The Harvard and Yale football coaches also battle for that narrow group of athletes good enough academically to attend Harvard or Yale but bad enough on the field to keep them from attending Stanford.

On the gridiron it's more of the same, as both teams battle for field position--although it's much easier to invade the other team's territory than it is to invade a political party's core constituency.

When it comes down to it, the two teams playing tomorrow aren't that different. They are both pretty mediocre on the scale of college football teams. They would get crushed by the worst team in the Big Ten, and they would pound on the best team in the New England Small College Athletic Conference.

The Ivy League lies somewhere between the Atlantic 10 Conference and the Patriot League, which all lie somewhere between Division I and Division II. Harvard and Yale are fighting for the slice of the Ivy League standings that lie between Penn/Cornell and the rest of the conference.

But even I will admit that despite the miniscule place The Game occupies in the immense cosmos, there is pride at stake for the two teams, the two schools and even the two presidential candidates.

The final score will cause joy on one side and sorrow on the other. These emotions will be real, stemming from pride in having the better or worse football team, in earning or dropping the year's bragging rights, in winning or losing the middle ground.

When the stakes are small, the fight is fierce.

Once it's over, one thing is sure: if the scoreboard gives The Game to the out-of-towners, I'm going to demand a recount.