New York – How ironic, indeed, that the Mystic Met, on whose oak beam shoulders rest the hopes and dreams of a famished fan base, got to live a hope and a dream Saturday.

How ironic, indeed, that the Mystic Met, the young man entrusted with winning the back pages away from the hated Yankees, grew up in a household with the Yankees.

How ironic, indeed, that the Mystic Met, whose down time used to include quiet fishing trips to Watch Hill, has become the bon vivant of the big bad city.

And this was Saturday at Yankee Stadium: a day to salute that great line from Airplane II: Irony can be pretty ironic sometimes.

The Mystic Met, otherwise known as Matt Harvey, occupied a hallowed piece of real estate for the first time in his young, vibrant career Saturday. The mound at Yankee Stadium. And he never did want to leave. Not even after 107 pitches and 8.2 innings, when Mets manager Terry Collins, ever mindful of the season's remaining 144 games, summoned the bullpen.

After the game, what became an 8-2 win for rampaging Mets, Harvey called Collins' decision "good management." But he was having none of the Yankee nostalgia stuff. His voice barely reached librarian. More irony there. The bon vivant, living a very public life now, suddenly playing the stoic.

"The Mets," Harvey said. "That's who I play for. Regardless of what I'm wearing, my job is to go out and win. It was exciting to do that here. But I'm a New York Met."

In another life, though, he was a Yankee. He had no choice. It was a Yankee family.

"When I was dating Jocelyn," Harvey's brother-in-law, Ross Hartman, was saying the other day about Matt's sister, "the Yankees were the only thing ever on in that house. Or that's what it felt like."

And to think Ed Harvey, Matt's dad and the former three-time state championship baseball coach at Fitch High, was a Red Sox fan for a long time. Ed told the story Friday:

"I got mad at them in 1967 and couldn't do it anymore after 1975," he said. "I was just kind of a baseball fan for a while not rooting for anyone. And then when our babysitter was over with the girls (Jocelyn and Jessica), she would watch the Yankees with them. She loved Dave Righetti. They were always on. That's how we started to watch them. I remember Matt used to love the way Paul O'Neill played."

The babysitter.

Who knew?

Her name is Lisa Venditti Robarge, the cousin of Matt's mom, Jackie.

"I was a teenager," Robarge said Saturday. "Jackie was working at Seamen's Inne and Ed was teaching and coaching. Jackie would pick me up and I'd go watch the girls while they worked. We'd always watch the Yankees together."

Even Saturday, Robarge said she hoped "Matt pitches great, breaks records ... and then the Mets' bullpen blows it in the end."

No chance there. Harvey, after a third-inning hiccup that included a near homer to Stephen Drew and a solo shot later to Mark Teixeira, was significantly better than counterpart CC Sabathia. Oy. The big fella watched a number of projectiles leave the yard, including one from Eric Campbell, a favorite son of Norwich Free Academy.

Harvey pitching, Campbell swinging. An ECC-palooza.

"Obviously, there's a lot of history here," Campbell said. "My dad grew up a Yankee fan. Hitting a home run in Yankee Stadium is a big deal to a lot of people."

Especially the people from his old corner of the world.

"I've always taken a lot of pride in playing for everyone back home and I know Harvey does too," Campbell said. "It's cool we get to be on the same team. Hopefully for many more years to come."

That would be the everlasting wish of Met fans, who have showed up en masse this weekend at the Stadium. They saw Harvey emerge from the dugout to pitch the ninth and unloaded a roar befitting Citi Field.

The Met lifers believe now. They believe because of Harvey. They believe in his heater. They believe in the Dark Knight persona. They believe because Harvey pitches the way he lives: big. The bon vivant wants the ball. He doesn't merely accept the responsibility. He embraces the stuffing from it.

Could this possibly be the quiet, reserved kid we once knew?

"If you had told me, when Matt was in high school, that he'd love the whole city thing the way he does, I'd never have believed you," Hartman said. "Of course, if you had told me five years ago that I'd know the Met lineup better than the Red Sox lineup, I wouldn't have believed you either. But in college, you could see some changes in Matt. Then I remember we took him out in New York for his 21st birthday and you could see it all over his face, like, 'this is pretty cool.'"

Now Matt Harvey owns the big, bad city. On a day when the Islanders and Nets played for their seasons, a day after the Rangers season moved on, the biggest story of them all was the biggest star of them all on the biggest mound of them all, dreaming the dream, if ever so stoically.

"He's a bulldog," Campbell said. "Everything you want in a front-of-the-rotation starter. Confident and nasty. His stuff is ridiculous. An easy guy to play behind."

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro.

Twitter: @BCgenius