On April 1, 1970,  the news hit my neighborhood in the south suburbs of Seattle. The Pilots,  the baseball team that obsessed all my friends, were moving to Milwaukee to become the Brewers. I was 11 years old, and I’m still mad.

Yesterday, Seattle lost the SuperSonics. An owner from Oklahoma wants to move the team to his home state, which makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is the NBA allowed him to steal the team from a region  that has always, even when the Sonics were awful, supported the team.

 Examined from a clinical, detached angle, the move makes sense. An owner should be able to move the team he purchased.

But sports aren’t clinical for most of us. Sports are a passion. An unreasonable passion, sure, a sometimes silly passion, but a passion. At its core, following  sports offers an escape from reality, a couple hours of retreat from what really matters in life.

Today, thousands of young Sonics fans are mourning the departure of their team. They are wondering about those dead-hearted men and women who inhabit the adult world. They are confused and mad, just like I was on April 1, 1970.

I’ll give Floyd Landis this much. He fought to the end. He defied the odds and the  evidence. He spent nearly two years proclaiming  his innocence. Everyone was out to get him. Everyone was mistaken. He had not cheated. His too-good-to-be-true comeback at the Tour de France had, in fact, been true.

In the end, though, the good guys won. There’s a surge in sports to rid cycling and track and field and baseball and every other sport of doping cheaters. There’s a surge to bring purity back to our games, which are in danger of becoming freak shows.

Landis failed tests. He was revealed as a cheater, a man who employed synthetic testerone to fuel his ride to the Tour victory. Yet he believed he could - if he moaned long enough about injustice, if he kept complaining about imperfections in the testing process - be exonerated.

He wasn’t. He lost appeal after appeal. He’s been stripped of his Tour title.

And there’s a great word to describe the final  result.

It’s called justice.

Spain has long reigned the king of the underachievers in Euro football - or soccer - but those days are over. Spain dominated  the 2008 Euro Cup, roaring through without a loss and winning the final Sunday without the injured David Villa, the team’s most lethal  offensive threat.

Spain dropped Germany, 1-0, but the score is deceptive. Spain could easily have scored three goals, and the Germans never seriously threatened.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa will be the most wide-open in recent memory. The home squad - the South Africans - have virtually no chance to win, or even advance to the quarter-finals, leaving plenty of hope.

Here’s an early predicition: Look for Spain to battle Argentina in the final.

What happened to, the team we knew?

The Colorado Rockies have lost five in a row. They can’t score. Their pitching  is pathetic. All - or at least most - of that magic that pushed the team to the World Series is gone. Troy Tulowitzki, who seemed on his way to the Hall of Fame last season, is hitting .148.

But here’s the strangest thing of all.

The Rockies are still breathing. They, if they ever play to their talent, could still make the playoffs.

Crazy? Sure. But true.  The Arizona Diamondbacks lead the National League West - or  Worst - with a 40-40 record. Despite everything, the Rockies could revive and finish, say, 82-80 and win the West. That would require the Rockies winning 50 of their final 81 games. It’s not probable, but it’s hardly impossible. 

I wrote Monday about Lopez Lomong, one of the “Lost Boys of Sudan” who traveled to the United States to find freedom and prosperity. He’s one of the favorites to represent the U.S. at the Olympics in the 1,500 meters.

Lopez and I have a connection. We’ve both suffered through winters in greater Syracuse N.Y.

A quick story: When Lopez was preparing to travel to the U.S., he was told he would see snow.

“I thought they meant I would see snow like in a zoo,” Lopez said, meaning seeing the snow would be a special, and rare, occasion.

Ah, not quite. Snow in Syracuse is a constant of the winter. The snow totals often flirt with 200 inches. Mountains of snow - OK, very tall hills - are in nearly every parking lot. It snows virtually every day, and it snows a lot.

Lopez had never seen snow when he arrived in Central New York. During the winter, that’s about the only thing he saw.

Last summer, after the Boston Celtics traded for Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett, I wondered about all the excitement. Everyone, it seemed, was talking about the new Big Three and the inevitable Celtics championship.

I wrote there was no way the Celtics would win it all. Play in the Finals? Probably, but the team that traveled out of the West would rule.

Everyone was right. I was wrong.

The Celtics were so magnificent in this NBA Finals that the Series became brutally boring. Sure, the Lakers won two games, but barely. Kobe Bryant all but vanished among the waves of Boston defenders.

And Paul Pierce, Allen and Garnett - a trio that had never won anything worth mentioning in the NBA - were every bit as powerful as advertised.

Here’s one thing to think about from a series most of us - except Celtics fans - will want to forget. The Celtics and Lakers could meet again in the 2009 Finals. Once again, the Lakers and Celtics rivalry will  blaze, just like the good ol’ days.

One additional note: Just before finishing this post, I found a November issue of ESPN The Magazine and saw NBA predictions from the magazine’s group of “experts” - J.A. Adande, Chris Broussard, Ric Bucher, Mark Jackson and Tim Legler.

None picked Boston to win the title and only two picked Boston to win the East.

Sometimes, it’s nice to have company in being wrong.

Why is it the NFL gets a pass when sports fans gripe about all the troubles in modern sports.

 Carmelo Anthony became a state and national pariah - a status he deserved - after his alleged  DUI offense in downtown Denver, and I listen constantly to sports fans vent their rage at the shortcomings of the NBA.

But, it seems to me, the league filled with the largest bunch of knuckleheads is the NFL. Example: Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse was arrested and charged with driving under the influence after a traffic stop in Nashville.

The NFL, for some reason, is the Teflon league. Nothing sticks. The NBA is in constant  chaos, always struggling for public acceptance, always criticized for its players wild ways, but the NFL just keeps growing, just keeps claiming more love.

Paul Pierce is  a reformed knucklehead. He’s on the verge  of leading his  Boston Celtics to an NBA title. He - not Kevin Garnett - is carrying his teammates. He - not Kobe Bryant - has been the best player in this series.

Pierce offers hope  to Denver Nuggets fans, who are confused by the continuing  escapades of Carmelo Anthony. Used to be, Boston fans wondered when Pierce would grow up.

 Well, he has. After wandering around  lost, he’s finally found his  way.

You can wait for a young, immature player to grow up, but you can’t teach talent. Sure, there are dozens  of players out there with better defensive habits - and better personal habits - than Carmelo, but there are only a few who are blessed with his size, speed and grace.

Pierce is, finally, playing to the level of his vast potential.

As tempting as it  might be to give up on Carmelo, it’s too early.  

I recently took a ride on the FREX - Front Range Express - from Colorado Springs to downtown Denver and was joined by a half-dozen Rockies fans going to a game at Coors Field. They explained that it’s a great connection. You catch the bus - which costs $9 each way - in downtown or at Woodman or at Monument and ride to within four blocks of Coors.

No parking hassles. No depressing moments at the gas pump.

It’s a great alternative to driving. It’s a great idea.
 

Just returned from the world capital of basketball. No, I didn’t travel to New York. I took a long, long ride to Buenos Aires, Argentina. It’s still a little weird to realize that Argentina, not the United States, won the 2004 Olympic gold.