When I display my ignorance in this column week after week, it’s usually accidental. But this time I admit it openly, and my very citizenship is in jeopardy over this: I don’t know what happened in the World Series.

I appreciate that it involved the two New York City teams (whose name escape me at the moment), and that it was the most important event of the century so far (it being a young century, and the most important event before this having been “Batman Week” on A&E’s Biography). I also get the vague impression that Mike Piazza either did or did not get hit by a pitch or a glove or something. But I’m not sure what it was or how it happened or what exactly it is that Mr. Piazza does for a living.

I missed the whole series the only way I possibly could, by being 7,500 miles away. I went on vacation to Thailand — on a plane flight that took approximately 19 years, during which the overhead baggage got more legroom than I did, as well as a slightly better meal.

A few interesting facts about Thailand: It has a king, a unique alphabet of over 40 characters that look like they’re written backwards, and its own collection of mindless pastimes, including a really popular one in which, for some reason, young women shout lewd remarks at me from open-air bars three blocks away.

In other words, that country has its own stuff going on. When I landed back at John F. Kennedy Airport on Saturday morning, I'd actually forgotten there had been a World Series. My first reminder was a headline in the New York Daily News saying New York City’s Mayor Rudolph Giuliani wanted kids to ditch school for the Yankee’s parade. I was, at that moment, almost musically happy, knowing I was home and that the mayor of New York is still totally crackers.

But for some reason, people started asking me whether we followed the World Series in Southeast Asia. As a matter of fact, the only American thing that interested the Thais were our Presidential debates. I’m told it was the first time they’d been allowed to see them, and Chai, a farmer who acted as one of my tour guides, told me he envied us for (get ready to laugh) this opportunity to hear from our candidates.

Thais know who’s running for President here, they even know that Republicans are going to buy ads for Ralph Nader. (Would the Democrats ever help advertise Buchanan? For one brief, deluded moment, I’d like to think they would not.) Of course, Chai didn’t understand most of the issues, but that only put him in the same boat with most Americans and at least one of the debate participants.

But did the Thais care which section of some city along the opposite longitude from them won the “world” championship in the traditional game of Thailand’s sweatiest, clumsiest, most obese segment of tourists?

No. They did not follow the series in Bangkok. I don’t even think people followed it in Los Angeles.

And if anyone thinks it might be otherwise, this only goes to show the volume at which you poor souls must have been blasted with hype during the whole ordeal. My God, did that army of publicists actually convince you this series would change anything in your sad, miserable little life? Did you really believe these games would end your bitter, bitter loneliness? Did you find yourself saying, “What would Derek Jeter do in my situation?” or “If I ever met Scott Brosius at a party, would he like me? And if not, how could I force him to?”

It was only baseball. It came and it went, and your life is the same. Celebrity and spectacle are transient things. What really matters are the basics. It’s all about community, family, and finding the right girl in the right open-air bar, without waking up with all your traveler’s checks missing.