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 [...]

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 [...]