Ah, October! The golden days ache with sweetness and longing, apples hang heavy on the bough, and a man's thoughts turn to ...

... the World Series. An American man's thoughts, anyway. Which brings us to two burning questions: Will the Injun-stomping Sox scale the Rox? And, Mommy, is there baseball in Germany?

The answer to the second question is yes, which is no small source of solace for U.S. expats (or Dominican expats, Japanese expats, etc.) who sometimes simply must get a fix -- in the flesh and not just on the tube -- of the boys of summer. While baseball has become increasingly popular in soccer-mad Germany in recent years, it remains a marginal sport. The top players are all basically amateurs, the fields are sorry, and the level of play is about what you'd see at an average college game in the States.

But it's baseball.

One thing that immediately stands out is the teams' names. They're not the usual clipped, matter-of-fact German variety, which in soccer is typically something like 1. FC (short for Erster Fußball-Club, or "First Soccer Club") followed by the name of the home city. The baseball teams in Germany's premier league (1. Baseball Bundesliga) have jazzy, American-style names, most of which are English words: Capitals (Bonn), Cardinals (Cologne), Indians (Gauting), Disciples (Haar), Regents (Hanover), Stealers (Hamburg), Athletics (Mainz), Tornados (Mannheim), Nightmares (Neunkirchen), Untouchables (Paderborn), Hornets (Saarlouis), Alligators (Solingen), and Hawks (Tübingen).

Two teams have German names: the Regensburg Legionäre ("Legionnaires") and Heidenheim Heideköpfe ("Heath Heads"). Heath Heads? That one sounds like it came out of left field, but it's hardly odder than, say, Dodgers, not to mention such minor-league gems as Muckdogs, Lugnuts, Dust Devils, and Mud Hens.

Baseball lingo in Germany is also a mishmash of English and German, only more so. Some American terms have been adopted more or less completely, such as Strike, Bunt, Catcher, Single, Double Play (or Double-Play, Doubleplay). Others are used alternatively with German equivalents, such as Inning/Spielabschnitt, Out/Aus, Innenfeld/Infield, Run/Punkt, Hit/Schlag, Runner/Läufer, Flyout/Flugaus, Batter/Schlagmann, Pitcher/Werfer, Walk/Freilauf, Error/Fehler. In a few cases, only German terms are used, such as Spielstand ("score"), Schläger ("bat"), Wurf ("throw"), Handschuh ("glove").

There are also mongrel terms such as Buntversuch ("bunt attempt"), Outfieldzaun ("outfield fence"), geladene Bases ("loaded bases"). And along with Playoffs, there are Playdowns.

Playdowns (or Abstiegsrunde in proper German) are among the relatively few areas in Germany -- a land steeped in socialistic solidarity -- where competition is rougher than in the generally more cutthroat U.S.A. In Major League Baseball, a player who performs poorly can be sent down to the minors. In German baseball, as in German soccer, entire teams that perform poorly are relegated to the next-lowest league.

German baseball rules call for the last-place finishers in the No. 1 league's two divisions to drop to the No. 2 league (2. Baseball Bundesliga) the following season, while the winners of the No. 2 league's two divisions are promoted to the No. 1 league. Meanwhile, the next-to-last teams in the No. 1 league play a best-of-three relegation series -- Playdowns -- against the second-place finishers in the No. 2 league.

Imagine the New York Yankees, after a season in which their zillion-dollar payroll brought them zilch, in a league with teams like the Buffalo Bisons, Columbus Clippers, and Durham Bulls. Would they then be the Bronx Bomblets?

(Friendly acknowledgements for consultations on this post go to Douglas "Dougout" Sutton, formerly with Hamburg's Stealers and now, as always, a true-blue fan of the St. Louis Cardinals.)

Forty-two days to go. Until the World Cup starts in Germany, that is. Nope, there's no escaping it, sports fans! In Hamburg, where bills sent to me converge, the electronic displays at subway stations and bus stops, besides showing departure times and destinations, are counting down the days until The Big Event.

Forty-two days to go, and counting. The gloom that gripped the country last month, the feeling of impending fiasco, has lifted, if only tentatively. When we last left our hero, Jürgen "Grinsi-Klinsi" Klinsmann was under withering fire. The Italians had drubbed his young charges by a score of 4-1, and he was also taking flak for flying back to California. Sunny California, mind you, far from oft-dreary Germany.

