As the Florida Marlins made their dramatic drive towards the National League pennant, fellow Islander News reporter Jodi Rodgers would pick up the daily paper each day, utter a "tsk-tsk" or two and say: "I can't believe they have sports above the fold on the front page again. It's like there's nothing else going on in the world?"

Obviously, Jodi is not much of a sports fan. Without getting into the whole gender thing and risk causing an international anima/animus conflict, I must say that women in general have about as much interest in baseball as guys have in interior decorating. This is not to say that there are some world class women sports fans as well as some men who would rather fuss over place settings than watch a bunch of guys throw, hit and catch a ball when they're not otherwise busy spitting tobacco juice, adjusting their underwear, signing multi-million dollar contracts and appearing in beer and sneaker commercials.

However, if you ask men which section of the newspaper they pick out first and/or take to the bathroom, a vast majority would undoubtably say...the lingerie section.

Just kidding. There is no lingerie section. But even if there were, I'd wager that most men would still opt for the sports page because things like batting averages and boxscores and starting pitchers' ERAs and clean-up hitters' RBIs and coaches' DTs are infinitely more interesting than a bunch of scantily-clad women with no discernable statistics.

Statistics are an integral part of baseball. They make the game more interesting because they highlight the nuances of each player's ability and performance. For example, a .250 hitter will hit safely one out of four times he bats. But that average fluctuates depending on whether the pitcher he is facing is right-handed or a lefty, whether the game is at home or away, at day or night, in April or October, if there are runners on base and/or in scoring position, if his wife is in the stands, if the moon is full or new, what kind of shampoo he last used, how many times he spits tobacco juice on the umpire's shoe and various other factors.

Statistics are also necessary for announcers because there is a lot of "dead" air time to fill with inconsequential gibberish during a game. Between pitches, a major league hurler will typically wipe his brow, fondle a resin bag, kick some dirt away from the pitching rubber, spit, lick his fingers, wipe his hand on his shirt, squint at the catcher to get a sign, go through an elaborate wind-up and finally throw the ball towards home plate, unless there is a man on one of the bases who he thinks he can keep from stealing if he throws the ball to the base instead of the catcher, in which case he'll make a move to first then go through the whole brow-wiping, resin bag-fondling, dirt-kicking, spitting, finger-licking, hand-wiping, squinting, winding-up rigamorole again before actually throwing the ball to the catcher, or maybe to the base again, if he happens to notice that the runner is still taking too big of a lead or perhaps in the midst of adjusting his underwear.

Announcers fill up these slow moments by rattling off statistics, like this recent exchange:

Bob Costas: Alou is hitting .317 with runners at the corners on Wednesdays.

Bob Uecker: Today is Saturday, Bob. And on Saturdays with runners at the corners, Alou is only hitting .223. But he's hitting .422 on autumn weekends after he adjusts his underwear.

Marv Albert: Speaking of underwear, has anyone seen the Times' lingerie section?

Despite competition from more explosive sports such as football, basketball, ice hockey and terrorist bomb defusing, baseball has remained the national pastime, even though no one seems to know exactly what that means. Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines "pastime" as "something that amuses and serves to make time pass agreeably." I suppose baseball might fit that definition to some people. But if there is a national pastime, meaning something amusing that virtually everyone--from fields of wheated grain to purple mountains' majesty--does to make time pass agreeably, I'd say it would be behind closed doors. Either that or channel-surfing.

But I stray from the old baseball diamond, where this column started and should eventually finish, unless it goes into extra innings. I remember as a kid, going with my father and brother, Ricky, to watch the Philadelphia Phillies play at Connie Mack Stadium. As we all know, Connie Mack Stadium eventually retired to Florida where it became a U.S. senator. But back then, it was located in North Philly, a decidedly tough part of town, especially for a ballpark named "Connie."

The stadium itself was a brick structure which from the outside looked a lot like the run-down or abandoned factories and mills that surrounded it. The entrance level was dark and grungy, and to get to our seats, we had to walk up narrow steel staircases whose handrails I once made the mistake of touching and having my hand come into contact with something that felt like a raw oyster, but warmer.

But then we'd emerge at the seating level, and suddenly an emerald green field could be seen, the grass so perfect, the infield dirt so smooth, the lights so bright they turned night into day--in the middle of this ghetto was the proverbial field of dreams--and the sense of awe and excitement I felt as we settled in our seats was almost palatable, at least until the hot dog vendor strolled by.

Hot dogs were 50 cents back then, and crackerjacks a quarter a box. Players were cheaper too, working for tens of thousands a season instead of millions. Tony Taylor, Johnny Callison, Tony Gonzalez, Don Demeter, Roy Seavers, Wes Covington, Clay Dalrymple, Bobby Wine...I still remember the line-up 35 years later.

The Phillies lost a lot more than they won in those years, but it didn't matter. The fun was just being there, part of a crowd that could create a roar more exhilarating than thunder. I kept my glove poised on each pitch to catch a screaming foul ball, except when I was otherwise occupied stuffing my face with hot dogs and crackerjacks and/or fighting with Ricky.

The Phils never made it to the World Series, though one year they came close enough to blow a seven game lead in the last two weeks of the season. But even though the home team was left out, the Series was a special time of year. No wildcards, no playoffs, just the top two teams from each league going at it head-to-head in a winner-take-all best of seven.

It was a different world that could take some time out for a special event. Stores closed up; factory production ground to a halt. In school, teachers would suspend lessons to listen to the games on radio. It was history in the making before bigger, meaner stories came along--Kennedy shot in Dallas, Vietnam, Martin and Bobby assassinated, Kent State and Watergate--to destroy an innocence that can never really be replaced.

In those good old days, the game was pretty much the same, but the business of baseball was different. It all changed when a centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals named Curt Flood decided that he didn't want to be bought and sold like a slave and brought the major league owners to court. Eventually free agency was born, and that's when players began making more than lottery winners and team loyalty went the way of the 50-cent ballpark hot dog.

Of course, without free agency, H. Wayne Huizenga wouldn't have been able to buy a pennant-winner and Jodi Rodgers wouldn't be bemoaning the fact that the Marlins are front page material.

So to Jodi, I say, "It's all Curt Flood's fault."

By the way, Curt Flood had a lifetime batting average of .293 and 17.4 underwear adjustments per game.