Sports. Sports. Sports.

Basketball will be wrapping up for the Pros...(and as College Ball just did)...Hockey is headed towards the playoffs, and Baseball is beginning.

I love sports, I do. I love baseball, the game, the crowds, the atmosphere, the theater of it all. And Charles turned me into a hockey fan (and hey, the Blues are doing pretty well right now, so yay!).....and I do follow, quietly, college basketball...rooting for Duke and SLU. (Good year for Duke, so of course everyone who doesn't like Duke is vacillating between grumbling, grudging respect, or complaining.)

We all have teams we love, if we love sports at all. And that's fine...sports are supposed to have intense moments that endear the teams to us. We love the quirks of the players and coaches/managers, we love the style of the game, we love the burst of adrenaline.

But please.....please.....please remember...it is a game. It's not worth being bitter about. If your team loses, they lose. I didn't hold it against Boston when they beat us in the Series...and as much as I am in NO way a Giants fan, I didn't hold it against them, or their fans, when they beat us for the National League Championship last year. Losses happen. The best team wins the game at hand. Some days or night the victory belongs to your team...and sometimes... it doesn't.

I love the line in "A League of Their Own," where Tom Hanks, a gruff manager says to his all-girl team during the War Leagues..."THERE'S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL!" I laugh every time.

But it's true. There shouldn't be crying, or whining, in sports. If you win...win gracefully. If you lose, lose gracefully. Have dignity, both the fans and the players. I was raised by a hardcore sports fan, who has very strong opinions on which teams we are to like and which teams we do not like...he passed most of those down to me. But I never bad mouth my friends' teams after a game...even though I shall never, ever root for the Giants or 49ers. (Sorry, CA friends.) And when those teams have beaten one of mine in a hard fought series...I try and go to friends I know who support those teams and congratulate them on the win.

Because friendships are more important than sports.

So during the playoffs for Basketball or Hockey, or through the long baseball season....don't get cocky....teams win, and teams lose...and no one knows who will take the night until the buzzer goes off. Be gracious...and remember....it is Just. A. Game.

-Beth Haynes Butler