During my adolescent afternoons playing one-on-one stickball in the East School playground, the dolphin served as our first base foul line. My favorite ground rule was if you hit it under the dolphin's snout, it was fair. If you hit it under the tail or over the dolphin altogether, foul. Hitting the dolphin created a matter open to interpretation.

Third base foul line was the staircase that led into the cafeteria. Single was a ball that you didn't pick up within the fair confines of the playground. Double went over the short chain link fence out onto Neptune Boulevard. Home run went into the front yard of the house across the street. Triples didn't seem to exist.

If there was festering uncertainty on what happened to a batted ball, there'd be lots of arguing. Me and my stickball cohort were such lousy hitters that if we actually got a piece of the fuzzy yellow sphere (we used tennis balls in Long Beach, not the Spaldeens of urban legend), we wanted credit for accomplishing something. If one of us was sure a ball should have been a double and the other thought it went foul, maybe, after exhausting our junior high debating skills and threatening to go home, we would have split the difference, called it a single and kept playing.

It's not like we had anything better to do.

The bottom of the third at Shea today was East School writ large. In front of a makeup crowd relatively comparable to the two second-graders who might linger at our flailings before opting for the see-saw, a Major League umpiring crew applied schoolyard logic to their own fair/foul dispute.

Beltran on third, Delgado on first, Wright up. He lines one in the vicinity of the third base bag. It takes a funny bounce. Obviously it hit the bag, obviously Beltran will score, obviously it's a two-base hit for Wright, second and third.

Is not.
Is so.

Is not!
Is so!

IS NOT.
IS SO.

IS NOT!
IS SO!

IS NOT!!
IS SO!!

IS NOT!!!
IS SO!!!

Given the umpiring acumen associated with Randy Marsh (the third base official who displayed such a creative strike zone Saturday night) and Angel Hernandez (behind home plate and generally a more reliable Met villain than Pat Burrell and Ryan Howard combined), anything could have happened and anything did.

Marsh called it foul.

Manny Acta pointed. The ball took a crazy hop right there at the bag. How could have it not hit third base? But Marsh wouldn't budge. The replay wasn't definitive. Gary and Ron thought maybe there was a rock or spike mark, because it didn't necessarily seem to make contact with the bag...nah, it had to, it was too close. Willie came out to have a word. Marsh consented to a conference with his fellow umps. The only man in blue who could have seen the ball was Hernandez. Another replay showed the third baseman, Abraham Nuñez, probably blocked Marsh's view.

The umps caucused. Willie waited. Charlie Manuel emerged. Much talmudic scholarship was swapped (Ron noticed the umps covered their mouths the way a pitcher would in going over signals with his catcher). White smoke was released into the sky. Marsh, likely relying on Hernandez's sudden bout of judgment, told Randolph something. Randolph hung around. He told Manuel something. Manuel chatted more than argued. Manuel kept chatting — chatting a little too much, apparently. Marsh rather lethargically raised his right arm in the ol' heave-ho. Manuel loped out of sight.

The decision: Beltran, you trot home from third. Delgado, you head to second. Wright, you're no longer in a slump, go stand at first. Carlos D was thoughtful enough to wait before advancing so he could give David a little fist knock of congratulations.

What the hell was that?

We've seen a jillion lousy fair/foul calls in our lives, but most of them are of the whaddayagonnado? variety. Balls that wrap the fair pole (of course it's the FAIR pole, it's a FAIR ball!) are occasionally challenged and once in a blue moon reversed. But a ball hit down the line that was obviously going for a double first called wrong and then called a single? There was no interference, there was just a mistake. It was then corrected with Solomonic wisdom, the kind you never see in the big leagues, the kind we often resorted to in order to keep from killing each other at East School.

Double? Foul?

Ah, call it a single and let's keep playing.

It didn't feel quite right but it wasn't all wrong. We did get a run and a runner out of it. Green and Woodward made sure everybody who deserved to score eventually scored. And we won, plugged the hole in the schedule, finished with the Phillies as far as we can tell, reached 31 games above .500 for the first time since Leiter two-hit the Reds on 10/4/99, extended our lead to 15-1/2 for the first time since '86 and whittled our Number of Numbers to a Magical 18.

It's been the kind of year when everything we hit rolls clean under the dolphin.

Consider this incomplete, unofficial and nonbinding, but there's no way Carlos Beltran isn't the most valuable player in the National League this year. That doesn't mean he'll be the Most Valuable Player in the National League vote. I'd be kind of surprised if he is, given the way voting traditionally works.

Rule No. 1: If there's an award worthy of a Met, it will go to someone else. We've had four Cy Youngs, four Rookies of the Year, one Manager of the Year and no MVPs. Without me listing any right now, you and I can trade historical slights all night.

