THE OLD BONG GAME.

The New York Mets ended their lacklustre season this past weekend amid allegations of widespread marijuana use. The initial report didn't name names--of sources or of players--except for those of Tony Tarasco and Mark Corey, benchwarmers who a few months ago fessed up to a night of pot-smoking, and Grant Roberts, a relief pitcher who was shown doing a bong hit in a photograph provided to Newsday by an angry (and allegedly extortionary) Long Island woman. One "friend" of the team claimed that a player had had someone stowpot in peanut-butter jars to elude bomb-sniffing dogs at Shea, and another said that Mets minor leaguers buried their weed and accoutrements near hotels so that they could dig up the stash the next time they were in town.

In the wake of these reports, columnists have observed that if the Mets had demonstrated the kind of energy on the field that they seem to have exerted in devising ways to get high, they might have had a shot at the pennant. At least, they probably would not have led the major leagues in errors. To some commentators, however, the connection between cannabis consumption and lacklustre performance is less clear. Steve Bloom is the manager of the softball team at High Times, a New York-based magazine for marijuana enthusiasts. Since 1996, the team, the Bonghitters, has gone 50-8-4, and only recently ended an amazing three-year winning streak. Bloom attributes this success to a disciplined regimen.

"Part of the secret for us personally is that we don't go out on the field too stoned," Bloom said the other day. "You don't smoke just before you go out on the field, 'cause you kinda lose your concentration. Baseball's a concentration game. People here may smoke during the day, doing whatever they're doing. I don't keep tabs on every player. And, you know, they may or may not wake 'n' bake. But, basically, we'll smoke one in the car on the way up to the game, and that's the extent of it. And then we go out and do our batting practice and play our game, and then maybe in the middle of the game, if we really feel so ...