Professional sports began to lose me when it all became a soap opera for men. I used to joke that professional wrestling filled that role, but I soon realized that sports coverage is all about generating the drama. One constant example now, I think, are the endless stories about pro and college coaches and where they will or won't be coaching in the near future. Why are we supposed to care about this so much?

The games just can't be games, they have to have compelling "stories," otherwise we apparently won't care. This need for stories is what has made off-the-field stuff more and more of the focus of sports coverage. I like Deadspin a lot for exactly the kind of deconstruction of the sports-entertainment complex that this book is after, but it feeds into this drama also (usually to comedic effect though). The more I think about it, though, the more I just want to see good, competitive games played by the athletes who are the best in the world at what they do . . . and hopefully by the teams that I have grown up rooting for. You can keep the rest of it.

His comment that the Clemens hearings are not about saving kids from steroids but about embarrassing Clemens (and if you don't like Clemens--and I don't--you think that's a good thing) are right on. So too the comment about how you hope your favorite player isn't on steroids, but if he is, he'd better hit a lot of home runs for you--exactly. Giants fans loved Barry Bonds because he hit a lot of home runs that won a lot of games. If you look at some of the losers mentioned in the Mitchell Report, who risked their lives and got nothing for it, you see that Bonds at least got something for the drugs.

Of course, so did Lyle Alzado.

There have been times when I've finished watching a great game broadcast on ESPN and the SportsCenter report on the same game focused on some inconsequential detail--a missed call, a ooaching move--and entirely missed the beauty of the sporting contest. The chatter before the conference championships last weekend was dominated by discussions of Randy Moss, including speculation on ESPN Radio between Freddie Coleman and Sal Palontonio about what should be done if his accuser was found to be an extortionist (my wife and I listened to this with our jaws nearing the floor). Luckily, the games themselves were good enough to at least let that topic get overshadowed by actual sports for once.

I also love what Leitch had to say about the Cardinals. Ultimately, what this should be about is the beauty of a sport and the love of a team. Myself, I would rather watch a well-played game involving a team I care about than a Super Bowl between teams that I don't, and I'd rather watch a close game that didn't matter than a blowout for a championship.

They basically decompose the sports drama or cause drama for the original creatures, the media. This is all done for comedy, but it also add to drama, obviously. However, look at their actual coverage of last weeks conference championship games, or most other sporting events, and you can see a passion that does not exist with ESPN or A.P. reports. I am also a fan of this column and respect the questions you wrote, but I feel like maybe readers who haven't read Deadspin..wait, probably not to many out there. Well if you are out there, check it out at least. There is sports drama, but also some of the best sports news on the web.

........is my favorite "TV show." And the ONLY one that I try and catch everyday. In one short half hour you get 97% of all the sports news anyone could possibly need in a 24-hour period. And it's funny too.

God save the fan.

I say, to hell with the nerd.

.. you are beginning to acknowledge that illegal steroid use is a significant public health problem--one of the reasons why governments and governmental uber-agencies are attacking it when individual sports and nations have failed.

Why not write more about Operation Raw Deal, WADA, the new head of WADA, the failure of baseball to follow the recommendations of the Mitchell Report or to make its drug testing program WADA compliant?

http://sport.guardian.co.uk/breakingnews/feedstory/0,,-7252790,00.html

Just play the stupid game -- I don't care about the stories. At all.

How long until the book is on the shelf at the public library?

This Leitch guy, who I've never heard of before this morning, knows his baseball stuff.

King laments, "isn't it sad that we can't really like these guys because we don't know them"

Yeah, Barry Bonds is a sad sack of shit. Sorry. I grew up playing sports with a guy who is going to play in his first super-bowl next week. He is a great guy. No qualifications there.

I'm pretty good friends with a guy who won a world series ring this year. He is a great guy, no qualifications there.

I have that deepbelly fondness for the Reds that Leitch feels for the Cardinals. That should prove to anyone who cares about sports that you don't have to follow a winner to have the passion. It can be just good ol fashioned tribalism and a connection to a something ancient and familial.

And King, I've tried and tried to point this out, but Ken Griffey Jr. is the be all and end all. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods have some real estate on that island too. There are some of those figures out there - or up there (Jesse Owens). Sports suck when people like Barry Bonds and Mike Vick and Marion Jones and Ben Johnson and Steven A. Smith and Floyd Landis and Roger Clemens try to squat on the island.

One of the previous letter writers said something like, "i would rather watch a well played game than a superbowl between teams I don't care for."

I agree.

But it is really fun and satisfying when you watch that well played game, and it's the national championship, and it's your team. January 4th 2003. It happened in the desert.