My Bucket List

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A rivalry between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer (pictured) has brought the French Open back to life. Ryan Pierse/Getty Images

1. The British Open (at a Scottish course)

Bone weary of a manicured lawn and you-da-man/in-the-hole galleries, and distinctly unmoved by the self-consciousness of Augusta, I yearn for golf au natural. A little rain. A lot of wind. Gore-Tex instead of Spandex. Bump and runs. Fescue up to Anthony Kim's belt buckle. Nirvana.

2. The French Open

Back when I worked in public relations for a tennis organization -- I left within a year because I was lousy at being nice -- clay-court tournaments, even a Grand Slam, held little appeal for me. This was the era of American dirtballers like Eddie Dibbs and Harold Solomon, whose matches were only moderately shorter than the 24 Hours at LeMans. Now with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal attacking even on terre battue, I'm there. Croissant, anyone?

3. The Boat Race (Cambridge versus Oxford crew)

While I enjoy being on U.S. college campuses on my rare trips into that world -- is there any place more fascinating than a university bookstore? -- I want to see how this 180-year-old boolah-boolah stuff works on the other side of the pond. Although to the best of my knowledge Keith Jackson has never called Cambridge-Oxford, when these two eight-man sculls get together in the spring on the Thames, whoa pardner.

4. Rangers versus Celtic

Because you can never get enough sectarian violence, I want to see Rangers (Protestant) take on green-and-white Celtic (Catholic) in a Glasgow soccer derby. This is the kind of match that has the potential to make UNC-Duke at Cameron Indoor look like a tea party. If the match is sold out, I'm flying to Italy for AC Milan versus Inter.

5. HC Lugano at Ambri-Piotta

In first-division Swiss hockey, the twin villages of Ambri and Piotta in southern Switzerland have maybe 500 people between them, but 5,000 singing and dancing spectators stand and another 2,000 sit for the big game against rival Lugano. Like the happy maniac fans that follow Latvia's national team, they are among the best hockey fans in the world. The Valascia arena in Ambri, at about 3,300 feet above sea level, has a roof but no walls at either end. You don't get much better, or colder, than this.

My Favorite: The 1990 World Cup

I went to Italy for a newspaper, The Montreal Gazette. This was a simpler time, not merely in the world of calico but in communications. There were no Internet demands to meet, no blogs to blog, no Twitter to tweet, no lists to compile, no sidebars. My job was to travel the country and write the single best story I could every day (while keeping in mind that in Montreal, Italy was nominally a home team).

They remain the most rewarding five weeks of my professional life, although I am not sure even now whether I am welcome in Argentina. In a desultory final at Olympic Stadium in Rome, the referee finally grew weary of whistling Diego Maradona's thuggish team for fouls and called a late penalty, allowing West Germany, as it was then, to win 1-0. I suggested in print that Argentina would have a swell chance of making it back to the 1994 final because most of its players would be on parole by then.

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