BASEBALL'S CHALLENGE: DOES IT MATTER?

The Dodgers have 19 games in which to earn a spot in the playoffs. Barry Bonds is seven homers from equaling Mark McGwire's home run record and the Seattle Mariners can surpass the Yankees' single-season record win total.

A week ago, all this mattered. It was water-cooler talk at its best. Now, none of it strikes even the slightest interest.

Who cares whether guys can hit behind runners, whether Dodgers manager Jim Tracy should use a four-man rotation or whether Seattle has the pitching to win the World Series? Really, what does it matter?

Baseball commissioner Bud Selig said the games will continue Monday, nearly a week after terrorists changed the style of life in this country. In the world.

The games will gone on, but it will be impossible to be as zealous about it now as a week ago. If a hit-and-run fails, what does it matter? Four planes still were hijacked, thousands of lives were ended and billions of people had life-altering experiences, and none of them good.

And it's supposed to matter whether Oakland or Seattle can get one more guy than the Yankees to run through four stations of bases measured 90 feet apart.

Try telling that to the rescue workers digging through rubble piled seven stories high in hopes of finding a sign of life, or family members hoping the remains of their loved ones is recovered so they can at least have personal closure to a catastrophic event.

Try explaining to the police officers and firefighters, the ones who protect the country daily, who raced into the building to save people, only to have it crumble above and beneath them, that not winning a playoff game since 1988 is important.

They don't need a diversion. They need time to repair wounds that can't ever heal.

Indeed, sports is an important part of Americana - particularly baseball, still the national pastime - and their return is vital to the psyche of the nation. But let's not overdo their importance.

In 20 years, there will be no talk of who won the 2001 World Series, but Sept. 11, 2001, will be talked about in classrooms around the globe.

From now and evermore, when you walk into an airport or ballpark or school, there will be signs reminding you of this day.

Major League Baseball canceled six days and postponed 91 games. Should they, or anyone else, play this weekend or shouldn't they? Selig and commissioners from all walks of sport had to answer that question.

Selig had to weigh what was right or wrong. It was called a tough decision. He agonized over it, talking to politicians and the FBI the Federal Aviation Administration.

Yet, all that was nothing. Deciding whether to play a game Friday or Saturday or Sunday or wait, postpone or cancel, is, in the grand scheme, inconsequential. Trust me, I've spent the last decade covering sports - a variety of games, really - and when it comes down to it not one of them mattered Tuesday.

There is talk of warriors in sports, guys that play through pain or have the mental capabilities to will their way through games when the physical attributes aren't there on a particular day. There is talk of going to battle with players, wanting a certain guy on your side of a war because of his competitive fire.

I always thought those analogies were silly. In the future, I believe I'll find them offensive.

A tough decision isn't whether to play a game so the nation can get back to normalcy, which will never exist in the way we knew it a week ago.

A tough decision is mapping out war plans to eliminate terrorism, all the while knowing one false step could mean further, even more severe, action against this country.

They say sport often mirrors life, and perhaps in one of those distorted carnival mirrors that is true. It didn't feel like that Tuesday, though, and it hasn't felt that way since.

In time, baseball and football and other sports will find its place again. Through conflicts and devastating events of the past, it's been shown sports will eventually rise to the top of America's consciousness. That will happen again.

Monday, baseball returns to 15 cities in America. At Dodger Stadium, miniature flags will be given to each person as they walk through the gates. A member of the LAPD will sing ``The Star-Spangled Banner'' and ``God Bless America.''

I'm looking forward to that, and I'm going to bring some tissues.

But I'm not sure whether I'm ready to watch a baseball game again.

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Photo:

An American flag flies at half-staff over Atlanta's Turner Field.

John Bazemore/Associated Press