Sports completely mystify me. Now, stop me if I'm wrong, I think I'm not alone in this.

It's not that I'm stupid (that presents a whole other host of problems completely unrelated to sports), it's just that the rules for most sports are completely unknowable by mortal man.

The rules for football, for instance, were invented by a monk in the 12th century after accidently eating some bad veal. After hiding in a closet for three days with only a squirrel named Gerald to keep him company, he stepped out holding the NFL Rulebook.

That's just an example of the bizarre processes under which most professional sports rules were made. The trouble is we've been playing by these rules so long, it hasn't occurred to us to change them.

Of course, nobody really fully understands the rules to any sport. Take, for instance, this conversation sampled from a recent sportscast. (The sport, as usual, is completely irrelevant.)

Newscaster #1: Ooh. The referee called a foul on that play. Johnson was apparently carrying the ball in his hand, rather than in the special basket provided.

Newscaster #2: I have to disagree with that call, Bill. What the Ref failed to notice is that Johnson is wearing Blue socks today, so the ball hand pass is perfectly legal.

Newscaster #1: How could I have been such an ignorant slut? But, wait! The other referee is consulting, apparently he finds a problem with the ruling.

Newscaster #2: They're looking through the rule book and . . . oh yes, their brains have seized up and they've fallen over.

Now take Rugby. Now, I can't say that I completely understand the rules of it. In fact, my only real contact with the sport was when I visited the emergency room during the Boy Scouts.

My friend had sawed through a bit of his hand while on a camping trip and was waiting to get it sewn back on (I urged him to have the doctor leave a little pouch for spare change, but I was ignored).

While we were waiting, we noticed a guy completely covered in dirt. He had two ice packs, one on his knee, the other on his head. He had a new bandage over a monstrous cut on his leg, and was bleeding out of several small wounds. He was wearing a sporting uniform, that he claimed was for Rugby. Upon further questioning he revealed that he wasn't hurt, he was merely waiting for his friend who had a "little scrape" (which, in this context, I can only define as "missing a head").

Luckily, some sensible people from the medical profession stepped in, or this man might have been allowed to breed.

But, from a certain amount of observation, the rules of Rugby seem to be this:

1. Several guys are on a field with a leather ball.

2. They sort of vaguely wrestle with each other until one guy (called a "hooker") kicks the ball to one of his hapless teammates. This, as I understand it, is called a "scrum."

3. At this point, every player on the field (and some of the fans, I believe) attempt to beat him to death.

4. The winner is the team that manages to beat him to death first, with some sort of bonus given for severed limbs.

5. If the ball gets within ten feet of the goals on either end of the field both teams react with disappointment and the whole thing starts again.

Although, I think if I were the player who was getting kicked to death, "scrum" might be a bit tame. In fact, if it were me, I think I would be trying to kill the "hooker" who got me "scrummed."

And this is only an example of how mystifying sports can be.

The entire point of volleyball seems to be to keep the ball from hitting the floor. In fact, six man teams are set up on either side of the net for the express purpose of not letting the ball fall to the floor. It seems to me that if you really wanted to keep the ball from hitting the floor, you would never bring it on to the court in the first place. And if you did make the fatal error of bringing it to the court, that one of your teammates would at least have the common decency to grab it and put it somewhere safe for you.

And there's nothing more silly than watching sports on tv. At least when I go to my nephew's little league games, even if I don't understand the rules, I can have the satisfaction of seeing somebody I know getting lots of exercise. TV doesn't even give me that.

All I get from TV is a beer commercial every five minutes and a sense of deja-vu from the five-billion replays of the one interesting play in the game. I think the beer companies have a real racket going. They know full well that most people can't stand to watch TV sports while sober.

Of course, what's interesting is that they pair up beer commercials with power tool commercials during sporting events. Yeah, like we need more people with power tools getting liquored up.

Maybe that's the key to understanding sports. Maybe if I sat in a chair, drunk out of my mind, power saw buzzing away, I would have a clue how to understand them. Maybe if a "hooker" "scrummed" me, I would have the faintest inkling of the mass appeal of watching them.

Personally, I think the only way I'm going to fully grok what's going on in the sports world is if I stumble across some bad veal and find a squirrel of my own. Then, maybe he can explain it all.