When I was a kid, I used to look forward to baseball Opening Day every April as if it were the beginning of life itself.

Now it’s the Super 14 rugby season.

Hard to explain, but here’s one of my favorite plays ever, a dramatic and somewhat lunatic attack (beginning with a near-impossible and even foolish pass — which worked!) from a match between the Blues and Crusaders a few years ago.  This beautiful invention came as time was running out, and it was both triggered and finished by my favorite player, a madman named Carlos Spencer, who even has the presence of mind to run out the clock before downing the ball.