That's where Klinsmann, a former German soccer star who coaches Germany's national team, lives with his American wife and kids. Nothing wrong with that, so long as Team Germany wins. So long as Germany wins, he could live on the moon if he liked. Or in a commune with ax murderers and child molesters, for that matter. But as soon as Germany loses, the critics toot their horns. Why the hell is Germany's coach living in America? Why the hell did he hire an American fitness guru, not to mention an American sports psychologist? Why the hell are our soccer players heaving medicine balls, practicing with elastic bands tugging at their waists, and doing yoga? When's the last time the smarty-pants Yanks won the World Cup, anyway? (Answer: never. Germany has won three times).

There was, until recently, another burning question: Why the hell is Klinsmann making King Kahn fight for his job as Germany's starting goalie? Imagine, the great King Kahn, with 84 caps and a big head to match!

This last gripe was serious indeed. King Kahn, aka The Titan, is Oliver "Olli" Kahn, who earns a decent living protecting Bayern Munich's goal. For the uninitiated, Bayern Munich is Germany's top soccer team -- the most successful, the richest, the brashest. In most of Germany, it's also, understandably, the most despised aggregation of men in short pants. It's the New York Yankees of German soccer, if you get me (Yeah, I hear you in Boston!). Bayern Munich has won the German championship 19 times. It won again last year. And it'll probably win this year too, assuming the Earth isn't invaded by Mars and the rest of the season isn't cancelled.

Back to Kahn. One of the first things Klinsmann did after becoming Germany's coach in July 2004 was to remove the broad-chested, craggy-faced blond as captain and put his job as the country's No. 1 keeper up for grabs. Kahn had to prove himself vis-a-vis his rival, Jens Lehmann, who takes home his pay from the London club Arsenal. This indignity caused much buzzing from German soccer's killer B's: Bayern, Beckenbauer and Bild. Bayern Munich lobbied hard, too hard, for its man. The team's manager, Uli Hoeness, accused Klinsmann of waging a campaign of "psychological terror" that was hurting ol' Olli's play. "Kaiser" Franz Beckenbauer, the most revered figure in German sports, called the goalie duel "rubbish." Beckenbauer, who's from Munich, captained West Germany's 1974 World Cup champions, coached West Germany to a World Cup triumph in 1990, is president of Bayern Munich and heads the 2006 World Cup Organizing Committee. He's also a columnist for the mass circulation tabloid Bild Zeitung, the paper of choice for Germany's average Ottos and sharp critic of "sunny boy" Klinsmann.

The Bavarians hounded Klinsmann to choose quickly in Kahn's favor. Klinsmann, a Swabian with a reputation for stubbornness, coolly told them nothing doing -- he wouldn't decide until early May. The pressure built. So did friction between Kahn and Lehmann. Their duel became a national soap opera. And Bild kept bashing "Grinsi-Klinsi."

That's how things stood on March 22, when Germany played the United States in a friendly match in Dortmund. The Germans won handily 4-1 (the Americans were missing most of their best players due to injuries and club commitments, however). Klinsmann won a reprieve. "This win will allow us to carry on in the next few weeks in a much calmer atmosphere," he said, and pointedly noted that some of the criticism leveled at him had been "below the belt." Bild's headline the next morning read: "Klinsi, jetzt darfst du Grinsi!" (loosely: Klinsi, you can grin now!)

But the goalie duel remained unresolved. And the Bavarians turned up the heat on Klinsmann. On April 7, earlier than planned, he announced his decision: for Lehmann, whom he said was "slightly better." There were explosions of indignation. "Klinsi killt King Kahn!" screamed Bild. Hoeness spouted angrily that Lehmann wasn't better at all, and that Klinsmann had favored him from the start. Beckenbauer kept calm. Thank God the matter was finally settled, he said. Most of the German press agreed with Klinsmann's choice. Kahn, after all, had looked increasingly shaky in recent weeks, allowing a freakish goal against the U.S. and two giveaways on April 1 in a league match against last-place Cologne. Lehmann, meanwhile, was in the form of his life. On April 5, his Arsenal squad had reached the semifinals of the European Champions League with a 0-0 draw against Juventus of Turin. It was Arsenal's eighth straight shutout in the competition.

There was one loose end left. How would Kahn, who expressed shock and "boundless disappointment" at his demotion, react? Kahn, whose brilliant saves during the 2002 World Cup carried lightly regarded Germany to the final against Brazil. Kahn, who then fumbled a shot by Rivaldo at the unforgiving feet of Ronaldo, leading to Germany's 2-0 defeat. Would Kahn sulk on the bench? Quit the team in a huff? Most bets were on the latter. When he called a press conference on April 10, people held their breaths. Often quick to boil over, Kahn was oddly relaxed. "This cannot be about personal vanity. It's about something much bigger, a World Cup on home soil," he said, adding that he accepted Klinsmann's decision and would do whatever he could to help the team.

