Little towns in the south of France have more spirit and energy than unwitting visitors might expect. Especially if the visitors happened into a village in the winter.

Ah, but the summer …

A different story.

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I don’t know if this is common, semi-common or weird.

I can count while I’m thinking of something else.

But only to 100. And as long as I do not think of some other arithmetical concept.

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The NBA has fans outside of North America, but not tons of them.

So the stunning similarity of what soccer’s Neymar has done and what the NBA’s Kyrie Irving wants to do may have gone largely unnoticed in the vast realm of global sports.

In short, it is this: Each is is a star, each is 25 and each is ready to leave behind an excellent team led by one of the greats of his game … to find out if he can graduate from “wing man” to “main man” and win some championships on “his own” team.

Neymar is leaving behind Barcelona and Lionel Messi.

Irving has asked to be traded so that he can leave behind the Cleveland Cavaliers and LeBron James.

In an era of “super” teams which seem inclined (and perhaps equipped) to win forever, the choices made by Neymar and Irving … actually should be encouraging to sports fans.

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What were the builders thinking?

Why would anyone name (what was then) the world’s tallest residential building … Torch Tower?

Was “Flammable Flats” already taken? Did someone have dibs on “Incinerator Manor”? “Ashes Apartments?”

Torch Tower has been a self-fulfilling appellation. It seems keen to live up to its reckless name.

For the second time in three years, Torch Tower went up like … a torch … in Dubai.

This time, apparently no one was injured, but still … you do not want your tower to be starring in photo galleries around the world.

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As a boxing fan, I wanted to dislike Wladimir Klitschko. I really did.

It seemed as if he and his brother took over the sport of boxing around 2005 — and rode it into irrelevance.

But I couldn’t really have an issue with Wladimir … or with Vitaly, his elder brother (and mayor of Kiev).

All they did was train diligently, fight all comers, bring quite a bit of actual science to the “sweet science” and stay off police blotters.

In his last fight, Wladimir showed all the courage anyone could want, before 90,000 at Wembley Stadium in April, where he climbed off the canvas three times, knocked down his opponent, Britain’s Anthony Joshua, but ultimately lost when the referee decided the Ukrainian had taken enough punishment, in the final round.

He announced his retirement from the fight game today and did it via a video that seemed to show us how a big and smart heavyweight could be so difficult to beat.

But, yes, he was hard to watch, at times. And, yes, his long reign may have done damage to the sport of boxing, placing an outwardly dull, even placid man at the top of the fan-pleasing top division.

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It’s final. Well, as soon as the rubber-stamp approval of International Olympic Committee voting members next month. But the top guys have agreed with the two cities that bid for the 2024 Games.

The 2024 Olympics go to Paris.

The 2028 Summer Games go to Los Angeles.

Los Angeles will get $1.8 billion in cash to help cover the gap of an extra four years of being an Organizing Committee between “award” and “event”. Because, yes, 2028 is a long, long way off. (Though we won’t feel the same way when it gets here.)

What will or could happen between now and then?

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It was a terrible moment. Not in a cosmic sense, of course, but in a way that millions of baseball fans could recognize — and realize that, but for the grace of God, it could have happened to them.

Steve Bartman. The Chicago Cubs and Florida Marlins in Game 6 of the 2004 National League Championship Series. A foul fly lofted almost directly at Seat 113, Row 8, Aisle 4, occupied by a bespectacled young man in a green turtleneck and Cubs cap under a set of headphones. He rises to attempt a catch …

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The non-waivers trade deadline is tomorrow at 1 p.m. PDT.

And what should the Los Angeles Dodgers, frustrated since 1988 in their attempts to get back to the World Series, do ahead of the deadline?

Nothing.

Well, they could tinker around the edges of the club, if they see some left-handed hitter who could help them off the bench. Maybe even a middle reliever.

But a prominent starting pitcher?

No, no, no.

Not Yu Darvish. Not Sonny Gray. Not Ervin Santana or Jason Vargas or Lance Lynn.

The Dodgers should stand pat, for several good reasons.

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If it sometimes seems as if American sports tend to cycle through the same few dozen coaches … well, it’s pretty much the case. How else to explain Larry Brown, Buck Showalter, Marty Schottenheimer, et al?

But international soccer coaches take it to a whole ‘nother level.

Some of these guys have coached at 10, 15, 20 clubs. And I am not talking about three or four men … it’s more like 30 or 40 or 50 who have done that.

I was reminded of this topic, which fascinates me, by a recent BBC production done by Mani Djazmi, a British-Iranian specialist in soccer who happens to be blind.

(I was interviewed by Mani back in 2011, when the UAE club Al Wasl hired Diego Maradona. My biggest radio moment.)

His latest show has three well-traveled soccer coaches in the studio, one on the phone and yet another from a previous interview.

Being able and willing to coach all over the world … not everyone can do it. It requires an skill at blending in when working in an alien culture, as well as as adventurous side that allows coaches — by nature control freaks — to roll with the weirdnesses of coaching in Asia or Africa or Central America or the Middle East … or just about anywhere these days.

Have a listen.

This reminds me of a few of my favorites when I was in Abu Dhabi or elsewhere. These all are guys I have met.

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Adrian Beltre has 2,998 hits in his career. As soon as tomorrow’s game with the Baltimore Orioles, the Texas Rangers third baseman could join the 3,000-hit club, becoming the 31st member.

Not really a big surprise, when we look back at how long (20 seasons) and productive Beltre’s career has been. Now 38, he received MVP votes just last season, when he hit 32 home runs and drove in 104. He also won a Gold Glove, his fifth, for his defense at third base.

What is a surprise … is why Beltre, signed by the Dodgers as a teen in the Dominican and a Dodgers regular from 1998 through his sensational 2004 season, should be reaching 3,000 with the Rangers.

No Dodger has 3,000 hits. Beltre would have been the first. If he were still playing for the club that he grew up with, that is.

So, why wasn’t this guy a Dodger for life?

To answer this, we have to go back to the 2004-05 offseason.

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