Detroit Free Press

I return from vacation. My arms are full. I can barely see over the things I carry. Brochures. Scuba fins. An elephant gun. Ideas. I have ideas."Look, boss," I say, dumping the mess on his desk. "Great stuff here. Mountain climbing in Ecuador. A kayak race in Siberia. Tractor pulls in Idaho. Great stuff."He glares at me."OK," I say. "Maybe the tractor thing isn't great. But we can work with it.""What are you talking about?" he says."Ideas. Story ideas. How we can get through August on the sports pages."

Nobody listens to pop music anymore; they watch it. They flick on MTV, plop in a couch, and let the images take over. What was once a drumbeat is now a cue for the video editor, jump cut, jump cut, dancing bodies, lips, hair, ocean waves, naked girls, gangs waving their fists, guitar players sticking their tongues out.

CHAPTER 4: Leggenda. 1.A legend.FORLI, Italy- They all wanted a piece of Bob McAdoo, all those people outside the bus, screaming and waving and cheering in Italian. Through the window he saw them, and thought to himself, "I better watch my wallet." So he slipped it in the pocket of his gym bag and..."BOB!" They were all over him. Hugging him. Slapping his shoulders. "SI, BOB!" "CIAO, BOB!"

MINNEAPOLIS -- All he has done is win the last five games he has started, and he may have just temporarily saved the Lions' season, so you can see why Bob Gagliano is the throwaway quarterback on this team, right? A rookie does what Gagliano did Sunday, tosses three touchdowns in a come-from-behind victory, the coach goes nuts, the kid's the next Joe Montana. Gagliano does it, and it's just the aging veteran pulling one out of his hat.

I guess getting away from it all just ain't what it used to be.I have just returned from five weeks in Europe, and here is the thing I remember most: It was not a French schoolboy skipping down a cobblestone street; it was not a lovely serenade on a canal boat in Venice.It was CNN.

SEATTLE -- The last time he was here, he wore a cast on one foot and street clothes to the game. He sat behind the Michigan basketball team as it played for the national championship. And when that championship was won, and the buzzer sounded, he ran onto the floor, cast and all, and celebrated in a happy pile of players. The whole world was ahead of Eric Riley in those days. He was a redshirt freshman, an apprentice to glory, just waiting for his turn in the uniform. "I thought," he says now, "I would be celebrating like that again. Only with me playing."

I am very impressed that Bo knows everything. Only he doesn't, of course. Nobody does. His agents and business managers, who must be laughing all the way to the bank, would like you to believe that Bo Jackson is a Renaissance Man, all things to all people, all people to all things. But he is not. And now that Bo is coming to our town, I will prove it. For example, here are a few things in Detroit alone that Bo does not know:What Vernor's is.How to find Antons at the Renaissance Center.How to find the Renaissance Center.Who Bill Bonds is.