According to my husband Alan, everything under the sun relates to baseball, everything. He’s probably right about that. Even sex can be described in baseball terms. Think of Meatloaf and his immortal classic “Paradise by the Dashboard Light.” There was the inimitable voice of Phil Rizzuto doing a baseball play by play for the hot action taking place in a car.

But I’m here to tell you that even though there are baseball terms that may relate to sex, the two do not gel for men during a baseball game. Generally speaking, sex, as we know, takes a brief hiatus for a few hours. I once asked Alan if he thought about sex during a baseball game and he gave me the weirdest “what-is wrong-with-you look” I’ve ever seen.

Women think about sex during a baseball.

Is it some ancient, primitive force blocking the sensory part of the male brain that stops men from thinking about sex during sports? Or is it the male’s inability to focus on more than one activity at a time. Men can either think or act.

Women multi-task. We have had to learn to do this for survival sake; otherwise we would never get to eat. Think about it. A woman having dinner with her husband and child in a restaurant illustrates this very well. She can feed the baby, tell her mate about her day, answer her cell phone, and call over the waiter; all the while eating her own meal with ease. Her husband, on the other hand, can only concentrate on the task at hand, his food.

I like baseball, really I do, but, like most women, I can think of other things while a game is on. I can think about where to go on vacation, what I’m going to wear to that wedding in three months, checking the e-mail, and… sex.

Come to think about it, I think about sex a lot during a game.

“Honey, do you want a soda?” I ask during the game. I don’t really expect an answer, he sort of mumbles what I take for yes, and I go get it. When I give him the soda, he makes a sound that probably means thanks but doesn’t really see me. A monkey on roller skates could hand him the glass and he wouldn’t notice.

I have learned that during the pre-game show, the game itself, and the post-game interviews, I’m transparent, a Mrs. Cellophane if you will. Sexy lingerie, the scent of lilac body spray, snuggling close; all fall by the wayside. I once kissed his ear during a crucial play and he made a brushing motion with his hand as if a fly had landed there. Baseball is sacred. Why do you think Yankee Stadium is referred to as “the cathedral?”

It isn’t only baseball that makes men ignore sexual urges. European and Latin American women have it worse than we Americans; they have football aka soccer.

“Oh, Sundays are the worst,” says my friend, Celia, from England. “We’re at the pub all day watching the games. Bets are made about the footballers, the scores; our lives revolve around the telly!”

“What do you think about when you’re watching the games?” I ask her during our monthly phone sessions.

“Oh, well, I think about what kind of take-away food we’re getting after the game, getting my nails done, the report I need to do, a million things, Kristen!”

“Do you ever think of sex? I think of sex during baseball.”

“All the time! You do know why women think of sex during games, don’t you?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

“It’s the clingy uniforms they wear and getting to watch comely men run and dash and get sweaty! It just revs up our hormones. They look so alpha-male!”

“That’s why I think about sex? Okay that explains that. But can you tell me why men BLOCK OUT sex while they watch sports?”

“Darling, don’t you know? It’s because they’re playing pretend. They’re like little boys. They’re pretending to be the athletes in the game they watch on the telly! They’re in dreamland and being kids again. My husband is such a little lad when he’s watching the telly.”

“You mean it doesn’t have to do with not being able to focus on more than one thing at a time?”

“Oh, well, actually I don’t think they can focus on more than one activity at a time, but, take it from me, they’re fantasizing about being ball players. They’re little boys again.”

“Really, Celia?”

“Really. Oops, got to go. We’re due at the pub in half an hour. Oh damn!”

I go into the living room where Alan is watching the game. I see him with new eyes. He looks so sweet and innocent as he does a semi pretend swing at the ball on TV. I guess Celia is right. He is pretending he’s a ballplayer. I sigh.

As I glance at the game one of the Yankees hits a homerun and races around the bases, muscles straining, sliding into home plate, all hot and sweaty. Hmmm, Celia’s right about the alpha-male thing. Go Yankees!!