With the labor stoppage in hockey and the steroid scandal in baseball, it's easy to get depressed about the current state of sports. It's a world populated by overpaid and ungrateful athletes who care little for the games they play or the fate of their teams, as long as they get that big fat check.

No, the true essence of sports lies in the hearts of kids, those pure, innocent munchkins who play for the love of the game and nothing more complicated.

So when I went to visit my relatives this weekend and spend some quality time with my 7-year-old cousin and 13 year-old-sister, I was sure I'd find the pure joy of sport.

Sure enough, I found myself in the middle of a pick-up basketball game, employing little more than a half-deflated kickball, my aunt and uncle's driveway and a hoop that was leaning at about a 45 degree angle, not to mention the fact that the rim had been lowered, many years ago, to about five feet, and rusted in place. But my cousin was bound and determined to play.

"Great," I thought, readying myself for as pure a hoops experience as watching "Hoosiers" with Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan in the Rupp Arena. "Here's a kid who truly appreciates basketball specifically and the unadulterated joy of sport in general."

Little did I know that I was up against a ruthless and bloodthirsty opponent, willing to do anything to make up the three foot height differential—including rewriting the rules of the game.

Not one to use my unfair height disadvantage too much, I started out taking long shots and allowing him to have free reign under the basket. I wanted to play the game at a relaxed, informal pace, at least during the shoot-around.

My cousin, however, did not realize that the shoot-around did not count for points, and played with the reckless abandon of someone who wants to win, even if he has no idea how or why. This was when he unveiled the first twist in his perversion of the game, announcing that if a shot was good but bounced out of bounds after falling through the basket, it did not count.

He also seemed to think he could turn the game on and off at will, announcing "Buzzer!" when he thought that points should count — i.e., when he made them — and calling timeout when he decided that they shouldn't — i.e., when I or my sister made them.

His next step was to move an old mattress that his parents had thrown out so that it was directly under the basket and declare that whenever the ball touched or came within three feet of "his" mattress, it was his possession.

All of this was fine, though, mostly because he is around three feet tall and not very coordinated. It was when this innocent cherub of the roundball began taunting me that I felt it was time to start playing for real.

Throughout the afternoon, I had been faking attempts to block his shots. But when he started bragging that I couldn't play as well as him, I ran up as he was shooting and slammed the ball back in his face. Nonplussed, he declared that I was not allowed to block his shots during game time. Soon thereafter, he declared that he had won and that we should all play jump rope.

I guess there's a little Barry Bonds in all of us.

This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 5 2005.