Rule No. 2: Other than screwing over the Mets, there is no set pattern. The gritty, gutty guy with decent numbers gets it over the far more dynamic player who did bigger things (Gibson over Strawberry, 1988). The guy who leads his team to the league's best record is overshadowed by the guy with the longer baseball card back (Bonds over Pujols, 2004). The fellow who is perceived as turning his team around is chosen instead of the guy who just kept being really great for a really good team (Pendleton over Bonds, 1991).

Rule No. 3: The cult of Albert Pujols lives. It's not an unreasonable cult in which to maintain membership. Pujols is scary. He's effective. And he's valuable. But his team's record is roughly where the 2005 Mets was at this time last year and he's not all alone in St. Louis, no matter what the Apujolgists will tell you. He is his team's best player (him or Gary Bennett lately) and his team is in first place, but not the way the Mets are. Still, their standing, his rep, his big start and the fact that it's easier to keep voting for the same guy who won last year may put him over the top. There's no shame in losing an award to Albert Pujols, but it would be a shame if it happened to Beltran this year.

Rule No. 4: Big, loud home runs speak volumes. Except for falling in the right direction and "robbing" the occasional grounder on an overshift, Ryan Howard is a butcher at first base. He is not a complete player by any means. But boy can he hit 'em far and often. It's not a bad talent to have. He was even kind enough to display it at an exhibition in July. I don't mean to diminish Ryan Howard, though I hope Met pitching does for a few turns at bat later today. He is sensational. But he's not a player on the level of Carlos Beltran.

Rule No. 5: Players having great seasons on great teams can't be all that valuable, can they? Carlos Beltran 2006 is a different player from Carlos Beltran 2005. By subtracting the tentative, overwrought, injured Carlos Beltran with the healed, fleet, relaxed, comfortable, confident, powerful Carlos Beltran, the Mets have gone from a Wild Card hopeful to a divisional lock, from a team playing footsie with .500 to one likely to top .600. Delgado's replaced Mietnkiewicz/Jacobs, Wagner's replaced Looper, Valentin's replaced Matsui, but the biggest upgrade was Beltran 2.0 over Beta Beltran. Whether lazy, brainless, hack out-of-town writers who decide this award bother to understand that is up for grabs. (Rule No. 5A: Gotta remember to stop insulting the voters.)

I've heard arguments in recent days that Beltran isn't necessarily the most valuable player on his own team. I take that as a compliment toward the team rather than a slap at Beltran. Jose Reyes in particular is held up as the irreplaceable catalyst and I like that portrayal. But Reyes has gone cold at times this year. Delgado and Wright, the original "M!-V!-P!" kid, have had honest-to-badness slumps that were/are not pretty. Lo Duca, to mock the language of Moneyball, has the intangibles to say nothing of an impressive batting average, but his numbers aren't up to his predecessor's, so he makes more of aesthetic case. Wagner has become huge in the last month and you have to tip your cap all about the field and acknowledge Met contributors galore.

But Carlos Beltran has been outstanding above everybody else since the season's third game, the night he had to be nudged out of the dugout for the touchstone curtain call, the night the Mets moved into first place for good. He missed about a dozen games with a bum leg in late April (remember that it was wondered aloud whether he was being too cautious and if that revealed some character defect?) and then made up for his shortfall in a blink. By the middle of May, Carlos' stats were being marveled at with the caveat "and that's even after missing those games while he was hurt."

Carlos Beltran has never stopped being very good to excellent for any meaningful portion of 2006. When he's not driving in runs, he's scoring them. He finds a way to get on base almost every day. While Lo Duca bats second, Beltran stands in the on-deck circle getting into the pitcher's head. That can't hurt Lo Duca. Delgado and Wright have RBI opportunities created or extended by Beltran. And without being showy about it, Carlos B has gotten to all but maybe three balls in center. If he doesn't lead the league in any of the glamour categories, he's up there and his accumulation of stats has been part and parcel of a greater good. His team leads in the most important category of them all: winning.

Yes, his team is the best team in the league. But you don't penalize a player for being the best player on that team. You celebrate him. You award him. There's no way that these 2006 Mets are these 2006 Mets without him. I'd rather be these 2006 Mets than those 2006 Cardinals or Phillies or anybody else sticking around the chewy nougat center known as the National League.

The Wild Card race has had an Andy Warhol effect on perception. Everybody but the Pirates, Cubs and Nationals has been a contender for 15 minutes. Some team will outspurt the others to win it and that team will probably be led by some player who puts on a big September push. A great month to boost an OK team into the playoffs will be seen as valuable. A great year to lead a fantastic team will somehow be seen as mundane.

Perhaps, as infrequently occurs, logic will prevail. Perhaps Carlos Beltran will win the Most Valuable Player award this year. For now, he'll have to settle for deserving it.