The career of right-handed pitcher Bobby J. Jones was mediocre.

He finished his 10 years in the National League with just six more wins, 89, than losses, and a 4.36 ERA. Jones had a hard enough time just keeping his name straight in the morning papers: a left-handed pitcher with the same name, differing only in middle initial, was a contemporary, and briefly a teammate.

Though he spent the final two seasons of his career, 2001 to 2002, with the San Diego Padres, Jones’ mediocrity was mostly bestowed upon the Mets — a franchise that, like Jones, puts aside its uninspired ways every so often to do the extraordinary.

My father’s father, and the only grandfather I knew, died the morning of Oct. 8, 2000. That afternoon, shortly before the scheduled first pitch, I lucked into a pair of tickets to Game 4 of the National League Division Series, in which the Mets could clinch the series over the Giants at Shea Stadium.

I went with my father. I remember little of the back-row, right-field mezzanine view aside from Barry Bonds’ fly out to center fielder Jay Payton, the final out in the Mets’ 4-0 win.

Jones, the day’s starting pitcher, also threw the final pitch. He finished with a one-hitter, and aside from a bases-loaded jam in the fifth inning, a perfect eight innings. It’s in the conversation with the greatest Mets pitching performances ever.

At 12 years old (a week later, 13), I was scared and naive enough to let myself believe that my grandfather’s passing was of no consequence to me — a mistake I’ve realized over time, looking back on how great Jones was that day and how therapeutic his performance has become.

The most vital sports memories are the most transcendent, and Shea Stadium, the bearer of nearly all of mine, is set to be demolished over the winter.

On Sunday, I was set to attend with my father what was to be the final game in Shea history. Because of an eBay seller’s shipping mistake, the tickets never came. My father and I have been ticket plan-holders at Shea for the better part of the decade. In the car, I listened to the Mets, for the second straight year, belie expectations and miss the playoffs.

So Shea will fall, and neither my father and I, nor the team (choking and all), will have had a proper goodbye. The team is still mediocre and the pitching staff, with Jones long out of the picture, still mediocre.

But so what? I still remember the chants of “Bobb-ee” and the rush on the mound after the final out. And I still remember my grandfather and the story he told of the greatest pitching performance he ever saw, Carl Hubbell’s five consecutive strikeouts in the 1934 All-Star Game at the Polo Grounds.

Here’s to you, Bobby J.