Hung over from all those Yankee champagne pours? Feeling like a L-O-U-S-E because Trent Dilfer's going to Disney World, and you're not? Agnostic about athletes holding their trophies and crediting their Higher Power for the assist?

Well, we've got the celebratory ritual for you. At lunchtime on Wednesday -- as it happens, Valentine's Day -- the winner of Best-In-Show at the Westminster Kennel Club will be presented with raw, chopped sirloin on a silver tray at Sardi's restaurant in the heart of New York City's theater district. This is where show people traditionally go to wait for the reviews. This is also where the dog show people go to relive -- bitchily, I might add -- the two previous days at Madison Square Garden.

There is nothing quite like watching the champ dig in. This is his reward for sashaying around the Garden, standing stock-still while people inspect his loins and generally representin' -- as athletes say -- his breed. For my kibble, it's the purest prize in sports: food for a feat. No weird-looking trophy or cup or giant cardboard check. In a way, it's like watching Tiger Woods take one of those humongous checks to a bank and walking out with a stack of hundreds.

That's just one of the things I like about Westminster. I also like that the ice surface beneath the Garden floor has to be melted because of the sensitivity of the dogs' paws. I like the way the New York Times covers the event, putting far more effort into boxers than it does boxing. I like the sonorous introductions by Roger Caras and the sweet if inane commentary on the USA network by Joe Garagiola -- nailed by Fred Willard in the movie, Best In Show. I even like the fact that the first night betters the ESPYs -- which I also like, honest to Bristol -- in the ratings. (Hard as it is to believe, more people are familiar with Jack Russell terriers than with Jack Russell Stadium.)

The best thing about Westminster, though, is the dogs. Yeah, I know, duh. But, really, every time I go, I am amazed at how well-behaved, at how friendly, at how just-plain-dog these dogs are. They're froo-frooed and fussed over and celebrated, but they don't seem to let it go to their heads. They're also bivouacked in tiny cages for two days and pawed over by strangers in the benching area.

The problem with Westminster, though, is that it has gone to the people. There are just too many of them. Year after increasingly popular year, the benching area looks more and more like a refugee camp. The equanamity of the canines stands in stark contrast to the rudeness of the human beings. It's not really their fault: Westminster now bursts at the seams. But still, the dogs pant and wag, just like Fido does at home.

Therein lies the reason the Westminster is so appealing. Watching on TV, or walking down the rows in the benching area, can be a trip down memory lane. The English springer spaniels put me in mind of Patches, a Springer we had with respiratory problems. My parents told my sister and I they were sending Patches to Arizona for the desert air; it didn't dawn on us until years later, after Patches failed to write from poolside at the Biltmore, that he had gone to a far better place than Arizona.

English setters. Yorkshire terriers. German shorthaired pointers. Brittany spaniels. Gordon setters. We had 'em all when I was growing up, and it's nice to make their reacquaintance at Westminster. A few years ago, a Gordon setter and a Brittany spaniel finished one-two in the sporting group, which pleased and surprised me no end. We, too, had a Gordon and a Brittany, but their roles were reversed. In fact, they had a sort of Of Mice and Men relationship: Beau, the Gordon, was so dumb he ate rather than drank water; Brill, the Brittany, could read my mind. It was Brill who consoled me when the Phillies fell short on the last day of the 1964 season. He came over, rested his head on my lap and telepathed this message: "What was Mauch thinking, starting Bunning and Short on two days' rest?"

We pass along certain traits to our children, and my love of dogs has been directly transferred to Eve, one of our 6-year-old twin daughters. So she and I went to the Westminster the other day. At first, she was unimpressed by the eight-ring circus. "Do they race?" she asked. "Do they walk on their back legs? Do they jump through fire?" No, I explained, they just basically jog around in a circle. An hour in, she was ready to leave.

But then we went down into the benching area, where she met the Cavalier King Charles spaniels and the bullmastiffs and the Italian greyhounds and a Komondorok (think white Rasta), who took a shine to her fluffy dog binoculars. She would ask politely if she could pet a dog, and the handlers more often than not said sure. Tibetan terriers. Bichons Frises. Shiba Inus.

We went back to the seats to watch some more judging. Dalmatians. Great Danes. Standard poodles. Yorkies. Eve just watched through her binoculars and asked an occasional question. Nothing, though, about whether or not they caught Frisbees or played dead or climbed on ladders. Finally, it was time to go.

She didn't want to leave.

Steve Wulf is executive editor of ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at steve.wulf@espnmag.com.