Detroit Free Press

Next time you think you're having a bad day, consider this story.Mo Gerhardt is in a wheelchair. He considers himself lucky. Lucky, because with his particular lot in life - Duchenne's disease, a form of muscular dystrophy - doctors predicted he wouldn't live beyond his teens. Mo is 28. He lives every moment. He is upbeat and funny and a fighter. He insists on his own job and apartment and driving a specially equipped van. He is a sports nut. When he could walk, he played baseball like a demon. Later he took up hockey - wheelchair hockey.

It has been a few weeks since gas prices were the BIG story. This doesn't mean gas prices have plummeted. It just means, for the moment, our blood pressure isn't boiling over. Why not? You still can pay more than $3 a gallon anywhere you look. A year ago, the national average was $2.28. The year before that, it was $1.79. Two years before that it was $1.31.The profits for Big Oil still are embarrassing. The OPEC nations that get filthy rich from our spending - some of which might like to see us wiped out, if we weren't such good customers - still are raking in the money.

After Tuesday's victory, Jim Leyland made a prediction for Wednesday's game:"If we pitch better than they do tomorrow night, we'll have a chance to win."And before I left for the ballpark Wednesday, my pal and radio cohort Kenny Brown made his own prediction."You going to see Zach Miner pitch? Better get there early."

It was a good night for faces at the ballpark. You can start with Kenny Rogers. When he pitches, his jaw is as tight as a steel girder. Tuesday night, that jaw was also thick with whiskers and the whiskers were coated in silvery resolve. "The guys tell me the worse I look the better I pitch," he would say of the unshaven look. "But the more I grow it, the more it shows the gray."

Once again, I am late getting around to Susan Butcher. It has happened before. The first time was 15 years ago in ...

Francisco Liriano started Monday morning as a sports cover story on the national edition of the New York Times. ...

Despite what you might have heard last week, Mel Gibson is not Satan. He also is not God. Forgetting such simple ...