Q: Why did Dave Veres throw at Jay Payton Monday night? The game was over. It was too late for the Cardinals to teach the Mets anything by then.
Ralph Emerson -- Concord, Mass.

	Jay Payton fought through injuries to have a very good season in 2000.

Rob Dibble: Baseball is not like hockey. Baseball is a simple game and does not have a long list of traditions, rules and codes. But two of them collided Monday night. One rule is that you don't show anybody up. The other is that young players are best seen and not heard.

Jay Payton, due to his inexperience, simply misread the situation. His team is up 7-0 in the eighth inning at home. They are going to the World Series.

Payton's job was to stand at the plate and conduct himself through a solid, professional at-bat. Nothing extraordinary was called for. The focus for the Mets was the three outs in the top of the ninth, not scratching across a few more runs in the bottom of the eighth.

But Payton swung for the fences at that pitch, diving across the plate at a change-up on the outside corner. He was going for more, trying to rub it in the Cardinals' faces.

Even if he wasn't trying to do that, he made it look like he was. And that is wrong.

Baseball is a humbling game. You don't show players up. The game does it on its own. You have to take your disappointments like a man and remember that there is always tomorrow.

Payton was too aggressive in that swing. The Cardinals had been humbled already.

Think of it from the St. Louis side. When you have been playing baseball since April and there are only three outs left in your season, you don't have a lot to fight for. The only thing that is left is the honor of your team. It's worth protecting.

That's what Dave Veres did. He wasn't trying to hit Payton. You can tell that by his reaction to the pitch. He was sending him a message: Remember the situation next time. Ease off when the game is no longer in doubt. That is the way the game is played.

Nobody on the field was surprised by what Veres did, trust me.

So Jay Payton will have a nick on his head for the next week or so. But he'll take that nick to the World Series.

While it heals, maybe he'll remember what Veres was telling him and learn from it. If he does, he won't be a young player any more.