By Kim J. Harmon

If I wasn’t reaching the ripe, old – and most likely decrepit – age of 37 this weekend, then maybe I wouldn’t be in such a stupid, reflective mood. But, sitting on the couch watching the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers struggling in a game that is pitifully insignificant considering that 84 games are played in the NBA and more than half the teams make the playoffs, I have to wonder when and how and why – yes, why? – sports have become so complicated.

See, I don’t have to watch the Spurs and the Pacers game. I don’t have to keep an eye on Rik Smits and Chris Mullin to judge what kind of legs these two old-timers (both of them younger than me) still have. I don’t have to watch my fantasy basketball team climb to the top of the division. Rather, I could watch it tumble to the bottom like some poor schlep of a father falling down the stairs after tripping on his kid’s Poke Ball.

Since I don’t want that to happen, I have to watch . . . or at least keep half an eye tuned to the score during the commercials of Everybody Loves Raymond. Just like I have to pay attention to all 31 teams in the National Football League (which will continue to expand, apparently, until it becomes so bloated that 50 years from now Newtown will be the only town in America without a team) and not just the New York Giants (as hideously painful as that has become). It’s not just the scores, but the players. Who is playing well? Who isn’t? Who is coming up lame? Who had his brains scrambled again? Who is that new one-week wonder, that flash in the pan that – once I pick him up – will disappear into oblivion?

I have to get that information, which is why I spend so much time at home scanning the World Wide Web for any scrap of information that would tell me if I should play Fred Taylor on Sunday or sit him on the bench with that nagging hamstring injury or why Steve Buerlein went undrafted despite heaving the second-most touchdowns in the NFC.

If I get this information, then I can make the kind of bold and gutsy moves that George Young made when he brought Dave Brown and Danny Kanell to New York to take over for would-be Hall of Famer, Phil Simms.

I’m not the only one obsessing like this.

Oh no.

No one just watches games anymore. Everything has become so darned interactive that if we simply sit down on the couch with a fist in a bag of nachos, we feel like we’re wasting precious minutes of getting involved. There are weekly gambling pools with your friends (which we don’t condone, of course, especially considering our success rate at such things), weekly gambling pools on the internet that somehow don’t really involve money, weekly Winner’s or Loser’s pools, fantasy teams, video games, and – only as a last resort – real live flag football.

Heck, when I have the game on at home, I can’t sit for more than a minute or two without either throwing the Nerf ball around the living room with my son (don’t tell the wife!) or getting into a rough and tumble game of tackle on the couch (please don’t tell the wife!).

I’ve done the pools, the Winner’s pools (you pick just one winner every week and if you win, you get to play another week), but I’ve found it would be easier just to set fire to my wallet. I’ve also been involved in fantasy leagues for several years now and one time was within an eyelash of the Super Bowl when Steve Young unfortunately had a marvelous game and blew my team out of the water.

Running a fantasy team is tough. A person can get mighty frustrated watching their No. 1 draft pick – such as Fred Taylor – come up with a niggling hamstring injury that forces him to sit down half the time. But, hey, at least I wasn’t one of the unlucky doofuses – or is that doofi? – who picked Terrell Davis No. 1 overall, only to see him blow his knee out.

I also play the video games . . . NCAA Gamebreaker 2000 . . . NHL Faceoff 2000 – stuff like that. It used to be, too, you could just play these games until you got tired and then turned them off. But now, because people want to be so involved in the game, all these new products have so-called general manager or career modes, which allow the player to take a team through a succession of seasons, drafting and signing players, trading and releasing other players, and somehow struggling to the Super Bowl or Stanley Cup or one of the numerous College Bowl Games and a No. 1 ranking.

Those games – if you’re not too chicken to start on the hardest level – can be tough because, let’s face it, if John Muckler can get the real New York Rangers to play defense then how the heck am I going to do it on a video game? Digitized players, I have found, can be even more annoying than the real players can. I mean, how am I going to get my goalie to stay in the crease for god’s sake?

Yes, technology has enabled us to become involved in the game – really involved in the game – and it won’t be long before virtual reality has become so perfected that, after you put on that stupid-looking helmet, you become immersed in a truly seamless world where you are the pitcher, you are the quarterback, you are the center getting boarded or high-sticked by the one-toothed goon from the other team.

Ouch – I can’t wait.