Taking a pass on sports.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.
• Position: Sports Scene

IT STARTED OUT as just quick glances at the newspaper during timeouts. Next, I was reading in between plays--and not wanting to stop once the action resumed. As impossible as it sounds, covering the National Football League had become a real drag--so I just stopped going, and simply turned over the beat to another writer smack dab in the middle of the New York Giants' first Super Bowl season. No guilt, no regrets--just a weekend burden lifted off my shoulders.

Fast-forward 14 years. I have credentials for New York Mets' home games during the National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet, I skip Game 4 and, in the subsequent Subway Series--the first all-New York World Series in 44 years--I opt not to attend Game 2 at Yankee Stadium. During last season's Arizona Diamondbacks-Yanks Fall Classic, I stay home from Game 4. This year, after covering seven World Series, I'm overtaken by a been-there, done-that, it's-just-not-worth-the-effort feeling and don't even apply for credentials, despite the fact that (at the deadline for application) a Yankees-San Francisco Giants (my favorite team for 37 years, also a club that hasn't won the World Series in my lifetime) matchup was a real possibility.

Several months earlier, the University of Tennessee Volunteers, my favorite college football team, have a shot at the national championship handed to them through a series of unlikely upsets. All that's left for my Vols to reach the title game against the University of Miami is to win the Southeast Conference crown with a victory over underdog Louisiana State University. However, Tennessee blows a 10-point lead to lose in heartbreaking fashion. True, I'm disappointed, but not interested enough to have watched the game. Four hours seemed like too big an investment.

The following spring, I'm primed for the Stanley Cup playoffs, undoubtedly the best and most-exhilarating time on the athletic calendar. The quest for hockey's holy grail, at least in my estimation, is the greatest chase in all of sports. Nothing can compare; nothing comes close--not even remotely. Yet, when the four Eastern Conference clubs I'm covering--the New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils, Boston Bruins, and Philadelphia Flyers--all take unexpected first-round exits, it means that, for only the fourth time in the last 15 years, I won't be going to the finals. To my surprise, I'm not the least bit disheartened. I even feel ... well ... relieved. I don't have to...