We call this reality

I believe the smiles have been wiped off our faces.

No, not the Patriots themselves. We can take them at face value when they say they never paid any real attention to the undefeated hype. They left that to us: the fans, the media, and the oddsmakers who kept making them prohibitive favorites, week after week after week.

But we all bought into it, anyway. We loved the weekly blowouts. We loved the talk about records. We loved the idea that Tom Brady might blow past Babe Ruth and Roger Maris. We loved the idea that the Patriots might really be the Greatest Team That Ever Was. It was fun to talk about, for sure.

Now reality has truly set in. The Patriots have their vulnerabilities. A pair of mediocre quarterbacks have made some big plays against them, and a quality running back such as Willis McGahee has run right through them. The Patriots have been treated with utter disrespect by a pair of teams that will not make the playoffs.

They are, however, still unblemished. They are 12-0 and they remain favored to go 16-0, and then 19-0. It's just that it's not going to be as easy to accomplish as it once looked.

First of all, they miss Rosevelt Colvin. He had blown hot and cold, true, but he was a savvy vet you could count on in big situations. That's only the half it it, however. They are down a key body. Tedy Bruschi and Junior Seau are now being stretched, perhaps past their current ability to perform. The lack of a really viable young linebacker is a problem. Pierre Woods and Eric Alexander may be OK auxiliary players, but what the Patriots could use right now is a frisky young linebacker who can really play, and they don't have one. (I think we're looking at a draft day need, not that they are known for need drafting).

But say this: when they absolutely, positively had to make defensive stops last night, they did so. One of them was made by Rodney Harrison, whose great shoetop tackle prevented what would have been a killer Baltimore first down. Please, Rodney please. Find a way to stay healthy for the remainder of the season.

On the other side of the ball, I was actually encouraged. The Ravens did a nice job on Randy Moss (although they can't take credit for him dropping a touchdown pass). They also did what no one else has done, and that is neutralize Wes Welker. But Brady now has so many weapons that it's ridiculous. Dante Stallworth was a factor early, Benjamin Watson, despite his awful drop of a TD pass, was a factor, and then there was Jabar Gaffney, who's not a bad number four receiver, eh?

By the way, did you know that in the 2000 Tennessee-Florida game, Jabar Gaffney caught a controversial game-winning touchdown pass with 14 seconds to go from Jesse (Hot Bachelor) Palmer, in which the issue was whether or not he was juggling the ball in the end zone? Neither did I until alert reader Ted McCaffrey told me.

I was further encouraged because the Patriots did get a little something out of the running game and because they found a way to get the ball into Laurence Maroney's hands with a little daylight. I'd like to see more of that.

Were they lucky? You bet your autographed picture of Horace Ivory they were lucky. Luck has always been part of any superior team's deal. The Celtics of legend were always lucky in the eyes of their opponents. The vaunted Leprechaun was always their best Sixth Man. You send Rex Ryan a thank you card and a box of chocolates, and you move on.

The officiating? I have heard all those complaints before, too. One person you didn't see complaining too much on Monday night was Brain Billick. He knew. His team started killing itself with penalties almost as soon as the game started, and it never stopped. The calls were clearly valid. Sorry, Ravens. You did it.

I find it interesting that in each of the last two weeks a sub QB having a very good game had his carriage turn into a pumpkin in the form of an unforgivable interception on a ball that should never have been thrown. "A rookie mistake by a fifth-year quarterback" is the way Steve Young described the James Sanders interception last night. He could have made a similar comment on the Asante Samuel pick last week.

Yet that's also a predictable part of the Big Picture when a team such as the Patriots comes along. Most of the time, you end up being who you are and they end up being who they are. As You Know Who loves to say, it is what it is. The Patriots can beat you by 40 or they can beat you by three, but they find a way to beat you, and you will have a hand in your own demise.

Incidentally, Brady needs nine touchdown passes in four games to beat the record. December is here. Those games will be in Foxborough and the Meadowlands. It's no lock. Then again, he'll be playing the Jets and Dolphins.

Games like the last two are great fan treats when you win. There is something to be said for leading, 35-7, at the half, but it does get boring, week after week. Games like the last two enhance the fan experience. Coming from behind is exhilarating. These are also indicators that your team has what it takes to play under extreme pressure. Common sense says you'll need to win at least one of these when the playoffs come. A little dress rehearsal is nice.

