CHICAGO – Can’t anybody have any fun anymore?

Why do people come down so hard on a football player who clowns around a little, trying to have a good time? Is it so terrible? Is there nobody left who can laugh?

When did we all get so serious?

Sometimes I feel as if I should crawl into a spider hole with my Mars bars, my AK-47 and my extra packs of clean underwear until it’s safe to come out.

Terrell Owens of the San Francisco 49ers scores a touchdown, pulls a Sharpie pen out of his sock, autographs the ball and hands it to a fan.

Do we laugh?

No, we act as if he went up in the stands and kicked somebody’s grandmother.

We rip him, rip up his paycheck and warn him that if he ever tries a stunt like that again, the NFL police will run him down with a 2004 Ford Explorer, sell his dog and send him to San Quentin for 25 years to life.

Joe Horn of the New Orleans Saints scores a touchdown, grabs a cell phone and speaks a few words into it.

Do we laugh?

No, we act as if he called up the Queen of England collect so he could mock her accent.

We rip him, watch him get fined $30,000 and let the world know that if a guy in the NFL ever pulls a gag like that again, he will be brought before a House Un-American Activities Committee, dropped from a plane at 20,000 feet and forced to choose between a prison camp at Guantanamo or being forced to watch 24 consecutive hours of Geraldo Rivera on TV.

Man, loosen up.

Ozzie Smith turned cartwheels before a baseball game. People thought it was cute.

Babe Ruth pointed to the seats before he stepped up to bat. Cute. Mark Fidrych “talked” to the ball. Cute. Mark McGwire bumped arms. Sammy Sosa blows kisses. Guys take “curtain calls” after a home run. Cute.

Chi Chi Rodriguez sinks a putt, then pretends to fight a duel with a sword. Cute. Muhammad Ali made faces at his opponent, did a silly windmill with his arm before he threw a punch, did a funny “shuffle” with his feet. Cute.

Michael Jordan talked trash on the court. So did Larry Bird. Cute. They were simply “having some fun out there.”

Football players have goofed around for years. Washington Redskins did flying high-fives. Ickey Woods did a dance. Green Bay Packers leap into seats. A hundred different guys turn to run backwards on their final steps of a touchdown. Nobody fines them.

Owens and Horn didn’t rob or maim anybody.

We’ve had NFL players locked up for assault and busted for drugs who don’t get this kind of abuse.

Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post and ESPN said, “What Joe Horn did makes a complete and utter mockery out of playing football in the National Football League … It’s not just a little bit of fun. It’s a calculated thing to embarrass everybody out there.”

If there is anybody in sports who knows how to have a little bit of fun, it is Tony Kornheiser. He works for one of the most serious newspapers in America, but his work is so rooted in humor (and mockery) that a TV sitcom starring Jason Alexander is being made based on his life.

Yet he could find nothing funny in what Horn did.

Nor could Michael Strahan of the New York Giants, whose comment was: “That was bush league … what’s he trying to do, get a Verizon deal?”

This is the same Michael Strahan who made a “phone call” to the baseball announcers at Yankee Stadium during a World Series game, simply to help promote a phone company that was sponsoring Fox TV’s coverage.

What was he trying to do, get a Sprint deal?

Football is supposed to be fun, even on the field. Any guy who makes a big play is permitted – no, expected – to go stand on a sideline and wait for a TV camera to point at him so he can say, “Hi, Mom!”

Chad Johnson of the Cincinnati Bengals, however, not only gets fined for trying to have fun, he gets fined $10,000 for holding up a handmade sign after a touchdown that reads: “Dear NFL: Please don’t fine me again.”

In his prime, Walter “Sweetness” Payton once ran with the ball and then did a handstand as he got up.

Everybody thought it was great. It made all the TV highlights.

Nowadays, the NFL would fine Sweetness $30,000 for what he did, then $10,000 more for improper use of a nickname.

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(c) 2003, Chicago Tribune.

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Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.

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AP-NY-12-17-03 2054EST