"Always toward absent lovers love's tide stronger flows." - Sextus Propertius

The modern sports fan is an all-devouring, insatiable and utterly spoiled beast. But who can blame them. There is nary a dull moment in the year where he or she has to fret about not watching or attending a major sports event in this country. And if one is a follower of baseball and football, arguably the two most popular American sports, there is only one month in the calendar - March - without either of these sports contesting regular season or playoff games.

But at least both of these national pastimes have extended offseasons that allow fans a break, granting them the necessary act of missing their favorite games so that when they make their annual reappearance there is always the joy of rediscovery. Isn't this what we're supposed to do in life anyway? After all it's what most young men are taught when first lovestruck - give the girl space, don't overwhelm her, give her a chance to miss you. Well, this applies to sports.

There's a reason why baseball works on a literary level, even if it annoys the hell out of those who find its romanticization suffocating and obnoxious. Bart Giamatti, the late, great commissioner of our treasured game - and he truly was the last great, towering figure in the sport as Bud Selig just hasn't cut it - said it best when he wrote: "It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. You count on it, you rely on it to buffer the passage of time, to keep the memory of sunshine and high skies alive, and then, just when the days are all twilight, when you need it most, it stops."

And football too makes its devotees suffer for the good of the sport. Those who worship at the gridiron have to wait even longer every year for their beloved game to reappear. And just as baseball fans yearn for spring's arrival after the harsh and depressing winter, there are many millions who name autumn as their favorite season, as it heralds footballs return and a renewed love of Sundays.

Really, all sports should have a significant break between campaigns. Even basketball and hockey, though their seasons are about six weeks too long, take several months off.

But for diehard fans of tennis and golf there's just simply too much going on. And it's going to end up injuring - literally and figuratively - both sports unless something is changed.

Over the last few days both Rafael Nadal and Andy Roddick, who are in Shanghai to play in yet another required event, have vented their frustration about the length of the tennis calendar. "It's impossible to play 1st of January and finish 5th of December," said the 23-year-old Nadal, who had to miss Wimbledon this year because of a knee injury. "It's impossible to be here playing like what I did the last five years, playing a lot of matches and being all the time 100 percent without problems." And said Roddick, "It's ridiculous to think that you have a professional sport that doesn't have a legitimate offseason to rest, get healthy, and then train. I just feel sooner or later that common sense has to prevail."

It's an egregious affront to the sport if the disorganized and misguided overseers of tennis don't remedy this situation quickly. What good does it do to have players who are only 70% healthy at any given time of the year?

Tennis should conclude just weeks after the US Open. The ATP could then stage a year-end championship, which could help sort out the final standings, in early October. This gives players a little more than three months rest before the first grand slam in Australia in late January. I'd be shocked if any player - whether ranked in the top 10 or 100 - would balk at such a proposal.

Maybe one of the only benefits derived from the dire state of the world economy will be a reduction in events. But since every nation - those developed and not-fully-developed, Asian or Western or African - seemingly wants to host a tennis event I doubt much change will come soon.

Rather, it will have to be the players who demand it. The top pros revolted in the early '70s - under the leadership of Arthur Ashe, Jack Kramer and other tennis dignitaries - which gave the main attractions of the sport a significant say in the administration of events. This must be reconfigured for the 21st century. Perhaps we need more boycotts or a strike of some sort to finally see a change. I'd love to see Nadal, Roddick or others band together and refuse to play until changes were adopted. I dare tournament organizers to stand up to them. Only then, when the pros commit to an act of definitive consequence will any action be taken.

Tennis' daunting and eternal schedule is a more urgent problem than golf's calendar obviously because of the physical demands of the sport. And since golf is primarily an American sport for the top pros, there's less of the grueling worldwide travel. But even with golf there's far too much tournament play toward the end of the year.

Are the Fed Ex Cup events in September really necessary, other than to further pad the coffers of these talented athletes with truly vulgar sums of money? Golf should have a season-ending event though, the competition calls for it. But let it be contested a couple of weeks after the final major - the PGA Championship - and let it serve, as in tennis, to finalize the rankings for the year. Maybe have the top 30 or 40 players compete in one event.

Or better yet, why not also stage a fun event in late August or September which would offer a "skills test" to the top pros - driving, putting, sand play, hitting from the rough, etc. Make it an obstacle course of sorts and have it count a little toward the ranking to make it legitimate, with any money awarded donated. I'm sure it'd make for enjoyable, compelling viewing.

Unless significant alterations to both the professional tennis and golf schedules are initiated immediately, both sports will suffer from physical burnout as well as fan ennui. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know - but that seems to be a lost notion in parts of the sports world.