01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Touching some bases while counting down the days 'til the Red Sox start running the bases at spring training . . .

Talk about disrespect -- as it seems, just about every athlete, on every team, in every sport, loves to do these days. The Seattle Seahawks are 15-3 and champions of the NFC, where they were the No. 1 seed in the playoffs. They just clobbered Carolina, which played the Patriots in the Super Bowl two years ago, 34-14, in the conference championship game. Their coach, Mike Holmgren, won a

Super Bowl with Green Bay in 1997, when the Packers beat the Patriots. Yet the Seahawks are listed as 4-point underdogs in Las Vegas to the Steelers, who are 14-5, finished second in their division to Cincinnati, were the No. 6 seed in the AFC playoffs, and had lost two previous conference championship games at home under Bill Cowher before beating the Broncos in Denver.

On the other hand, not only have the Steelers looked impressive while becoming only the second team in NFL history -- the 1985 Patriots were the first -- to reach the Super Bowl by winning three playoffs games on the road, but they also did it by eliminating the top three seeds, beating the No. 3 Bengals (31-17), upsetting the No. 1 Colts (21-18), then rolling over the second-seeded Broncos (34-17).

Let's see now . . . the Patriots beat the Steelers in Pittsburgh in September, 23-20, in a game in which they lost both Rodney Harrison and Matt Light to season-ending injuries in the first half. The Patriots then lost twice in Denver -- 28-20 in mid-October, and 27-13 in the AFC semifinals. Yet the Steelers trounced the Broncos in the AFC Championship Game. Guess that's what the NFL means by "on any given Sunday."

Jake Plummer played against the Steelers the way most people thought he'd play against the Patriots.

It's still a shock that it was Tom Terrific, and not Jake the Snake, who threw a game-changing interception at the goal line in the third quarter of the AFC semifinal.

The Red Sox missed an opportunity to make a truly eye-popping trade over the weekend when they allowed the Orioles to make a deal with the Mets for right-handed starting pitcher Kris Benson. It's not Benson who's all that special, as his 57-61 career record shows. But his wife, Anna, certainly is. Sex appeal is in short supply at Fenway with the departure of Johnny Damon to the Yankees. Anna, voted "Baseball's Hottest Wife" by FHM magazine, would have changed that. Photogenic, colorful, and outspoken, she was pictured, and quoted, frequently in New York newspapers. An example of her ability to create headlines was a radio interview with Howard Stern in which she informed the shock-jock supreme that, if she ever caught her husband cheating on her, she would have sex with "everybody on the entire team -- coaches, trainers, players, everybody."

Forgive me if I have a hard time understanding why it was difficult for Alex Rodriguez to decide whether to play for the United States or the Dominican Republic in the upcoming World Baseball Classic. He was born in the United States, went to high school in Miami, and has earned fame and fortune in this country. My grandfather was born in Scotland. But I know that my Dad, who was in the first class inducted into the Rhode Island College Athletic Hall of Fame, and, after college, flew dive bombers off the USS Lexington in the Pacific during World War II, wouldn't have taken more than a split-second to decide which country he'd want to represent in international competition.

And Nomar, another U.S.-born player, who grew up in southern California, is playing for Mexico? Of course, that's only because he's no longer good enough to make the U.S. team.

Patriots fans looking for a rooting interest in Super Bowl XL might want to adopt the Seattle Seahawks, who have a couple of former Pats' progeny playing for them. Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck is the son of Don Hasselbeck, who played tight end for New England from 1977-83, and standout rookie linebacker Lofa Tatupu is the son of popular fullback and special-teams star Mosi Tatupu, whose career with the Pats spanned 13 seasons, from 1978-90. Matt Hasselbeck played high school football at greater Boston powerhouse Xaverian before moving on to Boston College. Lofa Tatupu played for his father at King Philip Regional High, then, after a year at the University of Maine, transferred to Mosi's alma mater, Southern Cal, where he was the leading tackler on back-to-back national championship teams for former Pats coach Pete Carroll's Trojans.

Brown University fans figure to be backing Pittsburgh, where former Bears coach -- and quarterback, too -- Mark Whipple, has been instrumental in the rapid development of Ben Roethlisberger. Also, former Bears star Sean Morey, who was the Ivy League Player of the Year in 1997 and graduated as the leading receiver in league history, with 251 catches, for 3,850 yards, and 40 TDs, has carved out a career in the NFL as a special-teams standout, first in New England, then in Philadelphia, before signing with the Steelers in 2004.

Shame on those Boston College fans -- make that "so-called fans" -- who lustily (according to the Boston Globe) booed the Eagles when they fell behind by 21 points in the second half of a recent loss to N.C. State at Conte Forum. There is no reason to boo college kids. The coaches, OK. They're big boys, making big bucks. But booing the kids is out of line. If you don't like the team, don't go to the game.

If only my bosses at the Journal were like the board members who dealt with Bob Urciuoli at Roger Williams Medical Center, I could go to Miami for the Super Bowl, instead of Detroit, and the paper still would pick up the tab.

jdonalds@projo.com / (401) 277-7340