This situation should be called to the attention of Baseball Commissioner Pete Ueberroth. Just imagine all the games that the Houston Astros (or any team) could have won if its catcher was allowed to catch foul balls off the net behind home plate.

Naw, that wouldn't work--baseball's a real sport.

Luckily, the announcers explained that the net can put the ball back in play on kicks and pass attempts. This must have been one of those last-minute decision in the boardroom.

Arena football is supposed to speed the game up by keeping the clock running until the last minute of play. Now, the only drawback with the running clock is that the teams have 40 seconds to get the ball into play, which often leaves the players standing around with nothing to do.

A couple of elements that were supposed to make the game more exciting are exclusive man-to-man defense, and a live ball following missed field goals. No comments.

I'm not sure that anything could save Arena football. However, being a person with many ideals, maybe Arena football would be a little better if the announcers were a litter more interesting, or if they bothered to get the rules down pat.

During halftime of the third and last game that I watched, I decided to call two of my friends (Kevin and Shawn, both fellow Houstonians) to get their opinion on this new, action-packed league.

Upon reaching them, I had to wait five minutes before they stopped laughing at the fact that I had watched the whole first half--then we started to analyze the longevity of the league.

After several minutes, we came to three sound conclusions. First, the league is probably here to stay because it can only be seen on cable. Second, the Canadian Football League (which also plays a summer season) is in Canada. Third, it will take at least a year to understand Arena football.

When the second half started, Shawn and Kevin were more interested in discussing why Ivan Lendl had failed to win Wimbledon for the second straight year.

Several times I had to remind them that we were talking about Arena football. They simply asked, why?

If you are interested in high-scoring games, then Arena football is your sport--the teams are scoring more than 45 points at will.

There are definitely fans out there for the first three weeks of Arena football. Each team is averaging more 9000 fans per game. The players in the league probably aren't in it for the money; they receive $500 dollars a game.

I have no doubt that someone else will come up with yet another football league in the near future. In the meantime, if you're interested in being bored or watching a miniature football game, then Arena football is for you. It's definitely not for me.