By DAN SHAFER

Baseball's annual rite of spring began last week, and America yawned.

In springs past, this no-longer-young, not-yet-old man's fancy turned most often not to love but to baseball. For more years than I care to remember, the sound that announced the birth of spring was not the chirp of a bird but the satisfying "thwack" of wood crashing into hurled horsehide. The defining moment of the season for me was not the appearance of the first crocus but the first shout of "Play Ball!"

Not this year. The owners have brought new connotations to the words "balls" and "strikes," as their lack of the former has led too often to the latter.

When spring training began in mid-February, the event all but escaped my attention. In years past, by now I would have purchased and devoured every pre-season magazine, chortled over all the inevitably incorrect prognosticators who had the temerity to forecast My Team finishing out of the pennant race.

But not this year. For the second season in a row -- and only the second in more than four decades -- I am likely to end up boycotting baseball.

Next page: A stupid argument