The most intriguing at-bat of 2007 is leaking into 2008. You can sense it by the way a 25-year-old wannabe struts through his February workouts. You can sense it by the way a 40-year-old shoulder shrugs at the line of questioning. You can sense it by the way a Hall of Famer is uncomfortably stuck in the middle. And you can sense it by the way a filthy rich man stares into space.

On Sept. 29, 2007, Tony Gwynn Jr., for all practical purposes, knocked Tony Gwynn Sr.’s team out of the playoffs. But it’s much crueler than that. He did it with two outs and two strikes in the bottom of the ninth — against his Uncle Trevor. He did it with the champagne on ice and the Colorado Rockies on life support. He did it against the franchise that clothed and fed him and against a fan base that, 81 days a year, walks down Tony Gwynn Drive to the turnstiles. He did it as the only son of San Diego’s favorite son. And this is how he pays everyone back?

But to understand Sept. 29, 2007, you need to scoot back one day to Sept. 28.

That night, in a corridor of Miller Park in Milwaukee, Tony Gwynn Jr. asked San Diego Padres owner John Moores for a favor.

Wait until you hear it.

*****

The most intriguing at-bat of 2007 has its roots in 1997. Back then, a boney 15-year-old kid named Anthony Gwynn, otherwise known as Little T, sat at the same locker every day in the Padres’ clubhouse:

Not his dad’s.

Trevor Hoffman’s.

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In 1975, the year I graduated from Marquette University as it happens, Joan Baez got her own back, gently, at Bob Dylan, for whatever happened in their complicated relationship back in what we geezer folk like to call “The Sixties,” in a lovely song called “Diamonds and Rust.” At one point, she challenges him to identify the reason he called her, which he insists was not nostalgic. “Give me another word for it,” she sings to him, slipping a velvet-handled shiv into his ribs. “You who are so good with words.”

The thing is, there has to be a better word for the way a longtime feeling of community rises unbidden when the right song pops up on a jukebox, or how I can still tell to this day the difference between the way yeast smells and the way hops smell, or the way the chill wind comes off the big lake. Or, as was the case this past weekend, how I felt just looking at the big, round dormitory I first entered four decades ago this past autumn. It is an odd sort of belonging, alive again. And it is not nostalgia, which is simple and marketable and, in so many ways, sterile and dead.

The big, round dormitory is called McCormick Hall, and it sits on the corner of 16th Street and Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee, across the street from a bar that is now called Caffrey’s, but which I first knew as The Ardmore in the days in which I lived in the big, round dormitory. (The Ardmore specialized in something called “The Vulcan Mind Probe,” which you could use to run a snowmobile in a pinch, and generally caused undergraduates to behave illogically.) I saw it as I drove to the freeway that leads from Milwaukee to Madison, where Marquette was playing Wisconsin in a battle of two top-20 basketball programs on a wet, chilled afternoon. The game lived up to its billing, albeit in a ragged and eccentric fashion.

Wisconsin is a big, talented team, and extraordinarily gifted at milking the shot clock and dropping a 3-pointer just before time expires, which is an exhausting strategy to defend. “They make you play the last 10 seconds of the clock harder than the first 25,” Marquette coach Buzz Williams would later explain. For himself, Williams has an intriguing mix of young and old players, including a point guard named Darius Johnson-Odom who has a chest like Vinnie Johnson, and who bops around like vintage Earl Monroe, all herky-jerky, like a marionette of a drunken puppeteer. He’s going to spend all year trying to blend veterans like Johnson-Odom and dreadlocked forward Jae Crowder in with new players, especially an irrepressible scoring guard named Todd Mayo.

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You take me more seriously than sometimes I take myself,” David Stern said during the lockout, and he’s been saying the same thing, or at least acting it out, for 25 years. It’s the key to his whole persona. Stern is the tyrant-as-entertainer, the mob boss who winks while he’s calling in the hit. He’s always kidding when he seems serious, but he’s always deadly serious when he’s kidding. Having decided that one of his tasks is to chaperone a skittish (white) public through an intimidating (black) sports league, he’s cast himself simultaneously as the cop who keeps you safe and the clown who reminds you that really, it’s only a movie.

