Tossed into the public discussion this week came the idea that PNC Park should be the outdoor stage of the National Hockey League's next Winter Classic. But before I get to that, do you know what would really work well at PNC Park?

Baseball.

Oh like you could resist that one.

Put me down as severely indifferent to the possibility of Penguins vs. Capitals, or, as the posters will surely say, Crosby vs. Ovechkin, at the intersection of Mazeroski Way and General Robinson Street. As it happens, I might be more interested in moving the baseball team into Mellon Arena for the summer.

Talk about a short porch.

Don't bother e-mailing to tell me this would be impractical. Could the Pirates be any worse on ice? It would probably speed up the game as well, as the Mellon Arena surface clearly discourages multiple trips to the mound by pitching coach Joe Kerrigan. As no Pittsburgher needs reminding, it's "slippy" out there.

We've reached an odd little outpost in American sports as a new decade dawns. In January of this year, both of the National Football League's conference championship games were played indoors, while a hockey game between the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers was played outdoors at a baseball shrine called Fenway Park.

So it would appear that we need a brief refresher on what goes where, and it's not nearly as clear cut as you'd imagine.

Poker, for example, should be outdoors.

On a deck, in the wind.

"A bird just took his king, Johnny; I think it was a Cardinal!"

"Never underestimate the Cardinals when you're drawing to an inside straight."

Golf, on the other hand, should be indoors.

If you think it's difficult negotiating the 18th hole seawall at Pebble Beach, imagine trying to get up and down on the famed double escalators of Monroeville Mall, for example. If Oakmont's hallowed Church Pews bunker strikes fear in the game's Tiger-less titans, imagine the carnage of blasting from actual church pews inside St. Boniface on the North Side.

I'm telling you, the genius in capturing the sports imaginations of a no-attention-span populace in the new American century might not be in shifting traditional indoor sports outdoors, but by doing the opposite. April 9, Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra will finally get on the same race track with unbeaten Zenyatta at Oaklawn Park in Arkansas.

Know what I'm thinking?

Oh, yeah, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

Or is that the boat show? Shouldn't the boat show be outside anyway?

If you want to blame someone for this outbreak of indoor/outdoor instability (and who doesn't), blame the NFL. Less than three weeks ago, I was sitting in a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where commissioner Roger Goodell was asked about the chances of a Super Bowl being played at the new $1.6 million Giants/Jets playpen in fabulous North Jersey. This is what he said:

"I think the idea of playing in the elements is central to the way the game of football is played."

Really?

So why is nearly half the NFC and almost a third of the league playing indoors?

Heinz Field, it turns out, still very central to the way the game of football is played, wouldn't mind hosting the Jan. 1 hockey game, either. That kind of longing only further muddles the issue. In the future, will NFL architects stop in mid-design and say, "Wait, what if we want to stage the Winter Classic here?"

You can't blame baseball. Baseball moved easily in and out of domes, and, while it was certainly never meant to be played inside, I spent so much time as a kid trying to play baseball inside during the winter that I had nothing but admiration for the Astrodome, which looked to me like the world's largest living room.

The only way the indoor/outdoor conundrum works, it says here, is if the National Basketball Association decided it would hold The Finals every June at Holcombe Rucker Park, 155th Street and Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Harlem, New York City. Seating would be an issue, but at least this attempt to return a game to its roots would feel a little more authentic than sticking a hockey rink in an 65,000-seat football stadium or a 38,000-seat baseball stadium.

Putting LeBron James and Kobe Bryant against each other on the painted green asphalt where Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Dr. J., Tiny Archibald, Bill Bradley and Connie Hawkins once played is, of course, purely impossible, but it has the aura of unmistakable logic that can't be matched by having Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin confront each other where Pokey Reese once patrolled the infield.

Yeah, those were the "daze."

And so are these.

Gene Collier's "Two-Minute Warning" videos are featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.