There was a story that used to go around the house that feels especially relevant this morning. There was this Friday morning years ago when my Pops decided to call in sick for work even though he was the picture of health. A few of his running mates decided that a day at the track would beat a day at the office, and so they went there. Not sure if it was Belmont or Aqueduct, but you get the picture.

Anyway, you know what has to happen for this to become a story, yes? Pops’ old lady — a few years later, she would become better known as my mother — tried to reach him at work just after lunch. Whoever answered the phone told her that he was sick, which was news to her since he’d sure had a bounce in his step and a gleam in his eye when he’d left the apartment that morning. Well, poor guy, she knew where to find him. And she found him. And most days, there might’ve been the worst kind of hell to pay. Just not this day. It was Nov. 22, 1963. Everyone suddenly had far bigger things to worry about than a husband playing hooky and betting rent money on exactas.

You think the Giants feel that way this morning? Because never, if they play football for 1,000 more years, will such an horrific loss be destined to be so completely overlooked by so many. And for as long as the Yankees occupy everyone’s attention in the World Series, it’s just as likely that the obvious worries now afflicting the Giants, and the fact that Eli Manning sure looks a lot close to 2006 Eli than 2007 Eli.

Not that anyone’s paying attention, or anything …

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Hope You Turned Away … I Didn’t: Bad enough that poor Leon Washington joins Joe Theismann and Tim Krumrie on a list no one wants to join, the one listing football players who suffer gruesome, stomach-turning injuries on live television. But if things don’t work out right with the leg, he is going to spend the rest of his life ruing the fact that he didn’t sign a contract offered him that would’ve provided $5 million in money that would have been injury proof. Anyone who wonders why players may soon be willing to stop playing over issues such as guaranteed money … well, there’s no wonder to it at all.

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I’ll be Here all Week: So it seems Mark McGwire will be, ahem, injecting his wisdom into the Cardinals’ batting order next year, eh?

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A Commitment to Yuckiness: It was an interesting irony that on the day the Yankees returned to the World Series for the first time in six years, the Raiders looked less like a professional team than any gaggle of football players I’ve ever seen … unless you count how awful they were two weeks ago against the Giants. George Steinbrenner and Al Davis were always very good friends, and used to revel in each other’s successes. At least one of them still can.