Detroit Free Press

DATELINE UNKNOWN -- This is how it began. They put their hands on a bat, one at a time, rising up the neck, a black hand, a white hand, a young man's hand, an aging second baseman's calloused fingers, up, up, until there was room for just one more. All eyes turned to, of all people, Michael Jordan, who smiled, because it was his turn. He grabbed that handle like a climber grabbing a mountaintop."We're the home team," he declared."National League bats first," Ryne Sandberg said.

If you wanted help with your love life, would you ask an ex-homeless person who had once been a drug user and, in between, spent time in transcendental meditation, celibacy, and a marriage that collapsed after two years?Of course you would. At least, many of us are. Check out the book sales for "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus." People are gobbling it up in a frenzied rush, hoping to solve their relationship woes.This, by the way, is a very American thing to do. When in doubt, buy a book.

It takes more than being rich, arrogant and egotistical to turn off New York City. You have to be a loser as well. Only when George Steinbrenner sank to this sin did the Big Apple really turn to the hangmen and say: "Get him!"This, despite the fact that for many years, Steinbrenner was almost a necessary evil in his town. Having lived there, I can tell you, most New York sports fans need someone to hate, they almost enjoy it. Goes with the territory, like Mace.

He never mentioned money. He never gushed about some new car he was going to buy, or some new mansion with a hundred rooms. He made no joke about how "the ladies in Detroit better watch out," as one top draft choice had done years before him. He didn't preen or mug. He wore no earring. He didn't boast, "There's a new sheriff in town!"You want to know the first thing Grant Hill did as a Piston? He listened to a question. And before he answered, he noticed the crowd in the back, and asked, politely, "Could you all hear that?"

CHICAGO -- Well, that wasn't very nice. The Bearsinvite the Lions to a football game, then don't let them play with the ball.Talk about hogging a pigskin. Chicago kept it for three minutes to every one by Detroit. There was this one Bears drive, in the second quarter -- no wait, that drive was the second quarter.There was this other Bears drive in the third quarter -- no, wait, that was the third quarter.I do recall a moment, late in the game, where a bunch of Lions trotted onto the field, and the officials stopped them immediately."Who are you guys?"

I don't know what kind of attorney general Zoe Baird would have made. I do know this: The reason we will never find out, the reason she has been bounced out of Washington like a teenager trying to sneak into a bar, is pretty simple. She was rich. And she was cheap.Oh, people will tell you it's because she broke the law. They'll say a candidate for attorney general should know better than to hire illegal aliens to care for her child.

HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- The helmet will not go easily. He has had it since arriving at Michigan, five years, same helmet, same face mask. Every spring he would hand it to the equipment man for safekeeping, and every fall he would make sure to get it back. Once, after a practice in his junior year, an excited fan tried to grab his chin strap, yank it off as he ran past. Elvis Grbac made the save."I almost lost it," he says. "It was down to its last snap."

DALLAS -- Steve Fisher is aging like a president. The crow's-feet seem to multiply each year, the jowls seem to droop as if a world war was tugging them down. The hair is thinning, the eyes seem more tired. You look at pictures of Fisher when he first got this head coaching job five years ago. Compared to now, he looks like a kid.