"Nearly a whole day later, manager Jerry Manuel was totally fine with the autopsy. The sock-to-the-gut loss to the Phillies on Tuesday was the kind of defeat that keeps on giving - at least until another pitch is thrown - and the Met manager betrayed not an iota of defensiveness in going over the gruesome details still hanging in the air.

It is the most palpable way Manuel has distinguished himself from his predecessor. To call Willie Randolph thin-skinned is insulting to the thin-skinned. Randolph was forever citing his Brooklyn heritage, brandishing his New York-ness.

But Randolph never seemed to understand how the game was played in New York, with its lava flow of praise and criticism depending on the circumstances. And this was not only with the media. Randolph was touchy with his colleagues, as well, seeing cabals in every skull session with his bosses about strategy.

Manuel is Joe Torre-like in the comfort he has in his own skin. He did not bristle at the inquiries about his choices in the series-opening heartbreak. He was good-humored, extensive in answers. When media- relations director Jay Horwitz announced one more question, Manuel dead-panned, "Dang, Jay, don't be cutting us off. We are talking baseball." The best synonym for this manager-media exchange would be un-Randolph-ish. "