It Was a Year That Didn’t Exactly Go to the Letter

Family and Friends:

I never, ever thought I would write one of these form “Christmas Letters” and I’m still not convinced anyone cares that our little Junior skinned his knee last summer at Camp Gitchagoomie.

I’m not sold on mass-mail Christmas correspondence.

Frankly, I get morose around the holidays reading about people’s lives that are better than mine.

Keep your fingers crossed, but it looks like your cousin Louie may have a shot at the Nobel Prize this year!

Nevertheless, the wife insisted we put out some family news--she didn’t go for my suggestion of a chain letter--so, here goes:

Remember “Zippy,” the cute puppy we had on last year’s Christmas card?

Well, sorry to report ‘ol Zip finally caught that ice cream truck he’d been chasing.

And this just in from our Family Channel: Aunt Gerdie has a goiter, Uncle Phil has phlebitis and Aunt Ginger has a nasty case of gingivitis.

Hope all is well with you and yours.

I remain ensconced in the sports writing racket--yes, Uncle Tony, I still get into all the games for free--even the excruciatingly bad ones.

For example: I covered a college basketball game last spring that was 19-17 . . . at the half!

This wasn’t a charity gig for the athletically challenged. This was a NCAA tournament national semifinal game between Wisconsin and Michigan State.

Three shooters were so cold from the field they had to be treated for hypothermia.

Man, I saw some strange things this year.

I saw Tiger Woods win the U.S. Open by 15 strokes against a field of tour professionals.

I saw Notre Dame football fans sell out their stadium to 30,000 Nebraska fans on Sept. 9. Ching-ching, for old Notre Dame, I wrote.

Nebraska fans are loyal, but not all Rhode Scholars. “Kill the Lepricon,” one grateful Red-Head scrawled in soap on the wind shield of his mini-van.

I actually met a big-time boxer without an entourage. No lie. I profiled welterweight champ Shane Mosley after his June win over Oscar De La Hoya. I thought I’d need a machete to cut through the handlers and red tape.

But when I got to Shane’s thoroughly modest home in Pomona, he was standing by his mailbox talking to a neighbor. I half expected him to pull out a weed-whacker and trim the hedges.

We had a pleasant, adult conversation.

Best thing: He has no desire to become a singer and cut a C.D. of show tunes.

I stood under the goal posts in the Orange Bowl on Oct. 7 when Matt Munyon’s 49-yard field goal attempt went Wide Right III, giving Miami a thrilling 27-24 win over Florida State. I wrote that it all but killed Florida State’s national title hopes.

Won’t I be surprised next week at the Orange Bowl to find Florida State, not Miami, playing Oklahoma for the national title.

And never, ever in a thousand years did I expect to find myself in Geneva, Nebraska, last July, sitting at a soy bean refinery board meeting with former Cornhuskers’ coach Tom Osborne, who was campaigning for a seat in the U.S. Congress.

I kept waiting for Rod Serling to walk in and yell “Cut, that’s a wrap!”

Tom’s race was nip and tuck. He won with something like 86% of the vote.

I did not get to see much of the Summer Olympics this year because, as you know, they were on NBC.

There have been a lot of changes at work. Our paper was purchased by the Tribune Company, which was a good thing. We have a controversial new page 2 columnist, who gets lots and lots of negative letters. The bosses love it!

This was not my finest year professionally. I picked Texas No.1 in college football and felt good about it until Oklahoma squeaked out a 63-14 win over the Longhorns. Crummy refs!

I had two book proposals fall completely apart. I thought “Todd Marinovich, To Jail and Back,” was a dead-cinch best seller until you-know-what and, in hindsight, maybe the self-help book “Shaquille O’Neal’s 10 Keys to Good Foul Shooting” was a reach.

The kids? Ah, the tykes are great. One of these days, when I get a break in the schedule, I’m actually going to go up to all three and . . . introduce myself.

You know how it goes. Airports, hotels, deadlines, the Bobby Knight “zero tolerance” watch.

We treasure our lads, Manny, Moe and Jack.

Our eldest, almost 11, is torn between a career in sports and law, so he’s spending the Christmas holidays watching the Rae Carruth trial on Court TV.

The middle son, not yet 8, played Winter League baseball and is already the subject of trade talks.

Because he is a 10-5 kid (under 10, 5 years with the same family), he has right of first refusal.

We have retained agent Scott Boras just in case, and any team interested is going to have to put up a Razor, office space for pajama parties and a large bag of Skittles.

Our 4-year-old is also quite the sport. Last month, during a whiffle-ball game, the plastic bat slipped from my hands and landed near his feet. He picked it up and chucked it at my head.

“Where did you ever get such an idea?” I said.

“The World Series,” he said.

Kids throw the darndest things.

Well, that’s about it from this end.

Ok, maybe this letter experience wasn’t so dreadful.

All the same, though, next year I’m sending out fruitcake.