For a long time, the two pillars of David Stern’s commissionership were his air of absolute authority and the sense of easy whimsy with which he inhabited it. Other sports commissioners were functionaries or bureaucrats: Paul Tagliabue was a responsible steward more than a dynamic leader, Bud Selig was a slack-haired joke. But when Stern took the stage to his annual chorus of boos at the NBA draft, he radiated the amused self-confidence of someone who knows he’s invincible. That’s OK, it’s only a game, his smile seemed to say, and everyone knows no one fucks with me. His perspective was always larger than yours, which meant he could afford to be patient with you — even if you hated him, you just couldn’t see the whole picture. It also meant that if he decided to kneecap you,1 you might never understand his reasons, but either way you weren’t getting up.

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The tie began snug to John Chaney’s neck, perfect for a Sunday afternoon. By the second television timeout, the knot was around his sternum. By halftime, it was near his kneecaps.

Chaney’s tie, like his Temple basketball team, fought the good fight in the NCAA East Regional final against Duke. But in the end, both came unraveled as the Blue Devils stormed into the Final Four with an 85-64 victory at Continental Airlines Arena.

Duke advances to Saturday’s national semifinal at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Fla., against Midwest Regional champion Michigan State. The Blue Devils defeated the Spartans 73-67 in Chicago on Dec. 2.

“That team is playing at the highest level of basketball right now,” Chaney said of Duke, “not just physically, but with a spirit. … I just hope that whoever plans to beat them believes in the Lord.”

The notion that no one has a prayer of beating top-ranked Duke (36-1) has circulated for weeks. The Blue Devils are on a 31-game tear and haven’t won by fewer than 15 points since early February.

But sixth-seeded Temple (24-11) gave Duke all it could handle early with its zone defenses and relentless rebounding. Then Trajan Langdon showed why many consider him the college game’s purest shooter.

With Duke trailing 9-5, its first deficit in four NCAA Tournament games, Langdon began an 11-point spree that required all of 2:18. He hit a leaner in the lane, followed by three consecutive 3-pointers.

The Blue Devils led 16-11 and never looked back. Langdon, voted the regional’s MVP, finished with a game-high 23 points. He made six of his seven shots, five of his six threes.

“We knew Langdon was going to hit shots,” Chaney said. “We just didn’t know how well. … They got the ball to Langdon when everyone else out there seemed to be dying a natural death. … He’s as pure a shooter as I’ve seen.”

Temple’s zones dare teams to launch 3-pointers. The Owls prefer to defend the interior, and Sunday their target was Elton Brand, Duke’s All-American center.

“I don’t see how you can dare him,” Duke forward Chris Carrawell said of Langdon. “He’s the best shooter in the country.”

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Derek Anderson was hungry and alone.

Neither circumstance was unusual, he says, but this time there was the threat of permanence. His mother was gone – just left, with no warning, no word where and no telling when she’d return. His older brother had walked off awhile before, into the unforgiving western Louisville streets. His father had long ago faded from view.

Derek needed to eat.

To eat he needed money.

He had none.

He was 12 years old.

Today, Derek sits in the expansive Waterfront Plaza office of his business, DA Enterprises Inc., a budding conglomerate that includes a clothing line, pizza chain and real-estate development. He is signing certificates for San Antonio, Texas, school children who had perfect attendance last year.

Platinum and diamonds encircle his neck, wrists and fingers, proof of the professional basketball riches he has earned since leaving the University of Kentucky in 1997.

“Grace of God,” he says, trying to summarize how he got here. “Just the grace of God. He put His hands on me. He touched me then, and He’s touching me now.

