It’s no surprise that baseball’s popularity weakens with each snap of the ball in the National Football League.

Why wouldn’t it though? All summer we cheered our teams to victory.

Since April, we have been checking the box scores and leisurely watching our teams play, in person and on the boob tube.

But as summer tapers off and autumn kicks in, we naturally redirect our attention to the bone-crushing excitement provided by the giants of the gridiron.

Like most of you, I willingly make this conversion about this time of year. After all, my Kansas City Royals have long since wasted their season. My Kansas City Chiefs “Cam-Arrowhead” Stadium T-shirt has replaced my Royals cap.

But last evening I came to this realization: The utmost excitement in sports is not found in these early games of the NFL season. That’s right, all the intensity and action in professional sports can still be found in Major League Baseball’s play-off race.

Today I ask of you, don’t turn your back on America’s pastime. Instead, tune in to “West Coast Baseball,” a painless alternative to the “West Coast Offense” that is shoved down our throats every football season.

Allow yourselves to be enthralled by the heated race in baseball’s two western divisions, where the Oakland Athletics battle the Anaheim Angels in the American League and the San Francisco Giants and the Los Angeles Dodgers are grinding it out in the National League.

The suspense is addictive. Each remaining game can make or break these teams’ post-season hopes. Both of these rivalries will engage for at least one more series before the season’s end.

Don’t get me wrong. I understand if you can’t stay up that late, or if you have previous obligations to watch “Three’s Company” on Nick-at-Nite with your significant other at 9 p.m.

Hey, John Ritter is a comedic genius, and his two sidekicks, whoa, are they are a barrel of laughs or what!

Just don’t forget about the other teams that are providing our SportsCentered-minds with great baseball this fall.

The St. Louis Cardinals are definitely more fun to watch than the hapless Rams.

Minnesota is offering the modest-Midwesterner a team to cheer for down the stretch, and of course powerhouses like the Braves and Yankees are making their way to their 75th straight playoff appearances (who would have thought the Yankees could field a decent team this year?)

I don’t care if you’re sick of baseball for the year, you’re just not that big of a fan or if you have B.A.D.D. (Baseball Attention Deficit Disorder), the fact of the matter is this: there is good baseball still to be played and great playoff excitement still to be witnessed.

This time of year should be the sports fan’s ultimate dream.

Two major sports (not counting the silliness of the sports soap-operas I like to call the NBA and the NHL) supplying us with the joys of victory and the agonies of defeat each day, can we ask for anything else without soiling our minds with filth?

I don’t believe we can.

As for you, the sports fanatic, don’t let Sunday football blind your sports-watching vision. Don’t shut yourselves out from two of the best playoff races in recent baseball history.

Keep a close eye on the exhilarating finale to a remarkable season of Major League Baseball.

Do this for six days. And on Sunday, go to church, rest, put your feet up and give football its day to shine in the fall.