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LAKELAND, Fla. -- Year after year, winter after winter, the voice stirs from under the snow. It heats up, it melts free, it crosses your lawn and taps the frost from your window. "Time to wake up," it seems to say. "It's spring. I'm back."

After awhile, even journalists get tired of bad news. It seems as if every time you pick up a paper, the stories are shocking, depressing or disgusting. And that's just the sports pages.Wouldn't it be nice if, just once, you could control the news flow? Then we might see stories such as these:

ATLANTA -- Listen my children and you shall hear, of the midnight series, that you missed this year.It was fun. It was wild. It was worth seeing, live, when it happened, when Dave Winfield smacked that ball in the heart- draining 11th inning and you could hear Canada cheering from 2,000 miles away. What a moment! Finally, after years of flirting with glory, this Toronto franchise had become real, Pinnochio touched by the magic wand, the best team on paper to best team in the flesh. . . .

First the shot, which made a thudding sound as it hit Chris Osgood's pads. Then the swish, as several Red Wings skated the other way. Then the swelling roar, as Dino Ciccarelli surged ahead of a defender, puck on his stick. Then the explosion, as Ciccarelli flicked a shot past the sprawling San Jose goalie, Arturs Irbe, for a Detroit goal, its sixth of the night.Blowout. Blow out.

The other day, a teenager asked me a question: "Did you really live in the '60s?"Well, yes, I said."Wow! Cool! How was it?"I took a deep breath. I knew this was coming. Whenever America runs out of ideas, it decides to "bring back" an era. As near as I can figure, the era must be at least 20 years old to qualify, which is just enough time for us to forget how stupid it was.

* Lions 19, Phoenix 17: All is going well until William Clay Ford calls down a passing play for Andre Ware. Unfortunately, he is connected to Jim Arnold, who goes out and throws an interception.* Cleveland 28, Indianapolis 14: Rumor has it the Lions are interested in Jeff George. Rumor has it William Clay Ford called Jeff Daniels by mistake.

NEW YORK -- That does it. I am drafting a petition to the Womens Tennis Association: No more press conferences for girls under 18. Let them play. Let them shower. Let them go home to their Sting records.But keep them away from the microphone. Really. It's for the best. And I have been thinking about this for a while, ever since Steffi Graf mumbled through her first few years, and then Gabriela Sabatini mumbled through her first few years, and then Jennifer Capriati laid about 400,000 "you knows" in a single sentence.

Personally, I don't want to know whether Nancy Reagan slept with Frank Sinatra in the White House. For one thing, I have a lot of good Sinatra records that I would have to throw out. Also, I might have children one day, and maybe I'll want to take them to Washington, D.C., and then what do I say? "Look, kids, there's where Abraham Lincoln sat. And there's where Franklin Roosevelt discussed the war. And there's where Frank and Nancy did it."

So that was the first game of the season, right? We won't count those other three, right? How can you count baseball games when you can't even put your shampoo and after-shave in their regular spots, or stack your shoes in a messy pile and hang a picture of your kids near the pants hook?