“I can’t explain it. If you look at it, if you walk through my life, you’ll be amazed at how I did it.”

Put on your walking shoes and prepare to experience the amazing grace of Derek Anderson.

We will journey with him from abjection to abundance, from aloneness to adulation.

A youngster with nothing will one day sign a $48 million National Basketball Association contract with the Portland Trail Blazers.

A child kicked to society’s periphery will blossom into a generous, ambitious and active civic force in his hometown.

But along the way we will see fear and sorrow.

 No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law.

— Emma Goldman

Idon’t know if this means anything, but, long about half-past 35-7 the other night in Foxboro, I could’ve sworn I saw a couple of New England Patriots rolling dice for Tim Tebow’s jersey.

(Please forward all my mail to my new business address: CPP, Roasting on Third Spit From the Left, RFD Route 666, Hell.)

Spirited blasphemy of this sort broke out generally long before halftime the other night, as the full measure of the preposterous beating the Patriots were handing the Broncos became ghoulishly apparent. As an alternative to watching what New England was doing to six days of unbearable hype, there was a lot to recommend it. Tim Tebow is a lovely young man, his faith an unquenchable fire. He also throws the ball like Jed Clampett and, facing a defense that did not stupidly line everyone up in the box to stop the vaunted Denver “option offense” — Sell-By Date: November 5, 1951 — he got himself chased out of the pocket on a number of occasions in ever-widening circles until he came dangerously close to standing in a beer line behind the seats in the lower bowl. He is decidedly Not Ready, and that is the sum of him at the moment.

He also unfortunately was facing Bill Belichick on a night when Belichick decided that he would act like Gandalf the Grey beyond simply dressing like him. This was apparent at the 13:50 mark of the first quarter, when the Patriots lined up tight end Aaron Hernandez in the backfield. Along with burly budding teen idol Rob Gronkowski, Hernandez is one of the two gifted tight ends with whom Belichick can make all kinds of monkey mischief on unwitting defensive coordinators. While Gronkowski is a powerful runner with surprising athleticism — his flat-out bobbling touchdown catch in the corner of the end zone was one Andre Johnson would have been proud to claim — Hernandez is a speedy athlete with surprising strength. This gives Belichick a lot of options for creative thinking. So he put Hernandez in the backfield, and the latter cracked one off for 43 yards around the left side of a gobsmacked Denver defense to set up the first New England touchdown.

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COLLEGE PARK, Md. – With 2:03 to play Wednesday night, North Carolina’s Jason Capel made a 3-pointer and ran up the floor with three fingers raised in triumph.

Problem: The Tar Heels needed about nine more of those hoops in rapid-fire succession to become competitive. Perhaps the senior was mathematically challenged by a scoreboard that screamed ignominious history.

In the end, it screamed Maryland 112, UNC 79.

“I didn’t see (Capel) and I don’t care,” said Terrapins point guard Steve Blake, who had 14 assists. “We were up by 27. He can do whatever he wants.”

The fourth-ranked Terps recorded the highest point total ever against the reeling Heels. The loss was UNC’s most lopsided in 38 years and its most lopsided ever on the ACC road, and it again compels the quest for answers and a simultaneous declaration of determination.

“We don’t have a choice,” coach Matt Doherty said. “We don’t have options. We’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to have positive energy. We have got to move on because we’re not going to let down. This team, this program, this coaching staff are not going to let down.”

Few expected Carolina, 5-7 overall for the first time in 51 years, to win its final trip to 48-year-old Cole Field House and the capacity crowd of 14,500. But absolutely nobody expected this.

Juan Dixon scored 29 points in 26 minutes and was pulled with 12 minutes left lest the nearby U.S. Supreme Court intercede and stop the show on grounds of public decency and community standards. Byron Mouton had 17, Chris Wilcox 16 and Blake a dozen.

“It kind of reminded me of the way to the Final Four,” Wilcox said, referring to the Terps’ run to Minneapolis last April. “If we play like that the rest of the season, we could take this a long way.”

