It's been a pretty good sports year — until now.

The New York Giants stunned unbeaten New England in the Super Bowl, Kansas hit a miraculous 3-pointer to force overtime, then defeated Memphis in a thrilling NCAA Tournament title game, Tiger Woods won the U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff with a gimpy knee.

The Boston Celtics returned to prominence with an intense NBAchampionship run, Big Brown emerged as one of the best thoroughbred horses in years and our Pittsburgh Penguins came within two wins of a Stanley Cup.

Pretty good stuff.

Then there's baseball, which has provided the black eye of the 2008 sports year so far.

Yes, there was a tremendous All-Star Game and the story of the worst-to-first Tampa Bay, no longer Devil, Rays.

But two guys who should go down as two of the sport's greatest players — Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens — slipped away from the game under serious steroid scrutiny.

And the World Series, uh, well, what's a delicate way to put this — it was a disaster.

The Fall Classic should have been renamed the Classic Follies for the way it was handled:

• The best game of the Series, Game 3, nobody saw. A starting time after 10 p.m. Eastern had something to do with that.

• Game 5 never should have been started Monday night. The radar revealed wet stuff all over the region, though Bud Selig, the esteemed commissioner of baseball, blamed every weatherman in Philadelphia for not giving him fair warning of impending bad weather.

• Once Game 5 did begin, it should have been stopped two or three innings before it was, then replayed in its entirety. The last two innings of play that night were a disgrace.

When B.J. Upton stole second in the muck during the top of the sixth, baseball could have lost one of its brightest stars to a colossal knee injury.

Duh.

• Selig claimed that he decided Saturday that no World Series game would be played in fewer than nine innings. Yeah, right.

That's why nobody knew that besides him when Tampa Bay was frantically trying to tie Game 5 in the sixth inning. Even the FOXguys didn't know.

Can you say press release?Or did Bud actually make that decision as the rain got heavier Monday night?

My guess is the latter.

It's all OKin Selig's rose-colored world. Baseball's glass isn't half full in his eyes, it's overflowing. Champagne for everyone.

Or maybe in this case, hot chocolate.

There were some great story lines overshadowed by these follies. The rejuvenation of Brad Lidge's career and the 25-year Philadelphia title drought are two of them.

But, hey, blame it on the National League.

If Lidge's lone blown save all season wasn't in the All-Star Game, the middle three games of the World Series would have been played under the dome in St. Petersburg and none of this would have happened.

John Enrietto is sports editor of the Butler Eagle.