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Not the last 14 points of the game but the minus and plus seven points that ended the first half determined the winner of the Super Bowl this year. The Pittsburg Steelers and Arizona Cardinals were worthy contenders. They played a great game that the Cardinals should have won. Arizona was by a very small margin the better team but could not afford to give away 14 points. I don’t mean the last 14 points scored. They added up to zero.

When this series of notes started, I observed that, with the exception of George Herman Ruth, an unparalleled hitter and one of the great pitchers in baseball history, the very best in almost every case is constituted of three, four or five, occasionally more, whether that best be a position player in sports, a whole team, a university or an after dinner drink. This year’s set of college football’s bowl games proved the rule.

There have been complaints, so, yes, let me confess that there were more heroes of the San Diego Chargers’ victory over the Indianapolis Colts than Darren Sproles. Philip Rivers, a gifted quarterback, completed 20 of 36 passes for 217 yards.

Great games have two requirements: 1) SPLENDID PLAY, with the outcome delayed till the very end and 2) the IMPORTANCE OF THE GAME. Yesterday’s San Diego Chargers—Indianapolis Colts matchup was both wonderfully played and important, not only because it was the first game of the playoffs for the national championship but also because it eliminated from the series this year’s MVP, Peyton Manning, one of the brightest and most gifted quarterbacks in the history of the game. Two splendid strategies, one defensive and one offensive, took the Chargers over the top.

Chase Utley, the Phillie’s heady second basement, ranged onto the outfield grass behind the bag, speared a hard grounder, cleverly faked a throw to first and then cut down the runner trying to score. The Phillies in five! A quality closing of the book that saved what was developing into a disaster of errors and bad thinking that might otherwise have constituted our memories of the 2008 World Series between Philadelphia and Tampa Bay.

Math lets us think about relationships among things as if they were numbers. Baseball rests on numbers, too, but, also like science, depends on what’s seen for meaning as well. When a batter stands in after being decked by a pitcher who hurls 95 mile an hour fastballs from the batter’s side of the plate, we see sheer courage. Enter geometry: the kid who ducks away from that hurler’s curve for strike three is the picture of fear. Walk off homer? Utter success. Caught off base with your team down a run and two out in the ninth?

Despite totalitarian suppression of dissident protest, kitsch over-the-top fireworks, massive over-complicated displays and tainted awards in events that cried out for honest judging (all evidence of a lack of appreciation of what the games are about), the Chinese Olympics, thanks to unmatched athletic performances, ranks among the great ones.

Michael Phelps is well on his way. He has already smashed the Olympic Gold Medal record of nine, shared by his fellow swimmer Mark Spitz and a few great athletes outside of swimming, and is well on his way to surpassing the Spitz record of seven Gold Medals in one Olympic year. World records are falling meet after meet, often surpassed by more than one of the swimmers. Is it the training? The slick new body-compacting swimsuits? Relativity slowed watches?

The last All Star Game legendary Yankee Stadium will ever see was a
worthy tipping of the cap to baseball's greatest park. Appropriately,
Yankee fans thought it more important to jeer the stars of the Boston
Red Socks than to acknowledge their greatness. Babe Ruth after all,
traded by Boston to New York, gave life to the rivalry, the greatest in
American sports history. Fifteen innings of splendid pitching and
defense (for the most part), including an intentional walk to load the

The game of baseball in general last year deserves serious attention. Major League Baseball saw some remarkable records set or equaled in 2007 and by a fortuitous conjunction three vital marks were notched up in a single day. Tom Glavine, one of the nicest guys in the game, won his 300th game; Alex Rodriguez, dedicated to doing the right thing but troubled by a tender psyche, became the youngest man ever to reach the 500 homerun plateau; and Barry Bonds, who feeds on disapproval, surpassed Hank Aaron with homer number 756.

In baseball the Red Socks won it all; in football the Patriots almost repeated; and now in basketball the Celtics are back on top. Lots of folks were upset when, going against the grain of most expectations, I predicted that Boston would beat the Lakers. I thought they were a little better and with the help of the home court advantage would win in seven games. Events proved me right about victory for the Celtics, but I didn’t take sufficient account of the where in better.