Instead of throwing the ball away and keeping the team in field goal position, so his "Idiot Kicker" could win the game, Manning takes a backbreaking sack, because he was trying to do too much. He'll never learn. The guy's not a rookie; he's a veteran. Throw the ball away and give your team a shot. Dungy had supposedly reined in his tendency to think the team could only win if he threw 49 TDs, but that wasn't evident today. Mediocre outting versus a mediocre pass defense, and then he makes a game-losing mistake on the final possession. I guess Eli is the Manning who knows how to win in the 4th quarter.

Since Vanderbilt vanquished its athletic department a few years ago, the school's athletic program has been on a noticeable upswing. This season the team nearly qualified for its first bowl game since 1982; the baseball team nabbed the #1 recruiting class in the nation according to "Baseball America"; and the men's basketball team landed prized recruits that will make the team a tournament participant for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, Jay Cutler, the team's quarterback, is discussed as a possible top 5 draft pick, which would raise the profile of the athletic department even more. Can all this be attributed to the decision by the school to bring the AD under the aegis of the school president's office? No, but it does seem awfully coincidental that Vanderbilt, long the doormat of the SEC, is creeping closer to the status of a Stanford, Notre Dame, or Duke -- entering the rarefied air of a school that is ultra competitive in academics and athletics.

Players like Cutler, freshman pitcher Josh Zeid of Hamden Hall in Connecticut (a flame-thrower), and cager Derrick Byars (a transfer from UVA) represent a new era in Vanderbilt sports. People said Vanderbilt was stupid to eliminate the traditional athletic department structure. But maybe it's demonstrating that the student/athletes (and not some overpaid, glorified booster, i.e., most athletic directors) are the best face of the school's athletic department. Time will tell, especially if other schools follow suit. In the meantime, Vanderbilt and its supporters must decide whether the new system is providential, or the newfound success is merely coincidental. Either way, there's rarely been a better time to be a Dores supporter.

In the Bible, God says that those who are lukewarm in faith - who choose neither evil nor good -

         My relationship with basketball has run hot and cold. When I was younger, it was my favorite sport, both to watch and to play. I'd shoot jumpers for hours on end, alone, just me, the ball and a 10-foot rim. The presence of a net, be it cotton or chain link, was no consideration, because I'd happily chase those makes that didn't go swish.

          Meanwhile, the fate of the Georgetown basketball team had a profound effect on my life. I attended John Thompson's basketball camp for many years, and half my family graduated from Georgetown, so any Hoya defeat cast a pall over the homestead. When that unnamed school in Philadelphia beat Pat Ewing and Co. in 1985, I truly thought my life had ended. Luckily, fate intervened, and I remained alive to witness the Red Sox' World Series collapse in 1986.

After that second heart-imploding experience, I developed a particular contempt for Mets fans who went to Villanova -- a demographic that is larger than you might expect.

Nowadays, however, my contempt for those fans seems like a distant memory. After many years wincing at the mere mention of his name, I now hope that Rollie Massimino has retired to some low-humidity climate, where he's healthy and happy. (OK, maybe just healthy.) My point is I don't hate anyone in basketball anymore. And that lack of hate stems from a disheartening development: I fell out of love with the game.

          In the somewhat irrational world of sports, hate is the yang to the yin of love. I hate the Yankees because I love the Red Sox. I love the Steelers and so hate the Patriots. If hate seems like too strong a word, well, you've never ground your teeth during a Notre Dame-Boston College football game, or considered whether Yankee fans have sold their souls at the crossroads, along with Robert Johnson, Jimmy Page, and Carson Daly.

          Unfortunately, when it comes to basketball, there's no longer any give and take. I fell out of love with the game...and out of hate.

Mind you, this wasn't a sudden plunge, attributable to one particular player, team or incident. Rather, it was a steady decline, attributable to two gradual developments: The deterioration of my own basketball ability and the evolution of the present-day game.

I broke my leg when I was a sophomore in high school, and never rehabbed it properly. Thereafter, my interests shifted to reading and writing. And believe me, that was no loss to the basketball world.

But basketball, at all levels, has suffered since I first fell in love with the game.

Nowadays high school players go straight to the pros, and yet have no concept of the game's fundamentals; college rivalries have no time to develop because players leave early; and the pro game revolves around clearing out one side of the court, and then taking your man off the dribble.

          As recently as college I would argue vehemently that professional basketball players were the best athletes in the world, that the combination of requisite skills - strength, speed, stamina, hand-eye coordination, jumping ability, proficiency at both ends of the court (so long as your name isn't Rodman) - separated basketball from other professional sports.  And I still believe that. Nowadays, however, you won't catch me arguing about it, because these skills are only exhibited in rare spurts. When half the players are standing around the court, waiting for Kobe Bryant to take Rip Hamilton off the dribble, then I'm no longer marveling. I'm yawning. And I don't argue about sports that put to me sleep.

