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Great prodigies have the capacity to save doomed enterprises. I think of Gretzky making hockey, already a sinking ship three decades ago, a hip ticket in Los Angeles of all places. I think of Magic and Bird pulling basketball out of the doldrums of the jack-it-up, cocaine '70s. And as a devotee of the sweet science, I think of Mike Tyson, and wonder longingly where the next Kid Dynamite is coming from.

Well, sports fans may not be aware of this at the moment, but a prodigy is currently taking America by storm and at the same time dominating the competition that has become THE national obsession of spring.

No, I'm not referring to March Madness or the Masters. I'm referring, of course, to American Idol, and he who shall heretofore be known in Idol parlance as "The Great One," Adam Lambert.

Now I have to admit that I have not been a dedicated American Idol watcher for many years. I've always liked it, though, and since the inception of the show, I've caught my fair share of episodes. I watched a fair amount of the Ruben Studdard season, the Fantasia season, and the Carrie Underwood coronation. Not an encyclopedic Idol background, but nevertheless, I still think I've seen enough of the show to know that there's never before been a contestant possessed of such instant star quality and so clearly head-and-tails above the rest of the field as Adam Lambert.

Week in and week out, this guy has been so obviously the best performer on the stage that watching him strut his stuff I've often been reminded of brilliant athletes in the past and those times when I've marveled at someone's abundance of talent and said to myself, "he's just playing a different game than everyone else."

Last night, Lambert achieved what must be considered the Idol equivalent of a perfect game, as his performance of %*##% for Fears' "Mad World" actually moved Simon Cowell, the taciturn and generally surly British judge on the show, to give him a standing ovation.

While I appreciated Lambert's rendition of "Mad World," it was another standing ovation that blew my mind, given by the one and only Smokey Robinson a few weeks ago when he was in the audience watching Lambert do an absolutely stunning acoustic rendition of his classic hit, "The Tracks of My %*##%."

To take a song like that, one of the greatest pop songs ever written and one that is so etched in our collective consciousness, and completely re-invent it with a version that seems like some impossible hybrid of Chris Isaak, Bryan Ferry and Curtis Mayfield ... well, it was pure genius.

And genius, I confess, is not a quality I'm wont to associate with Idol. There are other decent contestants sharing the stage with Lambert this season, but they are mired in that customary Idol middle class of being the best karaoke singers on the block. They feel as a group like the rest of the NBA chasing Jordan in the 90's. They're all very good, and he is great, and there's nothing they can do about it but vie for second best.

I'm also reminded of Roger Federer at his most dominant when I watch Lambert do his thing, in the way that Federer was not only a visionary tennis player, but he also was pretty much the best player on the court in every technical facet of the game. There simply were no holes in the guy's arsenal. Likewise, not only is Adam Lambert the most (actually, only) visionary artist on this season of Idol (or any other season, in my opinion -- Carrie Underwood is talented, but "visionary" is not the word that leaps to mind when describing her) but he's also far and away the best technical singer on the show. Seriously, the other contestants must hate him.

As it stands right now, Idol is down to the final eight contestants, and another one bites the dust tonight. As far as I'm concerned, they could just give the trophy to Lambert right now and I wouldn't protest. It's like Tyson fighting Pinklon Thomas in '87. The ref could step in stop it whenever he felt like it, because it was over before it started.

Then again, as a fight fan, I've seen some woeful judging in my lifetime. Is it possible that some wiles of the teeny-bopper masses who actually go to the trouble of voting in American Idol could somehow keep Lambert from winning it all? If that happens, it will be the biggest miscarriage of justice since Pernell Whitaker's complete mastery of Julio Cesar Chavez somehow earned him only a draw on the scorecards.

Not that it matters. Lambert is already a phenomenon, and he could get voted off tonight and still go on to a lucrative career. Myself, I think they should just release that version of "Tracks of My %*##%" right now -- it's already the song of the year. And I'm sure he's got a few more up his ruffled sleeve. At this point, in the same way that we watched the Bulls in the '90s and the Oilers in the '80s, in the same way that we just had to see every Tyson fight in his prime, we watch Idol now just to see what Adam Lambert is going to do next.