I was doing some arithmetic the other day and realized that, despite not being a sports fan, sports on telly takes a significant chunk out of my life. But there is a gentle pleasure on settling down on our big new couch and blocking out responsibility for the leisure of a ballgame.

In the spring, it's the Giro d'Italia, the Grand Boucle in the summer, then the fall is crammed with the Vuelta and championship baseball. To fully enjoy, one must have a team, which makes the Giro less important (U.S. Postal doesn't race it), the triumphs of Cancer Boy an obvious choice for Le Tour, and the U.S. Postal armada a sentimental favorite in the Vuelta.

For fall baseball, things get more complex. To first order, I have a weak Yankees bond built when their games were the only thing I could get here in Albuquerque on the radio. I grew up a Dodger fan, a fact that makes my mother cringe when I now say anything suggesting I might approve of anything the Yankees do. But it is what it is, and being a Yankee fan makes things easy every fall. This year, however, there is the sentimental Cubbie thing, and I feel a certain envy for those diehards. A few years back, I made a personal pilgrimage to Wrigley to see Baseball, and it was in all fairness a religious experience. And my sister, now living down the road from Fenway, has been speaking of the Red Sox in ways that give me pause. So perhaps....

Given the pressures of my busy life, I was feeling a little bad about the time lost to the couch for sport, but Lissa looked at me sitting there the other night all relaxed and happy watching a ballgame and pronounced it a good sight to see. So I guess I'll be parked for a few more hours over the next couple of weeks.