance every four years.  Most competitors get a chance at two Olympics, three at the most if they are lucky enough to catch that first one at an early age.  Or if they happen to be named Dara Torres, who at 41 has defied all the rules for some time now.

<>For most of the athletes in track and field, gymnastics, swimming and many of the other sports contested at the Games, they get one shot at fame, and, if they’re lucky, fortune. 

I’m quite sure we’ll be seeing quite a lot of all the gold medal winners in the years to come, not just Mr. Phelps, Ms. Liukin and Ms. Johnson.  They’ll peer at us from newspapers, the sides of buses and in TV ads hawking everything from slippers to perfume. (In fact, for the roommates at least, I’m quite looking forward to it).

<>But we shouldn’t get too overwrought about the losers’misfortunes either. They’ve enjoyed the process of getting to these Olympic Games, I’m quite sure.  They haven’t enjoyed every single practice maybe, but in the aggregate, through all the time and money and injuries, they’ve had the time of their life.  In fact, for almost all of them, it is their life. 

And it’s a pretty good life.  It’s most certainly a clean life and usually a simple, uncluttered life, one in which money becomes secondary.  Most of the good ones hold a job, of course, but they never let it occupy their thoughts too much.  It never becomes an obsession.  If an employer asks for overtime, they soon find something else.  Or, if nothing else presents itself, they can always become personal trainers.

<>Of course, they’ll never become millionaires, as they would have if their specialty had been baseball.  In baseball, athletes are judged on their body of work.  Through 162 games, year after year, they get the opportunity to either excel or fall flat on their faces. 

For my favorite team, the Mets, their relief pitchers are the perfect examples for the multitude of opportunities athletes can truly get.  For Aaron Heilman, Scott Schoeneweis, Duaner Sanchez, Pedro Feliciano and Joe Smith, the opportunities keep coming. 

<>More often than not, they fail.  But, through a curious mixture of management and luck, each one of them isn’t allowed to fail long enough to lose the game.  So, in a most curious way, I guess they have been successful.  After all, the Mets are still in first place in the NL East, even if Jerry Manuel is looking a little grayer every time I see him. 

Last night we got to see still another reliever the Mets added to their game of musical chairs in the person of Luis Ayala.  Luis was magnificent last night, which means he’ll be terrible next time out if the Mets fortunes hold to the same pattern. 

<>Scot Schoeneweis was Manuel’s closer of choice last night.  And he provided a most uneventful ninth inning.  Whether he’ll get to see another ninth inning soon is questionable, of course, but he’ll undoubtedly get some more opportunities, for better or for worse.  As will each of the other Mets downtrodden relievers. 

But as long as the  book of charms Manuel is consulting seems to be working, I hesitate to complain.  If form holds, this relief corps will fail as often as they succeed in their mission, but when they do fail, it won’t be a long-lasting failure. Jerry won’t have it.

One thing is sure though.  Unlike these Olympians, they’ll get at least one more chance, and probably one more than we’d like.