Trying to find a hook on the Mets this year is as hard as getting a straight answer about the team's finances. Right now, as they get ready to play at Miami tonight, they are 18-13, in third place, but just one game behind the first place Nationals and a half-game behind the Braves,. They are, incredibly, 4 ½ games ahead of the last place Phillies, whom they just swept in their home park for the first time since 2006.

You'd think Mets fans would be dizzy with excitement, but most of the ones I know seem to be more like dizzy with ... well, just plain dizzy. What is going on? Is this for real? Can it last?

Almost no one is talking about the games per se, they're asking "How are they doing it?" I have an answer for that: I don't know, and if anyone else does, I wish they'd tell me.

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A Queens man who's been part of the New York Mets organization for more than 30 years is officially banned from the team's ballpark for life after pleading guilty to stealing more than $2 million worth of Mets memorabilia from the franchise.

Additionally, former Mets clubhouse manager Charles Samuels, 55, was sentenced to five years probation and must pay about $80,000 in restitution to the Mets and various state and city tax agencies.

Samuels started his career with the Mets in 1976. By 1983, he was named the team's equipment manager before becoming the clubhouse manager, and ultimately its traveling secretary.

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And you thought losing Jose Reyes was bad.

A short time ago, U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff ruled that Mets principal owners Fred Wilpon, the Wilpon family, and their businesses and charities must pay at least $83.3 million to the trustee -- that's Irving Picard, in case you haven't been following this for the past year and a half -- who has been trying to recover funds in the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal.

That's just part of it -- and what may eventually prove to be a small part. Judge Rakoff also ruled that the two sides will go to trail March 19 over an additional $303 million that Picard is seeking, turning down a request from the Wilpons' attorneys to limit their liability to the $83 million and thus remove the need for a trial.

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If some can claim that Barack Obama violates religious freedom by forcing insurance companies to provide birth control, then what can we call the situation developing at Citi Field?

Yesterday, Judge Jack Weinstein tossed out a lawsuit brought by Kosher Sports against the New York Mets for prohibiting them from selling kosher hot dogs, sausages, knishes, pretzels, and peanuts from four different carts on Friday nights and Saturdays -- the Jewish Sabbath. Which means, if this holds up upon appeal, no Kosher dogs on the Mets' first Saturday home game on April 7 against the Braves. Apparently, Mets officials "at the highest levels" -- the phrase used in the Mets' press release --  are worried that the sale of kosher food on the Sabbath "undermines credulity with Sabbath-observing fans." 

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The obits you're going to be reading tomorrow for Gary Carter, who died of brain cancer yesterday at age 57, will probably tell you everything about him except this: many New York area sportswriters laughed at him behind his back. I know -- I was there. I saw it.

In their defense, Gary Carter, nicknamed "Kid" for his omnipresent grin, was hard to believe in. He was a glad-hander, open with the media at all times -- whether the Mets won or not, whether he had a good or bad day. And he always managed a smile, if sometimes a shrugging, self-deprecating one.

Carter was as much a Christian as Tim Tebow, but I never saw him make open displays or proselytize. If you asked, he would smile and tell you. In other words, he lived his faith he way it was supposed to be lived: by example. He was the best example of a Christian athlete I've ever known.

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Why was there so little support for Jorge Posada as a Hall of Fame player in this week's sports press? The most common phrase was "borderline HOFer," which, as I recall, I've even used in this space over the years. But let's say it: Posada is a Hall of Famer, though perhaps he won't make it on the first ballot. But he'll make it.

Because he deserves it. Georgie was the second best catcher in baseball for most of his career, only behind Pudge Rodriguez -- if you factor in overall value, probably behind both Pudge and Mike Piazza for several years. But what's wrong with being the third best player at your position, especially when your position is the hardest to play and the hardest to find a good player for?

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The new five-year collective bargaining agreement signed by baseball owners and players yesterday features a list of tweaks to rules big and small: Among other things, fair/foul calls can now be overruled by instant replay, teams can activate a 26th man for doubleheaders, and those shatter-prone maple bats are outlawed for all new major leaguers — meaning that one day baseball history will mark, along with "Mariano Rivera: last player to wear #42" and "Burleigh Grimes: last player to throw a legal spitball," someone's name alongside "last player to legally pierce his teammate's chest with a bat splinter."

The big-ticket items, though, are around the June player draft and free agent compensation, which have each undergone some major refinements. Mets assistant GM has already acknowledged that the new rules will make the team's job tougher during next June's draft. But another brief item could be equally momentous in determining the Amazins' summer:

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Carlos Beltran

​It's a shame that Carlos Beltran couldn't have delivered something more fitting than a soft fly ball to left in his final at-bat as a Met. But the fans at Citi Field yesterday didn't seem to care. In fact, the twin chants of "Car-los Bel-tran" and "Fare-well, Carlos" wafted through the stands and followed him back to the dugout.

No one believes that Beltran will still be a Met when the team returns home from its 10-day road trip, which begins tonight against the Florida Marlins (and ends in Washington).

Before he's gone, let's take time to appreciate what Mets fans are only now beginning to understand has been one of the greatest careers in team history. For Beltran's 14 seasons -- seven with the Mets -- he might have been the best all-around player in the big leagues.

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​This is for all New York baseball fans. I'm talking to you. I don't care whether you're a Yankees fan or Mets fan or somebody who just lives in or around New York and follows both teams. I want to know what the hell is the matter with you! Jose Reyes still trailed Colorado Rockies shortstop Troy Tulowitzki by about a couple of hundred thousand votes, at last count.

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Talk about snatching victory from the jaws of defeat: This week, Mets owner/accused Bernie Madoff unindicted co-conspirator Fred Wilpon 1) was the subject of a New Yorker profile in which he dissed his three best players, then had to apologize via clubhouse speakerphone, 2) was the subject of a Sports Illustrated profile in which he suggested the team payroll would plummet from $142 million to less than $100 million next year, then had to watch as GM Sandy Alderson publicly contradicted him, and 3) cut a deal to sell a minority share in the team to hedge-fund superstar David Einhorn for $200 million, staving off financial ruin with an 11th-hour influx of cool, sweet greenbacks. Which one do you think he's going to be posting about on Facebook?

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