The Latest in Detroit Free Press

IDITAROD DIARY, CHAPTER 5: In which we make a rescue, cross the breathtaking mountains, and get nauseated.RAINY PASS, Alaska -- "Medic! Medic!"

TAMPA, Fla. -- Jim Kelly knocks things over. He wakes up the whole football neighborhood. Noise follows him, it has since his mess-around days as a kid in western Pennsylvania, where his idea of fun was to strap on a helmet and attack his brothers. ARRRRRRRR! Even now, a millionaire quarterback in the biggest game of his life, he admits to a "linebacker's mentality." And given his thick neck, his broad torso, and his affection for a pitcher of beer, he might still become one.

SAN FRANCISCO -- On one sideline, the miracle man stood alone, watching, his back stiff, his hand throbbing, his body racked with pain. For the first time in most people's memory, Joe Montana could do nothing about the finish of a championship game. Nothing but pray.

WIMBLEDON, England -- How about this? A couple of normal American kids won at Wimbledon. By "normal" I mean no drug busts, no police records, no terrorizing fathers, no private jets, no exposed belly buttons, no Barbra Streisand infatuations, no earrings. Well. I take that back. The girl wore earrings. But in her ears, not her nose.

OAKLAND, Calif. -- All Terry Cooney has to do is go out to the mound, lean into Roger Clemens' ear and whisper, "Young man, you say that one more time, and I'm throwing you out of the game."He does that, he gets no arguments this morning. He does that, he looks smart and mature and patient, which is how umpires are supposed to look, right? As opposed to looking like a baby without his bottle.

Today's column will be A WINNER! It will be THE SURPRISE HIT OF THE FALL!It has BLOCKBUSTER WRITTEN ALL OVER IT!It is THE FUNNIEST COLUMN I'VE READ ALL YEA--Sorry. You caught me practicing. I have decided to give up my current line of work, which is, well, I'm not sure, whatever it is, and go into movie reviewing.I don't mean the long, gracefully written reviews Pauline Kael did in the New Yorker. Or the serious criticism found in the New York Times, Boston Globe, or this newspaper.

NEW YORK -- He has had these days before, days where he comes out and plays like the Boy King. And the perfect thing, when this happens, would be if Aaron Krickstein's brain just blew a fuse and he was left with only his body and his racket. Then he could continue doing whatever he is doing, doing his best stuff, which, in the second set of the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open on Thursday was simply this: beating the shorts off defending champion Boris Becker.

Like all good heroes, they waited until the final reel of the movie, until you were on the edge of your seat, chewing your fingernails. And suddenly -- ta-da! -- they were Indiana Jones, ducking the spears, dodging the boulders, swinging across the canyon by a single rope. Never a doubt, right? The home team wins? So when it was all over, and the Atlanta Hawks were lying in shreds on the Palace floor -- their hopes of upsetting the champions almost laughable now -- here were the Pistons, blowing on the smoke of their guns and saying "Trust us. We know what we're doing."

There's this story about Fiorello La Guardia, who was mayor of New York during the '30s and '40s. He was serving on police court one cold winter night when a shivering old man was brought before him. The man was charged with stealing a loaf of bread. "My family is starving," the man said.

Have you ever known someone and not seen him for a while and then suddenly he pops up and you say, "Whoa! What happened to him?"I had that reaction the other night. Tiger Stadium. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a New York Yankee taking batting practice. He was small for an athlete and he looked kind of familiar, sort of boyish looking, with close-cropped blond hair and pale skin and a sort of vacant expression, like a surfer waiting for a good wave. He was . . .He was . . .Omigosh. He was Jim Walewander.