At the Lords Test this week I will renew an annual ritual. Every year, before the start of play on the first morning, as the crowd swells and the players warm up, I walk to the middle of the pitch and look around.Before the story, consider the stage. Since 1814 people have paid to watch cricket here; they have chosen to spend their time and money to celebrate the pleasure of cricket, to observe but also to engage. A match, a spectacle, a social event: each benefiting from the other two.Last week I sat on Centre Court at Wimbledon watching ten glorious sets of tennis during the mens quarter-finals. First, Roger Federer recovered from two sets down to beat a sparkling Marin Cilic. Then Andy Murray warded off the ebullient Jo-Wilfred Tsonga. During breaks between games, I found myself naturally falling into conversation with my neighbours in the stands. Sport was the social glue that helped us find other common ground. We warmed into the experience collectively, and by the end of the Federer triumph, the sense of ecstatic communality was complete. It was like church without God.The parallel is intended to be serious rather than sacrilegious. Modern sport is really an extension of Renaissance humanism. Sport invites us to visit social spaces, and there we watch and celebrate what human beings can do. Thats why, as I drank in the mood on Centre Court, my mind returned to the most memorable birthday of my life, four years ago this week, when I sat drinking coffee in the piazza of the small Italian town Urbino, doing nothing in particular - a tourist, a stranger and yet totally at home.Allow your sportswriter a brief architectural detour. Urbino was built mostly in the late 15th century as a new urban experiment - more comfortable, efficient and refined than anything that had come before. Urbino was the high point of a new concept of the ideal city. That is also the title of my favourite painting, depicting city life as it ought to be - ordered and elegant but also progressive and practical - that still hangs in Urbinos Ducal Palace today.Sport was at the centre of this new way of life. Renaissance courtiers perfected sprezzatura (the art of excellence allied with apparent effortlessness) while playing palla da maglio - literally hammerball, but from old paintings it seems remarkably close to cricket.Baldassare Castigliones The Book of the Courtier (1528), which is set on four different evenings at the court of Urbino, portrayed sporting aptitude as a central aspect of a life well lived. Sport, by training movement and poise, was bound up with civilised existence, just like conversation and music. Lorenzo de Medici, who took breaks from ruling Florence to play ball in the streets, introduced six balls into his coat of arms to underline the significance of games. The whole mental attitude of the Renaissance was one of play, concluded the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga. Play, we might add, allied to civility. A central departure from the Middle Ages was the beginnings of spectatorship, the enjoyment of watching sport as well as playing sport, the origins of recasting sport as a civic activity, a strand of civilised experience. And that is what I felt on Centre Court, watching Federer and Cilic. Weve built a handsome building as a stage for two protagonists to compete. Their behaviour, as friends and rivals, equalled their play; both were intensely engaged with their performance and yet open to the occasion. They let us in, and the crowd sensed it. For Cilic, this was especially admirable, as nearly everyone was supporting Federer. Instead of bridling at the injustice - for Cilic was equally superb - the Croatian embraced the atmosphere of celebration. He elevated the occasion but accepted its asymmetries.How can the mood be summarised? No one came to watch one player lose or suffer. It was sport without a villain, without hatred, without resentment. Everyone had a favourite but no one denied that virtue and virtuosity lay on both sides of the net. There was nothing tribal about the allegiances.The same description applies equally to the Test match I watched at Lords a year ago between England and New Zealand. Brendon McCullums team established the pattern of the series: bold, attacking cricket played with spirit but not rancour. Alastair Cooks men responded in kind, with expressiveness and openness, a habit they have retained ever since. An enduring Cook century underlined an established talent, a magical Ben Stokes hundred announced a new one. The game ended almost on the buzzer, so even time joined the chorus of cooperation. The crowd? Support was strong, appreciation stronger still.The stuff that surrounds sport - the occasion, its ambience - can seem trivial. It is easy to satirise and mock this as social pretension. But we should remember a wider meaning of sport: the coming together of people with shared interests, in safe places, to watch and celebrate virtuosity, competition and, with luck, courtesy - the story of the ascent of man told in brief.We are so used to it, so privileged in our access to sport, that we risk taking it for granted. Which takes me back to tennis and Italy for a final contrast. The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, Giorgio Bassanis fine novel set in the 1930s - and later an elegiac film by Vittorio di Sica - uses a tennis court inside a walled garden as a metaphor for lost freedoms in a time when fascism and religious intolerance swept across Italy. Play and sport, cosmopolitanism and free association, were shown to be all too fragile.Our generation shouldnt forget its - as yet - unbroken good fortune, to play and to watch. Balenciaga Outlet Italia .C. -- Manny Malhotra had two goals and an assist, leading the Carolina Hurricanes to a 6-3 win over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday. Scarpe Balenciaga Outlet . Team physician Dr. Steve Traina performed the surgery Friday. Robinson was injured in a spill underneath the Nuggets basket during the first quarter of Wednesday nights loss to the Charlotte Bobcats. http://www.balenciagaoutlet.it/ . Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, announced Wednesday that the team would assign Swedish forward Elias Lindholm to his nations team for the upcoming tournament. Scarpe Balenciaga Uomo Offerta . After slipping from the summit during the week, the Gunners overcame struggling Crystal Palace 2-0 on Sunday thanks to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlains second-half brace. Outlet Balenciaga Online . Just not the game. Kyle Palmieri scored two straight goals in the third period to rally the Anaheim Ducks past the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 on Tuesday night. LOS ANGELES -- Once UCLA got going, there was no stopping the Bruins.T.J. Leaf scored 21 points and fellow freshman Lonzo Ball added 20 in 16th-ranked UCLAs 114-77 victory over Long Beach State on Sunday night.If we hit a couple early, we can get really hot, said Bryce Alford, who finished with 15 points. We become really hard to guard because guys get in a rhythm.The Bruins dominated from the opening tip, topping 100 points for the third time in four games. They raced to a 19-5 lead while the 49ers missed six of their first seven shots and committed six turnovers.Theyre the best offensive team weve seen, Long Beach State coach Dan Monson said.Leaf had nine rebounds and Ball had 11 assists for the Bruins (4-0), who have blown out their first four opponents by an average of 27.7 points.I dont put any pressure on myself, said Ball, who arrived in Westwood amid great expectations. The game of basketball is fun to me, and I go out there and do what I do.The Bruins hit 12 3-pointers, including five by Alford, who made his first five before missing once.This was the best we played, UCLA coach Steve Alford said. We had great energy, great focus, did tremendous things offensively. Defensively, this was the best that weve been.Loren Jackson scored a career-high 15 points to lead the 49ers (1-4), and Noah Blackwell added 12. They had a season-high 11 3-pointers.We know now what we need to do, Monson said. We are getting some resistance from guys not doing what they need to do. Weve been exposed, which is why you play this schedule.Leaf and Ball had five dunks between them in the first half. Leaf had the first three and then Ball scored off an alley-oop pass from Isaac Hamilton and had a one-handed fast-break jam.With the Bruins leading by 40 in the second half, Ball and Aaron Holiday wowed the crowd on a fast break. Holiday tossed the ball off the glass, and Ball, trailing behind, caught it and slammed it in.I think it was his third-best dunk, Leaf said. The other two should definitely be in `SportsCenter top 10. They were three pretty crazy dunks.Alford hit four of UCLAs seven 3-pointers in the first half to help the Bruins lead 56-37 at the break.The 49ers also made seven 3s in the half, getting three in a row late, but that didnt help them reduce their double-digiit deficit.ddddddddddddeaf came out shooting to open the second half, scoring the Bruins first seven points.Alford and Hamilton hit back-to-back 3-pointers from the right corner. Hamilton finished with 18 points and Holiday had 16 points.Big man Thomas Welsh launched the Bruins on an 18-5 run that stretched their lead from 24 points to 37 points. Hamilton scored eight points and Welsh and Holiday chipped in four apiece to keep the Bruins ahead 87-50.POLL IMPLICATIONSThe Bruins could move up a spot or two in the rankings after losses by No. 13 Michigan State and No. 15 Purdue.TIP-INSLong Beach St: F Gabe Levin, who came in averaging a team-leading 13.3 points and 7.5 rebounds, was held to eight points. G Evan Payne had seven, under his 10.8 average. ... The 49ers fell to 1-15 all-time against the Bruins, having lost at Pauley Pavilion for the third straight year. ... They had a season-high 23 turnovers.UCLA: The Bruins had 27 assists on 46 field goals. ... They made 10 of 11 free throws and are close to averaging 80 percent from the line, a major improvement from previous seasons. ... The elder Alford turns 52 on Wednesday.BIG PICTURELong Beach St.: The 49ers have lost to three straight ranked opponents -- No. 5 North Carolina by 37 points, No. 12 Louisville by 32 and now UCLA -- while traveling 4,492 miles to play four consecutive road games. In all, they will travel over 23,000 miles by the time their nonconference schedule is completed, including a trip to the Battle4Atlantis in the Bahamas.UCLA: The Bruins have enjoyed a favorable schedule so far in November with five home games and a trip to nearby Orange County on tap. Theyll find it much tougher to start December with a visit to No. 2 Kentucky, a neutral court game against Ohio State in Las Vegas and a trip to No. 4 Oregon to open Pac-12 play.UP NEXTLong Beach St.: The 49ers visit their second straight Pac-12 opponent, Washington, on Tuesday, capping five consecutive road games.UCLA: The Bruins play Portland in an opening round game at the Wooden Legacy on Thursday in Fullerton.---More AP college basketball at http://collegebasketball.ap.org and https://twitter.com/AP-Top25 ' ' '