HOORAY FOR BARNEY

You'll have to bear with me on this one.

I congratulate Dick Williams on his overdue election to the Hall of Fame. I have long championed his enshrinement.

But he's not the most overdue selection. I'm sure 99.999 percent of the current fandom knows little and cares far less about Barney Dreyfuss, but I am telling you that his exclusion from the Hall all these years was the single most baffling and inexplicable oversight among all non-playing personnel in the 20th century. That's a big statement, and I'm prepared to back it up.

Barney Dreyfuss was the owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, but he was so much more. He was, in fact, the single most important non-playing baseball figure in the first 30 years of the 20th century.

A bookkeeper by trade, the German immigrant entered baseball as the man who kept the books for a team owned by his employer, the Bernheim Distillery Company of Louisville, Ky. He would eventually own the Louisville franchise in the National League. When the National League liquidated the franchise following the 1899 season, he took his 14 best players with him to Pittsburgh.

When war broke out between the established National League and the upstart American League, Barney Dreyfuss brokered the peace. His Pittsburgh team was the first great team of the century, winning the 1902 pennant by a record 27 1/2 games, which is still the record today. A year later he issued the challenge to the Red Sox that became the first modern World Series.

No one ran a team the way Barney Dreyfuss did. He donated his own proceeds from the '03 Series, which means that the Pirates remain the only losing team ever to take home more money per man than the winners. As a fascinating twist, he had the players' checks made out to their wives. He knew full well that many a player would have squandered the earnings on, shall we say, a good time.

Wrote legendary New York Times scribe John Kieran, '"As usual, he emerged in the mantle of the victorious martyr. Always remember he contributed the entire proceeds for division among his team. No other owner has ever since duplicated this generous gesture."

He was renowned as the smartest man in baseball. No one with his baseball sense had his business head, and no one with his business smarts had his baseball acumen. He was entrusted with making up the league schedule, for example, and it was said of him by an anonymous obit writer in 1932 that "all other magnates relied on the experienced veteran to straighten out their schedule, and conflicts in dates, hard railroad jumps and unequal distribution of holiday home games. What the other magnates had to ponder, Barney had it all at the ends of his fingers."

It was acknowledged that National League president Harry Pulliam wouldn't make a move without consulting Dreyfuss.

His ethics were beyond reproach. In addition to seeing that the wives got control of the '03 World Series swag, he routinely invested money for his players, promising to cover all losses himself."While he would not guarantee what return could be expected," wrote Chester Smith of the Pittsburgh Press, 'he promised there would be no loss."

He believed in trading, not selling, players. Again from Mr. Smith: "He never sold a player for the cash he could get out of the deal."

Not surprisingly, therefore, he hated what Harry Frazee was doing when he sold his treasure chest of great Red Sox players to the Yankees. Said Smith, "He was caustic in the denunciation of the trades and purchases which sent a greater part of the Boston Red Sox to the New York Yankees, a move which deliberately wrecked the former club and made the latter a perennial contender."

Your kind of guy, right?

In his day, he was everyone's kind of guy, which is why I cannot understand how he could have been so neglected for the past 70 years. When he died, he was certainly appreciated. Wrote Pittsburgh scribe Ralph Davis, "The Last of the Mohicans --- that's Barney Dreyfuss, sole active survivor of an era when baseball spikes had long, sharp blades and when men invested their money in the National Game because they loved it as a sport rather than regarded it as a business. These were men who were fan magnates who thought more of a victory by their team than they did a dividend from their club."

But neglect set in almost immediately. When the World Series celebrated its golden anniversary in 1953, just 21 years after Dreyfuss's death, he was already officially marginalized. New York writer Dan Daniel was puzzled. "There is no effigy of Barney Dreyfuss," he wrote. "There is no memorial to the vision and vital contribution to the the game of the one-time owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates."

The Veterans Committee has righted a terrible wrong. Barney Dreyfuss is finally in the Hall of Fame, and I'll drink to that.

FOR THOSE OF YOU SCORING AT HOME

Since Game 4 of the ALCS, the Red Sox, Patriots, and Celtics are a combined 38-2. The two losses both came on the road, one by one point and the other in overtime. So, yes, you'd better be thanking the Sports God for your inexplicable good fortune.