UNC (1-2 ACC) committed 13 of its 25 turnovers in the first 12 minutes, by which time it trailed 43-18. Freshman Jawad Williams had five by himself in his first 90 seconds on the floor. In one second-half stretch, Blake assisted fast-break dunks by Wilcox, Mouton and Lonny Baxter, who was limping on a sprained ankle.

Capel, who tied a career high with 27 points, quickly grew weary of postgame analysis.

CLEVELAND, Ohio — After two days of celebrating LeBron James’ failure to win his championship ring, I woke up to a gut-punch of a revelation:

If he were my son, I’d be having an entirely different conversation about him.

Heart meets head, and the hangover ain’t pretty.

I don’t like what I’ve become on my way to cheering for LeBron’s defeat. It’s not like me, this dancing on the grave, and I can no longer draw comfort from knowing I’m just one of gazillions who currently loathe him. The crowd is turning into a mob.

This is not to excuse James’ bad behavior. I’m a Clevelander. He had already worn on my last nerve by the time he sat down for Sunday’s postgame news conference and lobbed this grenade:

“At the end of the day, all the people that were rooting on me to fail . . . they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today,” James said. “They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live. . . . But they have to get back to the real world at some point.”

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The ex-fighter known around here as the Butcher, affectionately, has a signed photograph of Joe Frazier that he keeps like a laminated Mass card in his wallet. He has other personalized mementos, too, including a couple of scars on his fist-dented face, the handiwork of Smokin’ Joe.

The Butcher knew Frazier as well as anyone can in the public intimacy of a boxing match, where exhausted men hold each other in sweaty, slow-dance clinches. But he did not go to Frazier’s funeral in Philadelphia on Monday, attended by boxing’s elite. Among other reasons, the Butcher drives a school bus now; he had to make his rounds.

Besides, Frazier is forever with the Butcher. It has been this way for nearly 40 years, since May 25, 1972, when Frazier, the heavyweight champion of the world — the world — came to Omaha to fight an obscure long shot from the neighboring Iowa city of Council Bluffs: a challenger with a steel-driving punch and a penchant for bleeding by the name of Ron Stander, also called “The Bluffs Butcher.” Or, simply, the Butcher.

“If,” the Butcher says, past bridgework that he often pops out with his tongue as a joking but startling reminder of his brutal past life. His hair is gray, his gut is pronounced, and his mind is sharp enough to know the toll that the Butcher has taken.

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The old man loves little sayings that capture the whole deal, and he sprinkles them through practice on an early December morning. Sipping a 12-ounce Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, in sweats and a Temple baseball cap, John Chaney, born almost three-quarters of a century ago, edges around the Liacouras Center court stiffly, pigeon-toed, calmly watching his players scrimmage before the sun is up on North Broad. Then the ball is passed carelessly out of bounds.

“I’m looking at your head, Dustin!” Chaney yells in his pebbles-in-a-pipe voice. “What you can’t see will hurt you. But what you can’t see but know, will help you.” Coach is full of stuff like this. What’s he mean? It’s not always obvious. He wants his kids to think, to figure it out.

A few minutes later, Coach is holding forth near mid-court, his team in a loose semicircle, dripping with sweat, all eyes on him. He is talking foundation, he is talking how you start, as a player: “With one step. Catch it, pass it, ex-e-cu-ting your plays. Your job, when you come out on the floor, is, one, no turnovers. Two — what’s the second one?”

Someone calls out, softly: Establish the floor.

“Establish the floor!” Chaney yells. It means, and they know this because he’s been drumming it home for a month of practices, Take control. Make it yours.Chaney is quickly heating up to something larger, and his eyes seem to go opaque with intensity: “You do that in marriage, you do that in a home, you do that in a business, everything you do involves what you do the first day. The first day!”

A momentary silence, everyone still watching him. Then, louder still:

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