Poor Dan the Man! Poor, innocent, unsuspecting, wide-eyed Dan the Man. Just 7 years old and his view of the world is about to begin its gradual decline toward a cynicism that heretofore he never knew existed.

	Organized youth sports are fine, but disorganized youth sports are even better.

My kid had his first baseball game a few weeks back. He is now a ball- and glove-carrying member of the world of organized youth sports -- America's home version of "Star Search" -- the place where the joy of participation is eventually replaced by talent evaluators known as parents, coaches and various other misguided adults.

Dan the Man will soon discover that organized sports aren't nearly as fun as the disorganized games kids play in their backyards, with their friends, without uniforms, without fees, and most importantly -- without adult intervention. In pick-up games, everyone plays. No one's excluded. Maybe it's just because every "body" is needed to fill the teams, but I honestly remember my group of friends being far more sensitive to the feelings of other children than the coaches we played for.

Sure, there's sadness for the kid who always gets chosen last, but at least he knows he'll play every inning, every down, or every second of 4-on-4 half-court. Meanwhile, I remember Little League coaches struggling to figure out how to get the fat kid in and of out of right field for the minimum required two innings without him costing us the game. If the coaches didn't have to play everyone, it's clear many of them wouldn't.

In pick-up games, there are do-overs arrived at democratically. It's understood that a ball that hits the house is still in play, and if it rolls down the drain, it's a ground-rule double. Third base is the lamp post and you slide at your own peril. And the only time limit is when Joey's mom calls him in for dinner and he has to bring the street hockey net back inside. "Game over." "See you tomorrow." "Can't ... I got a Little League game." "Oh, sorry to hear that." "Yeah, me, too."

Looking back, the best times I had playing sports were the stick-ball games in the street, the pick-up games at the park, the street hockey games at the train station, and just about any other game that went on without supervision. We played hard. We fought. We compromised. And like the constipated recluse, we worked things out on our own. No shirt, no special shoes, no problems.

But even with the jaded memories of my past, I'm glad Daniel is participating. He's 7 years old, and he deserves to have pure, innocent, "love of the game" kind of fun for as long as it'll last. But knowing that it won't last long, I've decided to offer Daniel a few words of wisdom to prepare him for this decadent path he has embarked upon -- a few, simple do's and don't's, if you will.