I just don’t understand the hatred for Tom Brady. Do you?

Yes, he plays for a team that wins every season and has been to six Super Bowls during his 17 years in the NFL. Yes, he is tall and handsome and married to a Brazilian super model. Yes, some people think he cheats, but he has no reason to. Poor Tom Brady.

The 39-year-old Patriots quarterback is playing like he is two or three years out of college. Thanks to a strict training regimen of exercise and diet, he is in better shape than he was two or three years out of college, which was Michigan. He plays the position perhaps better than any quarterback in the history of the game, while an entire region worships him and depends on him for their happiness. Now that’s pressure.

Now this. A young terminally ill cancer patient in Boston asked his brain surgeons before the sixth operation of his young life if they could carve Brady’s No. 12 into the side of his small skull while they were in there.  The doctors thought it was a strange request but given the youngster’s grave condition and his indomitable spirit, why not they said. When he awoke after the surgery, they showed him a picture of his wish come true.

The story was told before Monday night’s Ravens-Patriots game in Foxboro, including the brave kid receiving a video message from TB12 and an invitation to watch two games on the sidelines at Gillette Stadium. Don’t be surprised if you read in the next few days that Brady sent a game ball home with him. Not with a big photo op, but a private gesture from one hero to another.

Oh, by the way, Brady threw for more than 400 yards against Baltimore’s No. 1 defense in the NFL, including a late long bomb for this third touchdown pass that sealed the Pats’ 30-23 victory.

Is it because Tom Brady is not to be believed on the field that he is so idolized by so many off the field? Even the haters are finding it hard to hate someone who personifies all of our greatest fantasy: to be ageless as he grows older.

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