So what happens when an almost 60-year-old actor/producer fulfills his lifelong dream of playing for the Yankees?

He strikes out. This is the real world, not one of those feel-good Holiday movies.

Billy Crystal batted in the leadoff slot for the Yankees Thursday, filling the DH role in the starting lineup against Pittsburgh. “I just want to touch it,” he told the Associated Press beforehand.

He met his goal, hitting one Paul Maholm pitch foul of first base while working the count to 3-1. But Maholm came back with two fastballs to strike him out.

Still, it was Crystal had a good time. He took infield practice with the Yankees before the game, got a big ovation from the fans in Tampa and got to take home a game ball as a souvenir.

“I’m really relaxed, I really am,” Crystal told the AP after taking infield. “That’s until I see the 6-foot-2, 230-pound guy who’s going to throw who’s never been to a Seder.”

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE

Questions to ponder while all of this region’s college basketball programs attempt to regroup:

• Does Mike Anderson have enough horses in that next recruiting class? Or are the Tigers now light years behind, ahem, Baylor?
• Is Dave Duncan sleeping a little better knowing that he has Kyle Lohse in the equation?
• Do Todd Wellemeyer, Anthony Reyes and Brad Thompson know they are now on the clock?
• If John Mozeliak develops a pitching surplus by July – when everybody is back from rehab – will he become the most popular general manager in baseball?

THRILL OF VICTORY

Steve Tisch is a co-owner of the Super Bowl champion New York Giants. He is also the Academy Award-winning producer of the movie “Forrest Gump.”

At the IMG World Congress of Sports, he was asked to compare the two triumphs.

“I think the Lombardi was probably more satisfying,” Tisch said. “A successful movie, a hit movie, a critically very well-acclaimed movie is very satisfying,” he said yesterday at the IMG World Congress of Sports. “The acknowledgment of my industry and my peers given in an Academy Award is fantastic.

“If you look at how a movie is made, it’s scripted, it’s edited, it’s shot over a 70-, 80-, 90-day shooting schedule. It’s very different from a live football game. It’s unscripted. There’s no editing.”

QUIPS ‘R US

Here is what some of America’s leading sports pundits have been writing:

Elliott Harris, Chicago Sun-Times: “Major League Baseball commissioner Bud Selig’s salary for the fiscal year ending Oct. 31, 2006, was $15.06 million, the Sports Business Journal reports. Which buys an awful lot of sand to stick your head into when you feel like it. It also is a figure greater than the Florida Marlins’ 2006 payroll. Maybe the players association can try to institute a rule that the commissioner cannot be paid more than the lowest team’s payroll.”

Greg Cote, Miami Herald: At the Tripp Isenhour Classic, Pedro Martinez and Juan Marichal will release the first birds.

Scott Ostler, San Francisco Chronicle: “The Giants ‘08 slogan is ‘All out, all season.’ But that’s misleading. I think some of the guys will be out, like, half the season.”

Frank Fitzpatrick, Philadelphia Inquirer: “Note to NBA players: Lose the Bjorn Borg look. Those silly headbands so many players are sporting might be the worst sports fashion trend since the Great Perm Outbreak of the mid-1970s. Whenever I see one, I can’t help but think of Huggy Bear, Slick Watts and Hana Mandlikova. The NBA is supposed to be the epitome of elan. Cornrows, retro-afros and bald pates are cool. Meanwhile, the guys who wear headbands are to hipness what Toby Keith is to music.”

Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel: “Did you see where Barack Obama’s campaign raised $55 million in February? Wow, that’s almost as much as Southern Cal boosters raised before National Signing Day.”

Cote again: “Answer: It is why boxing is dying. Question: Did you hear that has-beens Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson are talking about fighting for the first time since 1997?”

Fitzpatrick again: “And speaking of headband wearers, why does Boston’s Paul Pierce always look as if he has a toothache? Is his too tight?”

MEGAPHONE

“The interesting thing is I’m almost 21 years old and I’ve already had ups and downs in my career. And in a way, I’m fortunate to have the downs, because some of the girls that are coming up that are 20 or 21 or 22 are going up, up, up right now. And, you know, I think everybody’s realistic that they’re going to have some down moments in their careers and they’re going to have injuries. I was fortunate that I was able to have this little slump and have the experience of it and know that I was able to come back. In a way, I feel like I’m a veteran.”

Tennis star Maria Sharapova.