By Kim J. Harmon

Although I never really doubted it – my kids are well-behaved, respectful, and pleasant – I knew for sure I was doing a pretty good job at this father thing when I walked in on my kids one morning the other week.

A lot of people think that being a father means nurturing your kids, teaching them, molding them into respectful citizens with a clear idea of what is right and what is wrong.

Okay, sure, that’s part of it. But another part is getting them to like sports. And not just because sports is a great outlet for their energy and a great way for them to learn how to work together with other kids, but because it gives me a better chance of being able to watch a ballgame on the weekend.

My three kids – Melissa is nine, Benjamin is seven, and Tyler just turned five – generally wake up around six every morning. Either Ben or Tyler will slip out of bed and turn on the television and Melissa will come in from her room and all three will quietly watch for a half hour or so while they regain their senses and get ready for school or whatever. Most of the time (about 99% of the time), the television is tuned to Nickelodeon. In fact, it’s on Nickelodeon so much it looks as if the station logo has been burned onto the screen in the lower right corner.

The other morning, though, as I walked upstairs to the bathroom I heard some unfamiliar sounds coming from the boys’ room. It wasn’t the sounds of Franklin or Arthur or even Hey, Arnold! that I usually hear from the teevee.

It was the voice of Dan Patrick.

It was the voice of Rich Eisen.

It was, as god is my witness . . . ESPN!

I think I might have danced a little jig right there in the hallway. My kids were watching Sportscenter! And as I walked into the room – a smile just about splitting my head in two – Benjamin looks up from his bed and before I could even say good morning, he was telling me the scores from the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Sniff – I thought I was going to cry.

To be fair, the little one – Tyler – was pretty much disinterested in the highlights. He was looking at a book and playing with his guys (what he calls any one of the 10,000,000,000,000,000 action figures he has). But Melissa – who has never really shown an interest in sports – was right there on the floor, studying the scores as they flashed up on the screen, watching the long three-point bombs, the free throws, and the slam dunks that decided the games in the first round.

Yep, my little plan worked – even better than I’d hoped.

You see, just like everyone else in the free world, we have an NCAA pool here at work. But this year I took home two sheets – one for myself and one for my son, Ben. Partly because of Sony Playstation and partly because I’m always trying to catch scores on the teevee, Ben knows a little something about college basketball. He knows St. Johns and UConn and Marcus Pfizer and things like that and he was able to fill out his sheet without me, not once, telling him what team to pick.

And, yes, heading into the Sweet Sixteen the little son of a gun was ahead of me in the standings by one point. I, of course, had zero chance to win the whole thing (if I had taken UConn to beat Utah State in the first round and taken Cincinnati to lose in the second round like my daughter, Melissa, wanted me to it might have been a different story) while Benjamin was in clear and present danger of winning the whole blessed pool.

That’s right. He was the only one in our pool to pick Syracuse to win the championship and if the Orangemen had somehow held on to that 13-point lead over Michigan State we might have ended up crowning this kid the champ of our pool.

Man, that would have been humbling – me, the sports editor, getting beaten out by a kid who couldn’t be altogether sure if Khalid Al-Amin was a basketball player or a foreign country.

But, nevertheless, the plan worked. To heck with Franklin or Arthur or Hey, Arnold! The first thing Benjamin wanted to know on that Friday morning was whether or not St. John’s and Syracuse had won.

Yep, that’s my boy.

And the following morning, when Melissa found out UConn had beaten Utah State – and not had a first-round meltdown like I predicted – she stood there shaking her finger at me and giving me the old told-you-so routine.

Yep, that’s my girl.

Tyler? He was too busy making his guys head-butt each other to care about any of it.

Now, that Ben and I are out - way_out - of the pool it’s time to move on to baseball and I_figured, what the heck, since one kid nearly beat me in the pool (if Syracuse could have just held that lead) and another tried to steer me on the right course (UConn over Utah State) I_should see who they think is going to win the World Series.

Me, I_like the New York_Yankees (easy pick #1), the Cleveland Indians (easy pick #2)_and the Seattle Mariners (without Junior?)_to win their divisions and the Oakland Athletics (say what?)_to grab the wild card in the American League. In the National_League, the New York Mets (easy pick #3), the Houston_Astros (yes, not_the Reds) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (it would be about darn time, too)_will win the division titles and the Pittsburgh Pirates (excuse me?) will win the wild card.

In the end, though, it will be the New York Yankees against the New York_Mets in the first same-state World Series since 1985 (Kansas City versus St. Louis) and the first Subway Series since 1956 (Yankees versus Brooklyn Dodgers).

But that’s what I say.

Melissa said, “Considering I know only a couple of teams, I_say the Yankees and the Mets.”

Benjamin, on the other hand, told me the Red Sox (the stinker), the Indians and the Angels will win the AL titles and the Yankees will win the wild card while the Mets, the Cardinals (he knows all about Mark McGwire, of course) and the Diamondbacks will win the division titles and the Braves would win the wild card. In the World Series, though, it will be the Yankees over the Cardinals.

And who am I_to argue?