If you're going to take a stroll along the Capital Region sporting landscape, be alert. Aside from the dire global shortage of lerts, it's a matter of public safety. Watch your step, or you're liable to trip over the ghosts and other remnants of franchises past. Listen carefully, and you can hear the echoes of the Albany Firebirds and Albany Patroons. The murmurs of the Albany-Colonie Yankees and Albany-Colonie Diamond Dogs. The plaintive cries of the Albany Choppers, Capital District Islanders and Adirondack Red Wings.


Legend has it that the Capital Region is where sports and franchises go to die. Legend has it that the Capital Region is a graveyard haunted by the demise of baseball, basketball, hockey and (Arena) football franchises alike. Legend has it that Capital Region apathy and neglect are dooming worthy sporting enterprises.


Don't believe everything you hear.


Don't believe everything you read.


Sure, the Diamond Dogs became the latest local sporting casualty. Sure, there are plans to take a wrecking ball to Heritage Park -- (halfway?) home of the Yankees and Diamond Dogs -- and build a nursing facility. Sure, there have been sightings of buzzards circling the Albany Attack lacrosse franchise. Sure, the Albany River Rats are finding it increasingly difficult to lure fans to Pepsi Arena for minor-league hockey.


Does that make the fans in these parts derelict in their duties? Or just discerning about what they support?


If you think local fans are failing their teams, then you have it all wrong. Indicting the fans for the demise of the dearly departed is like blaming a restaurant patron for turning up the nose at mystery meat. The fans aren't here to serve the teams. The teams are here to serve at the pleasure of the fans.


People like to complain that sports keeps changing for the worse. In the mind's eye, there's nothing quite like the good old days. But fans who grew up in the ``Leave it to Beaver,'' ``Andy Griffith Show'' and ``The Brady Bunch'' eras were lucky if they could catch a Game of the Week in their favorite sports.


Today's fans have so much freedom of choice. Through the wonders of cable and satellite dishes, fans can get almost a daily fix of the NFL, the NBA, the WNBA, the NHL, major-league baseball, college basketball, college football, the PGA Tour, auto racing, boxing, bowling, billiards, tennis, soccer and an array of Extreme sports geared toward Generation Dude.


Without even leaving the house.


Look, here's hoping all the local fixtures live long and prosper. Sentiment aside, it's good business for your friendly neighborhood newspaper. But let's be honest. When it's snowing in January, and there is a North Carolina-Duke game on television, a college basketball fan is going to think long and hard before schlepping to one of the local gyms.


Again and again, locals have shown they'll support whatever they deem to be worth their time and money. The Siena Saints' basketball program has by far the most devout following in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. The MAAC Tournament does much better business at Pepsi Arena than it does in Buffalo.


The 2001 Frozen Four was sold out a year in advance. The 2002 NCAA wrestling championships: sold out. The 1995 NCAA East basketball regional: sold out. Horse-racing interest may be at a lull around the country, but you'd never know it by checking out the late-summer scene at Saratoga. And good luck trying to score a ticket to next year's basketball East Regional Final at Pepsi Arena.


Don't get the wrong idea, just because the local landscape is littered with ghosts and wreckage from failed franchises. The fans of the Capital Region shouldn't feel sheepish. They should be proud that they're not a bunch of mindless sheep.