BRIAN DOOGAN reports on a month following sport in America

THE scene was Shea Stadium, New York, the sport was baseball, the game was the Mets against the Braves and the crowd had made what I soon deemed the smart choice - stayed home.

America's national pastime, to this visitor at least, was a total waste of time.

Two teams of fat men wearing miners' helmets and pyjamas, spitting out gobfuls of phlegm (sometimes into the umpires' faces) and getting paid $1million per man per season for playing ... rounders.

Yes, that game you used to play during break times at primary school, that's what it's like.

Except baseball's less exciting.

The highlight of this match was coming within an inch of catching a ball which Lance Johnson sliced into the stand between home and first base where I was sat (in this sport, unlike cricket, you get to bring the ball home with you if you grab it).

"I got it, I got it, I got it," I screamed to my mate as the ball came hurtling out of the sky over my head.

Mark, though, has seen me trying to catch a ball before so he wasn't holding his breath.

Sure enough, I failed to hold onto it - nearly rupturing my undercarriage in the process.

So the highlight was in fact a lowlight which, really folks, says it all. By the third innings we were reduced to counting seats, coming up with an estimated figure of 51, 350 (which, incidentally, was only 4,427 short - for those of you into stats and stuff).

There were 15,000 more seats in Giants Stadium, New Jersey, and when the Giants encountered the Redskins I considered myself lucky to be sat on one of them.

A scalper - how the Americans refer to touts - sold us two $45 tickets for $15 apiece which means that when I'm next in the States he won't be the next Donald Trump.

The Giants, 0-3 going into the game, were soon to become 0-4 and New Yorkers are not good losers.

"Stay down, you bum," they shouted at their quarterback whenever he was bundled over by the opposition's defence.

The following week the Giants faced the Jets, also 0-4, and David Letterman wondered on The Late Show if this would be the first game in NFL history where BOTH teams might actually lose.

(The Giants won 13-6 for those of you into stats and stuff.)

My trip to New York had to include Madison Square Garden where Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier had the Fight of the Century in 1971.

Today the Garden hosts the likes of Oasis and Julio Iglesias while a ticket for the Knicks basketball team will set you back $135. But, as our guide Joe might have said, "What the heck". Joe also said, as he brought us to the dressing room area, that "America is home to the best basketball players in the world".

"He ain't fibbing," said Bob, whose name wasn't really Bob but he looked like one.

I felt like telling them both that you're the only nation in the world who plays the damn game but I didn't like to spoil their fun.

Evidently, the bookies at the racecourse in Millbrae didn't want punters to enjoy much fun at their expense.

Facility-wise, there could be no complaints nor could we complain about the fact that there were 15 races that night.

But the racecard didn't contain a dickie bird about the horses' form.

Now, as any racegoer will tell you, a racecard without a form guide is like turning up to the bingo hall without your pen.

I won on the first race of the night, and not one other (what was that I was saying about no complaints that there were 15 races?)

If my bank manager had been aware that after the race course my next port of call would be Las Vegas, he may have tried to cancel the credit card.

He needn't have bothered for I soon realised that the best way to escape from Las Vegas with a small fortune is to go there with a large one. Wayne McCullough from Belfast, the world bantamweight champion, has made his home there so, being a fellow Irishman, we hooked up.

We arranged to meet at a bar on the Strip where the vender, much to our amusement, asked Wayne for ID after he had ordered a Diet Coke!

Later, Wayne invited us to his home and it was a pleasure to spend time with a world champion whose feet remain solidly on the ground.

Which is where I would have preferred my feet to have been after finally agreeing to do a skydive (I agreed only because I was promised free drinks all night afterwards).

Five thousand feet up, I suddenly thought that staying sober for 24 hours might be a better option.

But I stayed calm, took the plunge at 10,500 feet and experienced what must be the ultimate adrenaline rush.

Forty-five seconds of freefall were broken when we finally opened the chute - an experience I'll never forget, though one I don't know if I would like to repeat in a hurry.

We dropped into the Las Vegas Invitational next and followed Tiger Woods around 18 holes at TPC Summerlin.

The 20-year-old protege has just turned pro, having won an unprecedented three successive US Amateur titles, and this event would be his first triumph as a professional golfer.

He hit the ball long and straight - one of his drives was measured at 352 yards. I got chatting to one of the officials, a portly, old man who kept telling me he's got to be home by six so he could get to a party.

Someone asked him on the 18th, "Who's marking this match?" and his response left me rolling around on the fairway.

"Well, she was right here a minute ago. Where is that cute son of a bitch? Boy, she's a real looker. No brains though, she's blonde."

Straight-talking was the only way to describe fight scribe Jack Fiske, whom I met in San Francisco.

The doyen of America's boxing writers, he has covered fights for over 50 years.

We talked in Lefty O'Doul's. I asked Jack if he'd like a drink.

"No," he said. "I know the proprietor and I don't wish to contribute to his further success."

Thankfully, he did wish to bring me on a tour of his home which houses perhaps the most unique collection of boxing memorabilia in the world, from big fight tickets to a pair of sparring gloves that belonged to "The Greatest", Muhammad Ali.

So, there you have it: one guy's experience of sport in America. Thanks for the memories.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.