My mom arrived for a weekend with the baby. I'd say that she came to see the three of us, but you know, that's really not true anymore.

Anyhow, overhearing me sing the baby to sleep with his favorite lullaby, "Take Me Out To The Ballgame," she informed me that "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" isn't a lullaby.

	Forget this book, it's time your kid learned about the real world.

A little embarrassed, I told my mom that it was the one childhood song I could remember verse for verse. Call it sad or funny, but it's the honest truth.

Sports, as you would expect, are a theme in our house. And from clothes to cookies, we've received plenty of sports-themed baby gifts.

One arrived just this week. Produced by Major League Baseball (hologram sticker on the front proves Major League Baseball licensed it.), it's a baseball book of ABC's.

Pages 1 and 2 read like this:

"A is for American League, aluminum bat, all-star and autograph."

Pictured on the pages are Sammy Sosa and an aluminum bat. How funny is that? The pictures jolted me out of mommy mode and into cynical fan. I whispered, "Son, this is the real world. Forget silly songs, especially the 'one-two-three strikes you're out' part ... because there isn't a strike zone anymore!"

I began making up a new book:

A is for Andro.

B is for Bargaining agreement.

C is for Cork.

Sammy Sosa's corked bat incident shocked me only in how stupid it was. As a matter of fact, my first reaction to Sosa was to laugh. What a way to get caught! How embarrassing and sad. Sosa's achievements will be questioned, rightly so, and the 1998 homerun race is tarnished. He can appeal and have his suspension lowered all he wants, it's not going to ease the doubts in people's minds.

D is for Drugs, performance enhancing, preferably.

E is for Ephedra.

F is for Frozen Teddy Ballgame.

	"Hey kids, this is what evil looks like."

G is for George Steinbrenner.

I stopped and thought of the first time we took the baby to a game. It was on April 12, Yankees vs. Devil Rays, afternoon game at Yankee Stadium. Roger Clemens was scheduled to pitch, and we thought it would be great to say the baby saw him in his final season. However, a rainout the night before pushed everyone's start back a day. We saw Jeff Weaver, a fact we will never tell him. As far as he's concerned, he saw Clemens!

Before the game, I called the Yankees to double check that the baby did not need his own ticket. "No, as long as he's under 31 inches tall," they said. Is that vague or what?

That's George's rule, and it was a problem. We went to the game with our friends and their 10 month old who is 33 inches long. Yes, he's a big baby.

Would the ticket taker have a measuring tape? Should we pay 50 dollars or so for a sleeping baby to watch a game? And baseball wonders why the median age for its fan base is the "60 Minutes" audience.

We decided to stuff the big boy into his baby carrier like cork in a bat. With the 33-inch baby tucked in, we fooled them.

I suppose you could say that was stealing and cheating, but hey ... this is baseball, where it's not cheating unless you get caught.

The way I see it, I'm just teaching my child how to play by the rules.

H is for Home runs. In his short lifetime, before he is a year old, five different players will likely have hit their 500th career home run. Home runs are so common that even 500 no longer assures anyone of a place in Cooperstown.

I is for Interleague and Interim commissioner. Interleague and wild card play, in my opinion, have been good for the game. It was fun to watch the Yankees at Wrigley Field for the first time since the 1938 World Series. Roger Clemens and David Wells had never pitched there before.

J is for Juiced Ball, a theory introduced around 1995. Endorsed by Brady Anderson's 50 home runs in 1996. And made a fact by Barry Bonds' 73.

K is for Strikeout.

L is for Labor Agreement.

M is for Maier, Jeffrey. Hey, the kid's a Yankees fan.

N is for Nomads. How else will I explain the Montreal-Puerto Rico MLB-owned Expos?

O is for Overpaid.

P is for Profitable Franchises. Depends on whom you ask.

Q is for QuesTec.

	Babies are too young to learn about bad bowl cuts let alone gambling.

R is for Rose.

S is for Salaries. In 1990, Will Clark was the highest paid player at $3.7 million per season. Alex Rodriquez is up to $25 million per.

T is for Tie. This happens when All-Star Games run out of players.

U is for Ueberroth, the first commissioner to encouarge big TV pay and multi-million dollar partenships with large corporations. Now, we can barely remember the names of Enron or CGI or Coors or Comerica Parks.

V is for Vaughn. In case the baby ever asks why he is not a Mets fan.

W is for Walks.

X is for X-Ray. Sosa's bats, including the one used to hit No. 500 and several from 1998's race, currently in Cooperstown were x-rayed. Cork was not found in any of the five on display.

Y is for Why?

Z is for Zolio Versailles, Cuban born MVP of 1965. (You find a better Z!) Actually, Zilch works. It's what I'd gain by sharing this stupid, bitter "alphabet" with a baby.

I'll stick with "Take Me Out To The Ballgame." It's breezy and the way baseball should be. As my mom also told me -- you always hope your children have it better than you.

SportsCenter anchor Chris McKendry is a regular columnist for Page 2.