The geeks have taken over.

Deep down, you knew it would happen. If you were born before the mid-1970s, you can remember a time when a 98-mile per hour fastball was a luxury, a 280-pound offensive lineman was a freak of nature and downhill skiing was an extreme sport.

And if the players and games have evolved beyond recognition, it makes sense that the managers, commissioners, movers and shakers have emerged as a vastly different life form.

You can’t blame the geeks, particularly if you’re one of ’em. Heck, I went through the charade of wearing a baseball uniform my last three years of high school and the bigger belly-laugh of wearing a varsity jacket with the letter and requisite pins for meritorious service as a geek.

Before Mike Burnham became athletic administrator and then principal at Monmouth Academy, he was one of the best baseball coaches around. He also had the Doogie Howser, M.D., of unpaid assistants, one who kept a mean scorecard and knew more about the hitting tendencies of the Maranacook shortstop and Erskine third baseman than he did (or even should).

I wasn’t really a reserve outfielder, even though Mike let me play the seventh inning of a 13-2 win here and 18-5 loss there because he’s a humanitarian. I was part advance scout, part statistician, part schmooze, part wannabe jock and 100 percent geek.

Fifteen years later, I’m paid to edit the section of a newspaper touting the exploits of people who excel at things I couldn’t. Theo Epstein is general manager of the Boston Red Sox. And some dude named Herman from Pocatello undoubtedly is godfather of the BCS, a system that absolutely ripped off USC and ought to be pronounced DOA.

Geeks rule sports. Any questions?

Think about it. The entire Boston Red Sox hot stove season is dripping with geekitude.

Manager Grady Little won 101 games in 2003, including the playoffs, but the front office geeks didn’t like that he eschewed their precious statistics, flow charts and quadratic equations in favor of old-school fluff such as instinct, gut feeling and loyalty.

So Little is gone, replaced by Terry Francona, a guy who floated around the big leagues for a decade primarily on the power of his daddy’s name and never enjoyed a winning season in his first ride on the manager-go-round. His expected hiring may have been the bait that hooked co-headline pitcher Curt Schilling, who told the geeks in the media and the Red Sox chat rooms that, as geeks go, Francona always was a pretty good geek to work for in Philadelphia.

Geekamania will continue running rampant at baseball’s winter meetings, where the future of superstar shortstop Alex Rodriguez rests in the sweaty palms of my geeky brethren. Geeks love statistics, and there is no more telling statistic in a geek-driven society than money. It’s as if one of the geeks in the commissioner’s office woke up and realized that there’s filthy lucre to be gained from the Sox ending this infernal, 86-year world championship drought. They appear determined to fight the very gates of Hell if it means uniting A-Rod with the Green Monster.

Of course, bringing Rodriguez to town probably will cost Boston either Nomar Garciaparra or Manny Ramirez, two players who have fallen from geek grace. Nomar doesn’t walk enough to satisfy the on-base percentage needs of any self-respecting geek, while Manny lacks character, a concept that typically doesn’t resonate with a geek unless it directly effects his rotisserie team.

Geeks worship at the altar of A-Rod, who is on pace to become the greatest offensive player in the history of the game but never seems to remedy his team’s winning percentage. Seattle mysteriously got better immediately after he left, and Texas remains a resident of the cellar in spite of its league MVP.

Not sure how it’ll pan out, but you can count on this: The geeks will get their man.

The geeks also will get their college football national champion, and amazingly it won’t be MIT or Cal Tech.

Unfortunately, there isn’t a chance in L.A. that champion will be Southern California, even though just about every non-geek on the planet believes the Trojans are as good or better than LSU and Oklahoma.

USC is penalized primarily for living on the West Coast and for scheduling a game against Notre Dame. Remember when playing the Fighting Irish was a good thing? That was before the bloodless coup that granted possession of the golden scepter of the gridiron to the geeks.

In geek economy, a 35-7 or 62-37 loss on the first Saturday of December isn’t as damning as a triple-overtime defeat in mid-October, particularly if the team pulling off the late-season upset ranks three spots higher on the geekometer than the squad that staged the early stunner.

You follow? No? Problem is, you’re just not thinking geekily enough. Geeks use terms that the rest of us don’t, such as “meaningless game” and “diminishing returns.” Geeks have a great grasp of the numbers, but rarely recognize the spirit within those digits.

As for me, I’m guilty of geekdom in the first degree, but that doesn’t mean I’ll enjoy watching Pete Carroll and USC whip Michigan in a, er, meaningless game at the Rose Bowl and gain nothing from it but perhaps a secondary, mythical national title. And having the geek genetic code won’t make it any easier to swallow when Nomar takes one of his free swings and goes long in an Angels, Dodgers or Rangers uniform next year.

Being a geek means I’m not entirely stupid, which is why I’m staunchly in favor of letting some guys and gals with athletic ability and street smarts make at least some of the important decisions.

Kalle Oakes is sports editor and can be reached by e-mail at koakes@sunjournal.com.

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