Faded memories

The Celtics-Lakers rivalry was renewed again Thursday night as the NBA Finals began. There was a time when I would have stopped everything I was doing to watch every game of this series. But now I have a passing interest, a let-me-know-what-the-score-was-when-I wake-up-the-next-morning curiosity.

There are some interests in life that you take with you all the way. There are other things that you've always liked that one day make a giant leap and bring you year-round interest. And there are others that possess a strangehold on you for a time, then fade into the distance. And that's what basketball is for me -- a passing fancy whose time went more than 10 years ago.

When I was a kid, my dad had LSU basketball season tickets and I probably liked basketball more than any other sport. I had a goal on the roof on the driveway side of the house, and I played basketball seemingly all year round. When college basketball season was over in March, I couldn't wait for it to begin again in November.

And then that interested faded in college. Maybe it was that LSU's program tanked about the same time. Maybe it was that the Celtics*, a team I adopted after the Jazz moved from New Orleans to Utah, also went into a freefall. But I think it was the NBA lockout of 1998-99 that finally did it for me. I'm not sure why; after all, baseball canceled its World Series in 1994 and missed another 18 regular-season games in 1995 because of a strike. But then, my interest in baseball, while still strong, isn't what it used to be, either.

*I started rooting for the Celtics during the 1979-80 season, which was Larry Bird's rookie campaign. But he wasn't the reason I became a Celtics fan. Pistol Pete Maravich, my favorite player from the Jazz, signed with Boston in the middle of that season, so I started rooting for the Celtics because of that. He played at LSU before I was born, and I probably would have been an even bigger fan of his had I been alive during his college days. Pete's stint in Boston didn't last past 1980, but I couldn't go back to rooting for the turncoat Jazz as my favorite team. I still rooted for them, but they had been "demoted" to No. 2. And I stuck with the Celts even after Pete was gone.

On the other hand, my interest in football has gone through the roof, so much so that sometimes I'll watch NFL Network offseason shows over real, live Major League Baseball games. I think it's the social component of football that has propelled it to my top spot. I don't converse with too many baseball fans these days, and the wretched, direction-less path the Astros are taking has sapped more of my interest. Not to mention the fact that the Yankees and the Red Sox are all that matters in baseball, anyway, right? Thanks, Bud Selig*.

*Bud Selig does one thing well as baseball commissioner, and that's make money for the sport. In that sense, he's a success and to his owners, I'm sure that's the only thing that matters. In every other definition of the word "commissioner," he's a train wreck. Show favoritism to some teams? Check. Show favoritism to some owners and rig the sale and transfer of some teams to friends and associates? Check. Lack of decisiveness on every major issue? Check. Destroy competitive integrity by implementing the wild card, interleague play and a convoluted divisional alignment? Check. Hurt the growth of the sport in its markets by selling out to network wishes and only promoting two teams in New York and Boston? Check. When you can't even polish your own personal grooming well enough for public consumption, then what's that say about you as the leader of your sport? No wonder everyone under the age of 30 looks at baseball as a rumpled old sport that's out of touch. Look at its commissioner.

When I was a kid, I had certain players I really liked, and I guess I still have some I like today (though that number would be much smaller). But Biggio and Bagwell will never mean as much to me as Jose Cruz, mainly because of the time in my life that I happened to be rooting for them. Most things get smaller as you get older. It's like the old Seinfeld stand-up routine of going back to your parents' house and feeling like it's so small. The same thing applies to following athletes.

So I'll hope the Celtics win, but I won't be overjoyed if they do, and I won't be disappointed if they don't. But when the Saints win or lose this fall...