QUESTION ON NL MVP IS MULTIPLE CHOICE.

Byline: TONY JACKSON 

Last year, it was all so simple.

Last year, I opened my mailbox and found two Baseball Writers Association of America award ballots. One was for Manager of the Year, a slam dunk considering Jack McKeon had taken over the Florida Marlins when they were 10 games under .500 and guided them to the playoffs.

The other was for the Cy Young Award, another slam dunk considering no starter had come close to distinguishing himself enough to offset Eric Gagne's unprecedented run of converting 55 of 55 save opportunities.

This year, the ballot came via e-mail, which in itself was bad enough for a computer illiterate like me. But that wasn't even the worst of it. The ballot I received was for National League Most Valuable Player.

That's where it all gets complicated.

Assuming I can figure out how to download an attachment, fill it out, reattach it and send it back, I will return my ballot two weeks from today, a couple of hours after the conclusion of the Dodgers' regular- season finale with San Francisco. For me, those two weeks will be like cramming for a college final.

There are several candidates and several ways of looking at the award.

You can use the literal interpretation of ``most valuable.'' There is a reason why the award isn't called Most Outstanding Player. Although the rules stipulate, in very clear language, that the award doesn't necessarily have to go to a player from a playoff club, the notion of a player being ``valuable'' to a team would seem to imply that he led that team to some degree of success.

It is in that spirit that my forebears gave the award to the Dodgers' Kirk Gibson in 1988, when he put up numbers that by today's standards would be above average at best. Using that same logic, the award this season probably should go either to the Dodgers' Adrian Beltre or San Francisco's Barry Bonds.

It is plain to see that neither of their clubs would be anywhere close to where they are, occupying the top two spots in the NL West, without them. That is about as ``valuable'' as a player can get.

You can use a looser interpretation - which my American League counterparts did last year in giving the award to Alex Rodriguez of the last-place Texas Rangers - and try to choose the player who had the best season, without regard to how his club fared in the standings. This year, in the NL, there are no legitimate MVP candidates on non-contending clubs.

However, St. Louis has three solid candidates in Albert Pujols, Jim Edmonds and Scott Rolen. But with the Cardinals running away in the Central, a case can be made that none of those players is the league's most ``valuable'' because the team probably could have won the division even if one of those three was taken out of the mix.

Among the factors we scribes are supposed to consider is the one we universally ignore, the one about how a player conducts himself in the public eye. If you doubt for a moment that we ignore it, just take a look in Bonds' trophy case, where there already are six MVP awards. Funny how Bonds always has time for the writers when they're presenting him with something.

The MVP ballot also requires 10 names in descending order, whereas the Manager, Cy Young and Rookie of the Year awards require only three. That means, of course, that it requires a lot more thought and lot more attention paid to what goes on around the league, as opposed to simply focusing on the individual club a writer happens to cover on a daily basis.

Two years ago, the last time I had an MVP ballot, I had to scour the league leaders just to come up with enough names to fill. And talk about pressure. This season, when there are so many candidates and no clear favorite, my singular ballot, one of 32 to be cast, could make the difference.

It's a heavy cross, but someone has to bear it. In fact, two writers from each NL city have to bear it. And no matter how much each of us examines and evaluates and agonizes and plays the devil's advocate with ourselves, it is an honor few of us would trade for anything.

If this is the sportswriter's version of a college final, I sure hope my answers are correct.