Every idea in sports is neatly assigned to one of three categories. First, we have a brief but priceless list of fantastic ideas. These include ESPN (OK, maybe we should create a sub-chapter of great ideas run amok), instant replay and the time-and-score box in the upper left corner of our TV screen.

A dozen times longer is the list of miserable concepts, headlined by but not limited to the “open” high school tournament, sideline “reporters” and the just-introduced, turf-embedded camera that gave us a mercifully blurry close-up of a long snapper’s navel lint and nose hair during the Super Bowl.

Lurking in limbo are athletics’ endangered species; the roster of good ideas whose time is finished. That team’s senior captain answers to the name of All-Star Game.

And you can’t escape him. The Lombardi Trophy is besmirched by a thousand fingerprints. Pitchers and catchers haven’t reported yet. Either grab a bite from the all-star smorgasbord or feast on rodeo and figure skating.

Hope your shelves are stocked with hyper-caffeinated beverages, because you’re invited to three all-star celebrations in the span of nine February days. Four, if you chose to watch the Grammy Awards, and I pray you didn’t. I ever-so-innocently switched over for 22.4 seconds and caught Stevie Wonder, Norah Jones and an almost-lifelike Scott Weiland warbling awkwardly for tsunami relief.

At least that was a super cause. Sorry, but I can’t commit one penny of emotional capital to a Pro Bowl game that packs all the passion of a haiku reading. If the players don’t care, why should we? So many marquee names begged off an all-expenses-paid week in Honolulu due to hangnails that there’s a rumor Patriots’ special teams afterthought Tully Banta-Cain made two tackles for the AFC in the fourth quarter. I can’t confirm, ’cause I didn’t watch.

It’s impossible to play the Pro Bowl in mid-season, and it’s anti-climactic to stage it 10 miles east of the International Date Line one week after the Game to End All Games. So let’s bury the thing, once and for all.

In fact, I propose an across-the-board ban in perpetuity. Unless you’re donating every shilling of the proceeds to charity, I don’t ever want to see another all-star game, pee-wee to pro, period.

Hopefully it takes effect in time to stop the NBA’s annual me-first showcase and spare the league the embarrassment of having next Sunday’s Nielsen ratings published.

The commissioner’s office knew there was a diminishing returns principle in its 158-152 fast break fest in the early 1980s when it instituted the day-before Slam Dunk Contest. Problem is, when Michael Jordan and Dominique Wilkins lost their legs (and with it, their interest), we caught on that everyone else’s dunks were like Marv Albert’s hairpieces. You’ve seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.

NASCAR seemed to have the right idea when it posted unholy amounts of prize money for its February all-universe exercise, a pre-season encounter enticingly dubbed the Budweiser Shootout. Then that little devil known as freedom of speech reared his infernal head. Drivers confessed that they tried about as hard as Paris Hilton at a spelling bee; that the “race” was little more than an information-gathering exercise for next weekend’s Daytona 500.

Fraudulent, made-for-TV sporting events aren’t confined to cold-weather months, though. Baseball set the most ignoble example of all with its infamous tie in 2002. That, of course, was followed by a World Series tie-in that gave home field advantage to the victorious league, complete with a ridiculous advertising slogan: “This time, it counts.”

Rough translation: “Every other All-Star Game in history was a sham, ours included. But as the National Pastime, we’re taking the liberty of restoring honor to All-Star Games everywhere. So next time you spend $500 to treat your family of four to a Saturday afternoon at Fenway Park, consider it an investment.”

And really, why would we want to question the sincerity of a sport for which Jose Canseco has anointed himself the poster child for integrity?

True, banishment probably is too lofty a goal, unattainable in a free market where life-challenged folks will spend two days’ salary to watch Zydrunas Ilgauskas. So all-star antagonists such as I must focus on the bright side. There’s one fewer televised pseudo-competition this February, thanks to our locked-out friends in the National Hockey League.

Since we’re on the subject of great ideas gone irrelevant.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].