On the academic side, choose class times wisely. As a general rule, mornings are good, afternoons dangerous and evenings out of the question. Yes, this contradicts conventional wisdom, but playoffs are playoffs.

Seek out professors and section leaders with, if not outright sympathy for your passion, at minimum a basic comprehension of the precepts of the game.

Pleading addiction to the Red Sox will come off much more effectively if you don't have to preface your excuse with an explanation of the difference between a foul ball and fastball.

The smart money here is on courses taught by people like Michael Sandel or William Gienapp--acknowledged baseball fans who will feel your pain.

And even when you've got support from your teaching staff, be able to cultivate exotic but plausible excuses for all contingencies. A suitable coded reference to "game five, six and seven, if necessary," might be on the order of "I'll know for certain by Friday whether the virus has responded to antibiotics."

Finally, be able to make intelligent trade-offs. Though missing any of the action is anathema, academic survival may sometimes dictate it.

Case in point: skipping a Sex lecture to watch game seven is acceptable, bagging a midterm because you were thirsting for Joe Morgan's hard-hitting post-game commentary is not.

But if push comes to shove, and your scholarly future is on the line, consider that Harvard will still be here after you take a year off for academic difficulties. If you are a Cubs fan, the playoffs may not. Choose carefully.

To return to Cosmo's complaint, note only that the well-documented relationships between sports and sex does have an empirical basis.

Harper's Index this month reports that when his team wins, the average male sports fan's testosterone level increases by 20 percent.

I'll let the players on the Harvard dating scene draw their own conclusions from this last fact. But it's a safe bet that Yankee fans, rejuvenated by another glorious October, will be doing some catching up at the end of the month. Daniel Habib '00, a Crimson editor, is a literature concentrator in Adams House.