We’re going through a sensitivity phase in sports. Feelings are being hurt, and sometimes it seems everybody needs to stop dribbling or swinging or cross-checking and find somebody to hug.

Sammy Sosa needs a hug. One day he’s thinking Barry Bonds has given him the thumbs-up on breaking his HR record, and the next he’s finding out Barry doesn’t really care.

Now Sammy doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. Talk about confusion. Does he stop at 72?

(Anybody who claims to know Bonds as well as Sensitive Sammy claims to know Bonds should know that Bonds doesn’t like to divulge anything he says to teammates or opponents. If he insulted Sammy by telling reporters he doesn’t care who breaks his home run record, it’s because he didn’t think it was anybody’s business what he said to Sammy in a semi-private outfield moment. Now, maybe "none of your business" would have been a better answer, but this is the New, Media-Friendly Barry. Reap what you sow.)

Kobe Bryant needs a hug. Reggie Miller followed a mutual hailstorm of unlanded punches with cryptic innuendo -- on team stationery, no less -- concerning Kobe’s unreported inner torment. What if Kobe didn’t know from inner torment until Reggie pointed it out? That’s enough to create its own inner torment, even if none previously existed.

Cris Carter needs a hug, or at least a contract. He was just trying to be polite to the people in Cleveland, where he really didn’t want to play, and he ended up being impolite to the people in St. Louis, where he does want to play but no longer can. Super Bowl loss or no Super Bowl loss, Carter learned it’s still Mike Martz’s world and the rest of us are merely bit players in it. (Yes, even Brian Dennehy.)

Add Jeff Kent to the list. He fell off his monster truck at the Magic Wand car wash, breaking his wrist, and now he’s angry that people -- mostly "media" people -- thought it was amusing. Why couldn’t he hire someone to wash the car, they asked. To which Kent told Bay Area reporters, in an inspired rant, "When my kid went through potty training, I wiped his [butt], too. I’m not like everybody else. I don’t have maids. I don’t have car-wash guys. I don’t have nannies. I clean my own clothes. I wear holey underwear and torn socks. I drive trucks. I’ve got lots of them. I wash my own trucks."

Andy Pettitte, too. His son wore a Mets cap in the dugout during spring training, earning his father a trip to the principal’s office. (Young Pettitte needs to find a youth league like the one I once played in, where the teams were named after insects. We were the Spiders, which sounds bad until you realize there were also Roaches and Gnats.)

If it seems everyone’s wound a little tight, brace yourself. This is only the prologue. Sunday is Selection Sunday, and Thursday the NCAA Tournament starts. You know what that means: College coaches take center stage, and Earth knows no more sensitive creature.

This Week’s List

One guy who can go from dominating to disappearing faster than you can say his name: Dan Gadzuric.

A question we are all being asked to ponder during this time of national contemplation: What can brown do for you?

Irrefutable college basketball rule, No. 1,090: Major conference tournaments aren’t worthwhile unless there’s a 13-15 team playing in the championship game.

Which means, students: The desperation of the small-conference tournaments is always more entertaining than Duke-Maryland.

And Kevin Harlan calmly intoned, "He’s just sucked the gravity right out of the building!": Keon Clark going over -- way over -- Shawn Bradley.

Six steps from claiming total victory in the PR war: Jason Kidd flipped off the Phoenix fans.

Surest way to make Gonzaga coach Mark Few lose it: Mention his team and the designation "mid-major" in the same sentence.

I lost 32 pounds in 48 hours and increased my bench press from 225 to 315, so don’t tell me Exercise in a Bottle doesn’t work: The FTC is going after Steve Garvey and his claims regarding weight-loss fantasies such as E in a B and Fat Trapper.

It’s sort of like watching the first round of the Big East tournament, where it’s always 49-49 with three minutes left: On www.irs.gov there is a link to "braintaxer," described as "a fun and interactive game to test your knowledge of a specific IRS or tax-related topic."

Just for the heck of it: Roosevelt Bouie.

In Canadian, "Dr. Funk" has a different translation, something along the lines of "losers of 13 in a row": Vince Carter’s newest shoe ad has him saving the day during a 1970s-era Rucker League game.

At the risk of sounding like Clair Bee: Do they call traveling anymore?

You just know it’s got to happen: Indiana-Texas Tech, first round.

If you didn’t know it already, you will learn at least one salient bit of information over the next two weeks: Just how poorly college players shoot free throws.

The answer, quite frankly, starts with no: A question on a corner of this very slice of ether asked, "Is Chris Marcus the next Shaq?"

A word we wouldn’t have encountered if it hadn’t been for college basketball: Quinnipiac.

You know somebody else has thought of this: "Role Reversal," starring Bobby Knight as Brian Dennehy.

It’s that rare moment when "What are you wearing?" sounds downright intellectual: Is there anything more pointless than an in-game internet poll that asks such riveting questions as, "Who you think’s gonna win?"

And finally, over on the Satan Channel, it’s Mike Krzyzewski: The Discovery Channel, getting its own hoops fever, is featuring college coaches Billy Donovan and Tubby Smith discussing genus and species of their animal mascots.

Tim Keown is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at tim.keown@espnmag.com.