Nobody's expecting you to ever understand the complex strategies or even the rules of these games. However, a general overview of the mentality behind them may go a long way towards helping you coexist with your sports fan/partner.

Here, in order of importance to Gandie, is a list of the major sports and the important things for you to know about them.

Baseball is a lifestyle. For half the year anyway. Unlike other sports, it's played almost every night, and thus becomes a daily obsession for some. Baseball is a slower, less violent game than most other team sports and is losing some appeal in these faster times. It has a long, glorious history dating back to the turn of the century, but it's tradition and integrity suffered due to numerous player strikes and the failure to hold the 1994 World Series. The important thing for non fans to remember is that there is no fixed time limit to a baseball game. Rain and other things can delay a game for hours and extra innings are played until someone wins -- even if it takes until way past midnight.

The great Canadian sports passion, but growing rapidly in popularity in the United States. It's also very big in Europe with players from places like Russia and Sweden becoming stars in the major North American League. Hockey is played on ice at a furious pace that is sometimes difficult for new fans to follow. It's the only major team sport that doesn't use a ball. That black thing everyone's chasing is called a puck. Many claim that brutal violence and fighting detract from the sport, but true fans understand that fights are an important part of the game. The average regular season hockey game takes about 3 hours to play, with 2 breaks between periods. However, playoff hockey games can't end in ties and can go late into the night until someone scores. Typically, a team plays about 3 games per week.

A game of brutality, strategy and teamwork. Though it involves a relatively large number of players, it largely revolves around the strategy and preparation by the head coach and the execution of that strategy by a quarterback. Gandie wishes it to be known that there are two kinds of football -- American and Canadian -- with slightly different rules. Unlike other sports, Football does not spread itself out over the course of a week. Almost all games are played on a Sunday (Saturdays for the College game). But it's all day Sunday (3 games). Then there's Monday night, when one game is played and it becomes a TV event and a reason for some fans to go out to a bar and drink. The other four days of the week (Tuesday through Friday, are generally football free). You should also understand that football has an annoying tendency to interrupt family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. You can be pretty sure that a football game will be over in about 3 hours. Gambling is a huge factor in the popularity of football, with something called 'point spreads' becoming more important than the actual score of the game.

The basketball and hockey seasons run roughly parallel, so many sports fans choose one or the other. For those who follow both, it can turn into a daily obsession rather like baseball does. Indeed, hockey and basketball are similar in the nature of the game and the strategy involved. The difference is basketball has no goaltender and the score mounts rapidly. Basketball has something of a cultural (black) bias which projects itself in terms of 'trash talking' on the court, something that's difficult for some people to relate to. It also has a height bias, allowing only exceedingly tall men to play it professionally. Though a basketball game is shorter in length than most other sports, you should still allow up to 3 hours for a game.

Boxing's brutality is only matched by its corruption. To say that boxing is corrupt is merely stating the obvious. It's a sport that thrives on greed, gangsterism, gambling and scandal. It also suffers from disorganization. Even more confusing is a bewildering array of weight classes. There can be several different people claiming to be champion at any given time. It depends on who is making up the rules. Despite all this, there is something primitively fascinating about two men in a ring punching each other until one emerges victorious. Your boxing fan/lover will usually not be watching major boxing events on TV at home. He has to go out somewhere and pay money to see it on closed circuit TV. A boxing event (typically a heavyweight championship fight) usually has more hype than substance. There is a fixed number of 3-minute rounds but a fight can sometimes be over in a few minutes.

Said to be the world's most popular game. But why it's so popular in the rest of the world remains a mystery to most North American sports fans. Attempts to establish the game professionally in North America have always failed. Compared to most other team sports, soccer is slow and boring. 1 to 0 is all too often the final score of a soccer game. If the sports fan you're trying to relate to is into soccer, chances are he's of English or European origin. There they take the game so seriously that it causes riots to break out. Interest in soccer tends to focus on an event called the World Cup, held once every 4 years. That event invokes fierce national pride. A soccer game takes 90 minutes, but unlike other sports, they don't stop the clock. So figure on two hours or so for the average soccer game.

One of the few sports where women can achieve the same star status as men and thus has more appeal for couples, especially those who also play the game themselves recreationally. Professional tennis tends to be dominated by personalities rather than the action of the game itself. Tennis is played in tournament style usually over the course of a week. Players who haven't been eliminated meet in final matches. Finals are generally held on weekend afternoons. There's no fixed length to tennis but a competitive match may last a couple of hours.

Some say golf is a recreational activity not a sport. But it does require a certain degree of power, skill and precision. The appeal of golf is mostly to the more wealthy members of society. Women's professional golf has achieved some popularity but it lags far behind the interest in men's golf. If the golf fan you're coexisting with watches golf on TV, chances are he also plays it. If not, encourage him to do so. Like tennis, golf is played in tournament fashion in various exotic locations over the course of a week, with the climactic moments coming on weekend afternoons. Played on a vast expanse of real estate, golf is difficult to follow on TV.

Sports like Skiing, Figure Skating and Track & Field have a life of their own outside of the Olympic games. Here Gandie lumps them in with a multitude of other sports that only attain peak interest during the Olympics. There are two Olympics -- Summer and Winter. Each offers dozens of sports such as swimming and speed skating that virtually nobody watches outside of the Olympics. Yet within the global grandeur of the Olympics, these obscure sports can become fascinating -- especially when national pride is at stake. The truth is that the pageantry surrounding the Olympics, particularly the opening and closing ceremonies, can be more important than the games themselves. Fortunately for non sports fans trying to live with dedicated sports lovers, the Olympics are only held every 4 years. Not counting the hype the precedes them, the Olympics take 2 weeks from start to finish. But your Olympics fan/lover may not emerge from the couch for the entire 2-week period. In the overall picture, the outcome of all these obscure sports matters less than the total number of medals -- Gold, Silver, Bronze -- won by each country.

A sport haunted by death and driven by corporate greed. Spectacular crashes and fiery death are all too common and, some say, one of the reasons for its worldwide popularity. It's usually held on tracks specially built for it, but sometimes takes place on the streets of a city. There are various lower level types of car racing such as stock cars and drag racing. There are two types that draw the most interest -- Indy-type racing in North America and Formula One racing in the rest of the world. Though the drivers of these cars get the glory, it is the machines they drive and the technology and organization of the team behind them that really wins. Like golf, car racing goes from one exotic location to the next on a weekly basis, culminating on a Sunday afternoon. 

Though some admire the grace and beauty of race horses and the skills of a jockey, this is a sport for gamblers. For followers of this sport, it tends to be a lifestyle. If you don't share that passion, you may find yourself with a lot of lonely nights. Gamblers at horse tracks are not as stupid as they might seem. Studying the horses, odds and other factors carefully and betting wisely can make them a winner more often than not. There's two basic types of horse racing -- the ones pulling the driver in a little cart are harness races, the ones with the jockey in the saddle are thoroughbreds. Races are held somewhere most every day. Each race take only minutes but several races are held each day. Every so often the best horses meet in major televised events such as the Kentucky Derby.