What's the difference?

So which sport is the hardest? Some will tell you anyone can put a ball in a basket or run a football into the end zone. Tennis? You can easily return a lob back over the Net without really trying. Driving a race car is tough but if you have the nerve, the skills are not needed if you just rolling along the track at 180 mph by yourself.

Which brings us to golf and baseball. The baseball crowd will tell you that hitting a major-league curve ball is the hardest thing to do and having playing a lot of baseball in my younger years, I would agree that's one tough puppy to knock out of the park (or down the line or into the outfield). You not only have to have the eye to catch the spin on the ball, but you have to guess how that spin is going to carry the orb across the plate and swing according. Still, it's done every day by Little Leaguers to big-legauers.

Now golf is a different matter and I pick that as the hardest sport because it involves the most unnatural movement of the body to come in contact with the ball. Your entire body plays a part in hitting a golf ball straight, let alone 275 yards out. And you have to adjust your stance, your grip, the degree in which you turn your hips and break your wrists.

That's why you don't find many non-golfers watching the sport as you would, say, a pro basketball game. They just don't understand the game and how difficult it really can be. To top it all, your mental attitude is critical in golf. It's quiet, there's just you and the ball, and that swing. If you think it will push off to the right, it likely will. Confidence is another big key to game.

So there you have it. For my money, golf is the toughest sport to master on the planet. You can be a track star just by running and working your body into peak condition. Yes, that takes willpower and confidence as well as ability. But not as much as golf.

So the next time someone turns on a golf game and you're in a sports bar, watch them swing those sticks and move all those body parts just to get a shot off so they can get yet another try at putting the ball closer to the hole.

Trust me, folks. It's a lot harder than it looks.

Are you kidding me?

There had to be a debate over who was the MVP in the NBA this year? Sure there were some fine, fine performances out there but tell me, who can top what Kobe Bryant did with the Lakers.

Do you realize in the history of the NBA only five players have averaged 35 points or more per game? Do you realize what those points meant to his team? And they had to have a debate? OK, so they are not the powerhouse team that won all those championships when Shaq rumbled up and down the court in a yellow uniform. But they're in the postseason.

As for my No. 2 pick, I have to say it's LeBron James. Not because of his records or numbers but more because what he meant to the team when he was in the game. Like Kobe, when LeBron came onto the court something magical happened.

And it's that very magic that put underdogs like the Lakers in the postseason. Call it Kobe's award and be done with it.

Such a funny game

I think out of all the sports I ever played, golf has to be the most unusual.

I have a rotten swing, you see. I bend my left elbow and the club shaft ends up hitting me in the back of the neck. Right now if I went out and played 18, I probably wouldn't break 100. But there was a time when my handicap was a six and people who were partnered with me groaned when they saw me hit it 275 yards straight down the middle out of the T-box.

Liar, you say? Hardly. Golf is not about swinging, keeping the left arm straight, having the right clubs. It's about two things - attitude and timing.

I had a golfer's attitude when I was playing my best. I expected to hit that ball down the middle every time. I knew it would roll into the hole if I was anywhere within four feet of the cup. As for the timing, that was something else.

Both Arnold Palmer and Lee Trevino loop the clubhead when they swing - a horrid mistake that makes many golfers hackers. But like those guys, I played every day. Yes, every day. And before each round there was a bucket of golf balls to hit plus another one at the end.

I had my timing down to pinpoint accuracy and even managed to break par one time in my career.

But here's the funny part. Golf was consuming my life. It had a grip on me that would not let go. And then I realized I was never going to play on the Pro Tour. I was never going to enter amateur tournaments because I couldn't handle the pressure. So I quit. I sold my sticks and gave it up.

Today, I have a set of golf clubs and occasionally - make that rarely - I will take a few of them out and go hit a bucket of balls. But that nowadays is another problem. I hate hitting golf balls off wooden tees. That's too much work, in my humble opinion. I liked those mats with the rubber tee you simply set the ball on and fired away.

I haven't found any of those where I now live so I don't hit golf balls. But someday I am going to move to a place that has them and who knows, I just might be knocking it around 85 again (that's a good halfway point between being obsessed with a game and having fun).

And this, my friends, is a true story.

You're where?

So my good buddy, Dale Earnhardt Jr., gives me a buzz on the horn the other night just to see how I was doing these days. It's been awhile since I seen Little E, the last time being outside his rig at Lowe's Motor Speedway eating bologna burgers.

"You're where?"

"Hickory," I said. "You know, the home of Dale Jarrett."

"Man are you nuts? What on earth possessed you to move to Hickory."

It was a fair question, one for which I am still seeking the answer. I mean I was all set with Jason Keller and Jay Haas and a few other friends in Greenville, S.C., when I decided to walk on what was a great job for a promise of a better one a year ago. The only problem - other than the promise never turned into a reality - was that I had to live in Hickory.

"What do you guys do there for fun?" Little E asked. "Watch the grass grow?"

Oh heck, he knew. He must have ran at Hickory Motor Speedway - a small bullring of a track on the outskirts of the city limits here. I had no choice. I lied.

"Why this place is great E," I said. "We've got a bowling alley, two golf courses, a Class A baseball team that never seems to win - but you always can find a seat there - a lake for fishing if you like to fish and own a rod and reel and all kinds of neat stuff to do.

"Why just the other day, I got to wash my truck right here in Hickory in an automated truck-washing bay. Slip in eight bucks, out comes a clean 2004 Chevy Colorado."

Silence on the phone.

"Man, Mike, you need to get out of there. I've been to Hickory. Great place to raise kids, corn and the roof once in a blue moon if you can find one of the three bars there with a roof to raise."

Caught again.

"Yeah, I know. But it looked so great for the 20 minutes I was here on my interview," I said. "I guess I should have driven around the place first."

"Any chance they'll transfer you to another location?"

I laughed.

"Dale, we got choices - Marion, Morganton, Statesville and Hickory. They could - if my employers were really kind - move me to Mooresville or Concord so I'd be within a gallon of gas of Charlotte but that's not going to happen. I've been doing too good a job here and I am their security blanket. Someone told them a while ago they needed someone like me in Hickory."

"Have you thought about quitting?"

"Need another lug nut guy?" I asked, laughing.

So we chatted some more and hung up the phone because I had so much to get done in Hickory. Right after I head to the bank, I have to get my clothes washed and that's always a thrill.

Lord above, I'm in Hickory. The only problem is, this ain't the movie, Gene Hackman isn't here and we're not about to win the Indiana Boys Basketball Championship.

And the women? Don't even get me started there. It's impossible in this place to make male friends let alone female ones. Yep, Hickory. It's a nutty place.

I've lived in 12 states in my lifetime. That's a lot of places. And on top of the B list stands Hickory, which had replaced Beckley, W.Va., within two weeks after I got here.