By the time you're reading this, the Internet may very well be completely obliterated by the Conficker virus.
Yes, that's right, no more checking your Facebook, updating your Twitter or chatting with your friends on AIM. All gone.
Even worse, the virus has supposedly infected millions of computers, all of which could be linked up to do horrible things in the wrong hands. It's a mystery as to what the creator wants to do with the virus, but it has the potential to cause some serious problems.
But I'm not worried about the imminent global disaster that we may be dealing with at this very moment.
I'm far more terrified of a world where I can't look up useless sports trivia on a whim.
I mean, what if I really needed to know who the 13th overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft was? (Takeo Spikes to the Bengals). Or what if I really needed to compare Oscar Robertson's 1961-'62 averages to LeBron James' 2008-'09 numbers? (Robertson: 30.8 points, 12.5 rebounds and 11.4 assists. James: 28.4-7.7-7.4).
How could life go on?
In a world like that, I just don't know if there would be any meaning to existence.
…OK, I am being a little over-dramatic, and Conficker will likely go the course of Y2K and most other potential Internet disasters.
However, it got me thinking of how intertwined the Internet and sports have become, and how both sports fanatics and casual fans alike would handle the Web being completely cut from their lives.
Our daily sports habits have changed so dramatically over the past couple of years, and I don't know if we'd be able to revert back to what once was.
Take, for example, the Oscar Robertson/LeBron James comparison. Unless a person were to either have an complete reference guide to all statistics in those years or unless ESPN or a newspaper were to do the comparison that we just happened to watch or read, there's no way we could easily get to that information that took about 30 seconds to Google.
Even something as simple as breaking news would be entirely different. Right now, we can have every update from around the country delivered to us through an e-mail notification or a text message. Would we really be able to go back to waiting a day for the latest spring training update or injury report? I would bet it would even be excruciatingly difficult to go back to watching television for our updates.
Also, one of the fastest growing hobbies, fantasy sports, would crumble. The hardcore fans would still keep their drafts going, but would the growing fan base really want to continue if they had to log box scores every day? Maybe for a week, but unless you were really, really into your league and so was everyone else in it, it would be incredibly irritating to keep up with.
It's fascinating to think of how different a few years can make in our lives. The world of sports would be a strange place if we did not have that constant stream of information delivered to us, or if we did not have all of that information at our fingertips.
So let's all hope Conficker has not crashed all computers in the world today, and you're not stuck having to read this column instead of updating your fantasy team.
Is your world crumbling around you because your browser keeps failing to load and you have a fantasy draft today? You probably won't reach him, but try e-mailing Gabe about it at ubatuba@wisc.edu.
