There are times when I think I have this sports thing figured out.

I think I know what's important about sports, what the issues are.

I thought I understood it all, but then someone came along and helped me remember what's really important about sports.

Even though I didn't recognize him, he helped me remember.

"Mr. Malcolm," he said from behind a cash register at a store in my hometown, "how are you?"

It wasn't quite registering with me. "Do I know you?" I asked.

"Well --" he started to answer.

Then I caught a glimpse of his nametag. "John," it read.

"Mr. Ruggiero," I said finally.

I couldn't believe I didn't remember him. Ten years ago I wouldn't have mistaken him for a second -- nor any other 10- to 12-year-old who played little league baseball where I grew up.

Back then, it was pretty exciting to see Mr. Ruggiero at one of your games; it meant he was probably going to be the public address announcer that day.

And no one announced the games better than he. He had a great voice, baritone pipes that sang your name, number and position when you came up to bat with the kind of feeling you'd expect at a much bigger ballpark -- one where the bases are 90 feet apart, not 60. You felt like a real ball player when he announced your games.

"How was your holiday?" I asked as I stood there considering what this man had meant to kids so long ago, when their lives were little more than baseball and swimming pools.

"Ahh ... so so," he said, letting out a sigh.

"How was yours?"

The grief in his eyes didn't go unnoticed; I could tell the holidays weren't an easy time for him.

We talked for a little longer, and as I was about to leave I asked him how he had remembered me.

While we waved goodbye to each other, he said: "I never forget kids I announced for." And though sometimes it probably hurts to remember, there is one he certainly never will be able to forget: his son, John Paul, who died a little more than a year ago.

I realized then that, while he was talking to me, Mr. Ruggiero was looking through the grayness of what was his second Christmas without his son to the brighter days under blue skies announcing his son's baseball games.

And I also realized then that it had been 10 years since I was kicking up dust on that beautiful diamond in Madison Township, and there was something else I hadn't been remembering, aside from the man who announced my games.

But that day, Mr. Ruggiero made me remember. Made me remember that first and foremost sports will always be about competition.

And those memories are probably keener for me than most kids I grew up with because his son played on the same team as I did. The team John Paul and I played on wasn't the best team in the league or the worst, but we competed -- probably winning about half the games we played.

I doubt Mr. Ruggiero ever thinks about any of that. He probably just thinks about sharing the experience with his son. Because memories are all he has left of his son.

This is where sports belongs in our lives -- in memories of time spent with people we care about.

But for fans -- and writers -- sports has a way of transcending into the rest of our lives when maybe it shouldn't.

We see injustice in a split college football national championship and a moral conundrum in Pete Rose.

But the competition, the games played and the people who play them, are what matter.

Sports isn't life; it's just a game.

I lost track of that a little. I guess it's because sports has risen above the level of preoccupation, to an occupation, for me. But I know I'm not the only who's forgotten. And if we need someone to tell us what's important in life, Mr. Ruggiero certainly could.

He remembers.