Forgive me for being un-American on this most American of holiday weekends, but I’ve had a conversion and I’ve got to share it with you.

It’s not like I’ve gone Commie, mind you. Maybe it’s the heat. Or the humidity. Or the fact that I’ve been on vacation for a week and have 14 days worth of bile stored up.

I’ve decided that … ummm … how do I say this delicately, so that I don’t hurt anyone’s feelings? OK. It’s like this: Baseball stinks.

Put down your pen. I’m kidding. Sort of. All I’m trying to say is … as far as midsummer dreams and American pastimes are concerned, I’ve got a new sport. Baseball, schmaseball.

Softball is it.

Oh … Another thing, since we’re aggravating the masses here: You slo-pitch types? I’m not talking about you.

I’m talking about playing like a girl. Humming fire, underhand. Softball. The game of my new millennium.

Honestly, baseball is fine. Got five or six hours to kill? There’s nothing better than grabbing the sunscreen and a paperback and heading to the old ballyard.

Got an hour? Softball’s the answer.

Softball is like baseball with a quadruple espresso chaser. It’s baseball in the carpool lane.

And yet, it’s different.

Baseball, you see, embraces its pedestrian pace. That’s one of its selling points. Nowhere to go? Nothing to do? No worries? Baseball is your game. It’s pastoral, pristine, and perfect.

Softball? It’s businesslike. No shenanigans here. No pitchers walking laps around the mound, shaking off signs and throwing pickoff throws to every base. No screwing around: Pitcher catch ball. Pitcher throw ball. Batter miss ball. If batter hit ball? Someone will flag it down pretty quick. The field’s tiny.

In baseball, bunting’s a lost art. In softball, it’s a weapon.

Baseball teams chatter. Sometimes. Softball teams chant and sing. Always. After every pitch. Before every pitch. After they come off the field. Before they get a drink of water. Always. It’s cool (although disconcertingly similar to karaoke night at a bad bar until you get used to it).

Baseball pitchers throw heat. Softball pitchers throw heat. Underhand. And they can rise it, drop it, and curve it either way.

Picture the weirdest, most unhittable pitch your big brother used to heave at you in backyard Wiffleball. The triple whamboozle. A softball pitcher’s got about three of those. And she throws harder than big bro.

Still not convinced?

OK. Time to bring out the big guns. Baseball may be America’s game, but softball is better for two more reasons:

First, I checked eBay, the Internet auction house and scourge of the modern world. I figured since you can buy anything there, that’s where I’d find the proof I needed.

And there it was, right in the middle of the “Memorabilia” section (read that: junk that someone else collected before he grew up and decided to make a profit off it). An eager bidder can pick and choose between 50 pieces of assorted Roger Clemens-related crap among the more than 9,500 major league baseball items.

Softball’s only got 45 listings for the whole sport. That about clinched it for me. But not quite.

This did: It’s the undisputable, undeniable, indefensible reason why softball is better.

Baseball coaches play dress up and wear a uniform, no matter how big their beer belly has become.

Softball coaches don’t.

The prosecution rests.

John Holyoke is a NEWS sportswriter.