Bobby Ewing stood naked, a towel draped around his broad masculine shoulders. Having stepped from the shower, droplets of water still clung to his tanned and flawless skin.

His wife, Pam, luminescent in her white nightgown, fell into his powerful embrace.

Her eyes moistened, "I thought you were dead," she whispered. "I've had a nightmare. A terrible nightmare."

With that one whispered phrase, the TV series Dallas wiped out their entire 1985 season. They skipped from 1984 to 1986 in a blink. It was as though 1985 never happened.

I wish I had known at the time that this was a harbinger of things to come. I would have bought stock in things not happening.

A lot of things haven't happened recently.

When I think back over the past decade of cycling, the name that comes to my mind first is Lance Armstrong. That's also the second, third, and fourth name that comes to mind. I could swear I remember something about a gritty triumph over cancer, passionate endurance over the grueling Alps, and a million of those yellow "LiveStrong" bracelets.

Most importantly, I seem to remember a yellow-jersey clad Armstrong crossing the finish line, arms raised in triumph, over and over and over, claiming the Tour De France as his own for seven consecutive years.

Or perhaps I don't remember that last part. The US Anti-Doping Agency now tells me that this never happened. After a long and protracted legal battle, Lance Armstrong has dropped his defense. This is as good as admitting that he has been using illegal substances.

The Anti-Doping Agency has a powerful reach. Not only do they strike fear into the hearts of dopes everywhere, but not content with their trans-Oceanic power, the US Anti-Doping Agency threatens the very fabric of time itself.

Lance Armstrong's seven Tour De France victories never happened.

Buzz Aldrin must have high hopes that the autopsy of another inspirational Armstrong will turn up a controlled substance. If Neil Armstrong had tainted Tang in his system, the title of "First Man on the Moon" devolves to the runner-up.

Someone else must have won Lance Armstrong’s races. (Unfortunately, since most of his runners-up have their own doping issues, the last indisputably clean champion was Lucien Petit-Breton, the 1907 winner. The US Anti-Doping Agency is looking into ways to use their Godlike power over the past to resurrect Monsieur Petit-Breton and shower him with his well-deserved honors.)

The Anti-Dopes aren't the only ones with supreme power over time and space. No sporting nonsense goes on in this country without the NCAA being part of it. On July 23, 2012 the late Joe Paterno and the Penn State Nittany Lions managed to lose 111 football games in a single day. The games were not lost in the sense that Penn State failed to score as many points as the opposition. The games were lost in the sense that they were misplaced, fallen between the couch cushions of history.

According to the NCAA, none of the Penn State games from 1998-2011 ever happened.

I must be going mad. I could have sworn I watched some of those games.

Furthermore, one looks back at the Nittany Lions record vs. the Badgers over that span. Penn State had 4 wins and 6 losses.

Somehow, the Badgers managed to lose 4 times to a team which, according to the NCAA, didn't exist.

This epidemic of sporting events not happening has got to stop.

The NCAA deems that Ohio State football did not exist in 2010 due to Tattoo-gate. Somehow, a tawdry little merchandise-for-tattoos scandal managed to discontinue the time-space continuum.

November 13, 2010 in Columbus, OH, the unthinkable happened, an event of such quantum weirdness that no physicist can explain it.

The Penn State Nittany Lions, who did not exist, played the Ohio State Buckeyes, who also did not exist. Thousands of fans paid for parking and hot dogs that day. Expect lawsuits.

This time last year, the Milwaukee Brewers led the NL Central by 10.5 games. The closer was closing, the hitters were hitting, the Fielder was also hitting. The Crew were on their way to their first postseason glory since the Reagan administration.

This year, the Crew have had the sorriest downtrodden statistically off-the-charts run of bum luck I've seen in all my years of watching baseball.

This year, the Brewers have lost 27 one-run games, by far the most in baseball. They've lost another 10 in extra innings. The Brewers lead the majors in blown saves. They've been snakebit by injuries, and it's been obvious since the All-Star break that we can all make plans in October that don't involve Brewers postseason baseball.

I turned off the game in disgust the other night and handed the controls to Mrs. Van Lingle. She promptly found an episode of Dallas. Lord help us, they got Larry Hagman out of the cooler and they're filming new episodes of Dallas.

Then it occurred to me. The solution to the Brewers woes this year.

It's time for the 2011 MLB playoffs.

2012 never happened. It was all just a nightmare. A terrible, terrible nightmare.