          One of the reasons that basketball bores me is the absence of rivalries, particularly in college basketball. Where are the Ewing-Mullin matchups, the Georgetown-Syracuse hackfests? They're nowhere, of course, because no one stays around long enough to hate each other. Sure, you can say that you root for the school, and not the player. But how boring is that? Besides, how much love or hate can a guy engender in one or two years, before he ships off to the pros? I pay attention to the names of college basketball players like I paid attention to the names of my substitute teachers.

          There was a time when I loved Georgetown basketball, while hating their rivals. Ewing, Reggie Williams, Charles Smith, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutumbo. Those guys played four years of college ball, and I followed their careers like a day trader tracking the NASDAQ. Heck, even Allen Iverson hung around college for two years, which was long enough for plenty of St. John's and Syracuse fans to hate him. And, in turn, for me to hate them for hating him. It was lovely.

But the state of basketball has changed forever. Players go after the money as soon as they can, and I can't really blame them. At the same time, can you blame a fan for falling out of love...and out of hate? Nowadays, I don't love or hate anything about basketball. I've become the worst thing of all - largely indifferent.

 

I was 9 years old and fresh off kidney surgery when I first visited Cooperstown. We had a family tradition, which began with my three older sisters: When each of us turned 9, we could choose any destination, within four hours' driving distance, for a weekend excursion with our father. It was designed as a bonding experience. When their times came, my sisters chose Block Island, Montauk, and Hershey, Pennsylvania, respectively. Me? I chose the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y.

At the time (1982), I fashioned myself quite the baseball player. I played shortstop for my Little League team, played Wiffle ball in my living room, and basically broke every window in our house. (Note: Tennis balls only seem safer.) Anyway, it was apparent to me that I was destined for Cooperstown too. And not simply as a fan. I was convinced I'd be inducted after my playing career was over; that I'd be enshrined alongside Ruth, Cobb, Wagner, and The Big Train. In short, my focus as a 9-year-old was on baseball immortality. But because of a bum kidney, my focus soon shifted to human mortality.

Thanks to a blockage in my kidney, surgeons had to open me up in the summer of '82. Afterwards, my right side was laced with staples and stitches, so physical exercise was forbidden for several months. No baseball, no Wiffle ball, no diving over the sofa to catch a self-tossed fly ball. That summer I couldn't mimic my heroes; I could only read about them. And so I did. My father bought me books and programs from the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and during that summer of physical disability, which wouldn't be my last, my appreciation for the game deepened, as my scars slowly healed.

            This past summer I made another journey to Cooperstown - my fifth in 23 years. These trips have been evenly spaced over the years, though not by design. And like that first visit to the hall of fame, each subsequent trip has created its own fond memories.

Cooperstown...even if Abner Doubleday didn't invent the game in that small, New York village (and there's some question about that), I'm confident the baseball gods would have insisted on a similar birthplace. It's postcard Americana. The village is cute, quaint, and borderline kitschy. There's red, white, and blue bunting everywhere. I walk its streets and half expect a Fourth of July parade to break out. I'm not ashamed to say it might be my favorite place in the world - and that's why I asked my wife if we could go there for our first anniversary last summer.

Her answer was the same as when I asked her to marry me: "You're kidding, right?"

OK, fine, I made that up. The fact is she said yes to both requests. And seriously, could a baseball fan be more lucky? First, for my birthday, she bought me the MLB Extra Innings package through Cablevision, and then we went to Cooperstown for our wedding anniversary.

And believe me, I knew the way.

Our path from Connecticut was the same as always: Route 8 towards Waterbury, to I-90 West, to the New York State Thruway, and then to routes 87, 90, 88 and, finally, the last 41 miles on 20 West - the definition of a backcountry road. I first traveled that road as a legal driver in the summer of 1989, when I turned 16 and paid my second visit to the hall of fame. That was the summer I broke my leg, so I had to wear an ankle-to-hip cast, followed by a shin-to-thigh brace. No, I didn't dive over any sofas during those months, but I did break several windows.

My third trip to Cooperstown was in 1996, for my great-grandfather's hall of fame induction. Ned Hanlon was manager of the Baltimore Orioles in the late 19^th century, and was credited with developing the Baltimore chop. He was also credited with being one of the game's biggest cheaters, as he reportedly encouraged his players, including Hall of Famers Hughie Jennings, John McGraw and Wilbert Robinson, to gain a competitive edge by any means necessary - and that included tripping players as they rounded the bases (Back then, baseball only used two umpires, so things like this often went unnoticed). Contextually, if he managed at the end of the 20^th century, his entire team probably would have been on steroids.

Anyway, on to my fourth trip to Cooperstown.

That was in 2000, for the induction of Red Sox great Carlton Fisk. It was a steamy late July day, and a buddy and I left Connecticut at sunrise, embarking on the familiar four-hour jaunt. Somewhere outside Oneonta, by the turnoff for the Soccer Hall of Fame, he was clocked driving 85 by a New York State cop. Unless I'm mistaken, he never paid that $300 ticket, so his driving privileges are still suspended in the state of New York. So, if Jim Rice gets elected to the hall of fame next month (and he should!), I guess I'm driving to the induction ceremony in Cooperstown.

But that's no problem, 'cause I know the way.