Apple pickings

NEW YORK -- Daffiness, on an afternoon when they had two base runners thrown out at the plate on the same base hit (!), clearly did not die with the Dodgers when they moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn and left behind Babe Herman, who once inspired John Lardner to write after three Dodgers wound up occupying the same base, ``Babe Herman did not triple into a triple play, but he doubled into a double play, which is the next best thing."

Yesterday afternoon in the Mets' 6-5 win over the Dodgers in the first game of the National League Division Series, Dodgers catcher Russell Martin singled into a double play. That was a play so nutty, it overshadowed the spectacular postseason debut of Mets first baseman Carlos Delgado, who had four hits, including a 470-foot home run and a tiebreaking single, in his first meaningful game in October after playing 1,711 regular-season games.

"It was a weird play and it turned out to be a huge play," said Mets catcher Paul Lo Duca, who tagged out Dodgers Jeff Kent and J.D. Drew in rapid succession. ``It was like something out of a movie."

Martin's second-inning line drive off the right-field wall was parlayed into a twin killing by three former Dodgers: right fielder Shawn Green, who retrieved the ball, second baseman Jose Valentin, who made the relay throw to the plate, and Lo Duca, who after tagging Kent was looking at plate umpire John Hirschbeck and almost didn't turn around in time to catch Drew.

"It was like, `He's out, but you better watch out -- someone else is coming,' " Lo Duca said.

Carlton Fisk, when he was with the White Sox, pulled off a similar feat in 1985, tagging out Bobby Meacham and Dale Berra of the Yankees on a hit by Rickey Henderson, a play often shown on video scoreboards. That includes the one here yesterday afternoon, to the delight of a sellout crowd of 56,979 in Shea Stadium that saw the Mets, who succeeded the Dodgers as New York's National League entry five years after the Bums moved West, take a one game to none lead in this best-of-five series.

Kent, who is perhaps the Dodgers' most reliable player, was on second when Martin hit his liner off Mets starter John Maine. Kent held up, thinking the ball might be caught, when in fact it struck near the base of the wall and caromed directly to Green.

``The ball was banana-ing around the corner," Kent said. ``I yelled [at Drew] to let's go. I figured that ball was going to kick around the corner and both of us were going to score. I was halfway [to third] and I turned around and yelled at him, `Let's go,' and I turned and started to run. I didn't know the ball already had been picked up and perfectly thrown in."

Drew, with a better read on the ball from first base, had taken off, circled second, and was bearing down on Kent while Rich Donnelly, the Dodgers' third base coach, was still waving home the first base runner.

``When I picked [Kent] up he was about 10 feet on the other side of third, and my original plan was to hold him up because he wasn't down far enough to score," Donnelly said. ``As I looked up to see Jeff, here comes J.D. 10 feet behind him, so I just had to send [Kent], take a shot at it.

``Then all of a sudden, there goes J.D. right by me. There was no sign. As I was watching the play with Jeff, I see J.D. go right by me and I almost told Hirschbeck, `Hold on, here comes another.'

``I'm thinking, if I hold [Kent], we got two at third, so I'm in a little bind there. So I send Jeff, and if they throw the ball away, we get out of it. But I can't send them both. Maybe J.D. saw me waving [Kent]. But when J.D. rounded third, I didn't see him. I was watching the play at home all the way. When J.D. went by me, I was kind of shocked."

Valentin's throw beat Kent to the plate by several feet, inspiring Kent to attempt a headfirst slide past Lo Duca, who applied the tag. Drew, about 20 feet from the plate, threw on the brakes and took one step back toward third, but changed his mind when he saw Lo Duca had his back to him.

``In hindsight," Drew said, `` if I'd kept running, I might have been safe. But I was mind-boggled by the whole thing."

Martin, who wound up on second, was credited with a single and eventually scored when Marlon Anderson grounded a double past third baseman David Wright. But there would be no big inning against the rookie Maine, the mechanical engineering student from North Carolina-Charlotte who became the improbable Game 1 starter because Orlando Hernandez had torn a calf muscle running in the outfield the day before.

``This is what happened," said Dodgers manager Grady Little, who first likened the mix-up to an LA traffic jam, then turned serious. ``It was a terrible base-running blunder that we had to pay for."

Derek Lowe, given just the 1-0 lead, gave up long home runs to Delgado and Cliff Floyd a batter apart in the fourth, then left in the sixth after Wright's two-run double into the right-field corner made it 4-1.

The Dodgers, who have had their share of improbable comebacks this season, none more remarkable than the night last month they hit four consecutive home runs in the bottom of the ninth to tie the score against the Padres, then won on Nomar Garciaparra's walkoff home run, drew even in the seventh on a run-scoring single by Rafael Furcal and a two-run double by Garciaparra.

But the Mets answered in their half of the seventh against Brad Penny, pitching in relief in a situation in which Little might have preferred to go with lefthander Joe Beimel, except Beimel cut his hand when a bathroom glass broke in the team's hotel two nights earlier. Penny walked Jose Reyes, who stole second, walked Carlos Beltran, then gave up Delgado's fourth hit, an RBI single to left-center against an overshifted defense, and a jam-shot bloop double by Wright that scored another run.

A two-out double by Ramon Martinez in the ninth off Mets closer Billy Wagner drew the Dodgers within one, but Garciaparra chased a Wagner slider to strike out to end the game.

``At least they know we're here," said Ned Colletti, general manager of the underdog Dodgers.

But no one wants to be remembered like this.