Fast forward to April 25: Arsenal advanced to its first Champions League final with a 0-0 draw against the Spanish squad Villarreal. Lehmann had now gone 745 minutes without conceding a goal, a Champions League record. And he did it in grand style, blocking a last-minute penalty. Bild called him "Jens Supermann."

So all is hunky-dory in the land of the World Cup hosts. At least until May 27, when Germany plays little Luxembourg in a World Cup tuneup. If Klinsmann's team should stumble then, expect more hand-wringing and mud-slinging. Only double.

In case you missed it, Germany is hosting the 2006 World Cup soccer tournament. The World Cup is big. Bigger -- for the folks that live beyond U.S. borders, of which there are quite a few -- than the World Series. Bigger than the Super Bowl. Bigger than the Olympics. The World Cup is the world's biggest sporting event. And the Germans are hosting it. But I already said that.

The Germans, in case you missed it, have been in a foul mood the last several years. Slumping economy. High unemployment. Reunification. Reunification? Well, would you want your relatives to move in with you?

If there's one thing Germans can do, it's calculate. And they're calculating that the World Cup, the world's biggest sporting event, can help them get out of the dumps. It'll bring a lot of money into the country. It'll create a lot of jobs. It could also -- if Germany's national soccer team pulls off a miracle -- make Germans believe in themselves again, like the Miracle of Bern in 1954, when Germany's national soccer team, playing in the Swiss capital, beat heavily favored Hungary in the World Cup final. The victory gave them the feeling, after the whacking they got in the war, that "wir sind wieder wer" -- "we're somebodies again."

If there's another thing Germans can do, it's organize. That's good. It's good when a host is organized. Germans, however, are not exactly famous for being relaxed and cheerful. That's not good. A grumpy, uptight host, no matter how well organized, isn't very likely to throw a super party.

So what do you do? Well, for starters you make the World Cup logo three smiley faces. Three smiley faces? Three smiley faces. Marketing, my son, marketing -- that's what it's all about. Then you launch a friendliness campaign in the 12 German cities where matches will be played. "We won't get this opportunity again for another 50 years, so it's worth at least smiling for a few weeks," said "Kaiser" Franz Beckenbauer, German soccer's top banana and president of the 2006 World Cup Organizing Committee.

What did I say about calculating?

Anyhow, so far, so good. But on March 1, three months and eight days before kickoff, the wheels began to come off the wagon. In a friendly match in Florence against Italy, Germany's national soccer team flamed out 4-1. Five days later, the German team's coach, Jürgen "Klinsi" Klinsmann, a former German soccer star, didn't attend a workshop in Düsseldorf for coaches of the World Cup teams. Klinsmann had flown back to southern California, where he lives with his American wife and two kids.

That's when the liverwurst hit the fan. The Kaiser lit into his absentee coach. Fans began calling for his scalp. Some German lawmakers even demanded that he answer before parliament. Most serious of all, the flashy tabloid Bild Zeitung, Germany's top-selling newspaper, began to heap scorn on him.

More bad news on March 8. AC Milan beat Bayern Munich 4-1, kicking Germany's best soccer team out of the European Champions League competition.

The following week, German media reported that a player on Germany's national team had been implicated in the match-fixing scandal that has shaken German soccer since early last year. Things were quickly going from bad to worse. "It's about time the Germans stopped badmouthing everything before the World Cup, and started looking forward to this big international event." Thus spake, according to Der Spiegel's online edition, a Turkish soccer player in Germany's top league.

Der Spiegel, Germany's leading news magazine and frequent critic of its countrymen's gloominess, offered a gloomy assessment: "The World Cup, a major German effort at good cheer," it wrote last week, "is in danger of sinking into self-laceration and ill-humor." Did it say that Germans should be more laid-back, that they should open up and let some cheer into their lives, that soccer, after all, is just a game? "German life," Der Spiegel pronounced -- some Wagner music, bitte -- "is reflected in German soccer." The significance of the World Cup for Germany "mustn't be underestimated."

Uh-oh.

Maybe it's all that southern California sunshine. But blond, oft-smiling Klinsmann, now mocked as "Grinsi-Klinsi" by the riled-up Bild Zeitung, doesn't see things so fraught with dire portent. "My personal happiness doesn't depend on the World Cup," the paper quoted him as saying, adding: "But the well-being of an entire nation does!"

Smiley, anyone?