Detroit Free Press

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- We start with the pigs.Oh, they may not call themselves pigs. They may call themselves Hogs, or Razorbacks, or President of the United States, but they sure look like pigs, don't they, with those snouts on their heads? See them over there? Cute, huh? Some even wear a whole pig face and little curlicue ears, and they walk around making "oink!" sounds.Others just vomit from beer.Watch your step, folks.

IDITAROD DIARY, CHAPTER 2: In which we meet the champion, get licked, talk basketball, and learn that even mushers get jealous.ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- "Forget it. You don't have enough fur." That's what one local told me as I sought the champion of the dogsled world. "Forget it," he laughed. "Unless you got a cold nose and four paws, you ain't gonna get much from Susan Butcher."

WICHITA, Kan. -- It's funny, sometimes; the ones you expect to grab never do.Juwan Howard had that right. To grab. From the day he came home from the hospital -- and his teenage mother put him in a clothes drawer because she didn't have a crib -- Howard was on the debit side of life. Short on money. Short on comforts. Short on love and, quickly, short on parents, as both mother and father left him to be raised by his grandmother.

Alone in the dark he sits, behind the projector, his thumb clicking the remote button as the players on screen move backwards then forwards then backwards then forwards."Corner trap (click, click)," he says, "now a sprint 15 . . . see how that guard rides the center up there (click) . . . now this is a 15 bend, see that tight end (click) he's supposed to block No. 52 (click) he's gotta get his butt up there, right now! Look (click) he's hesitating (click) he's hesitating (click) . . . GO, RIGHT NOW! (click) . . . too late!"

A lot of people are making a lot of fuss over "JFK," the new movie by Oliver Stone.It has been the cover story on Newsweek, Esquire and GQ. It's the hot issue on the chatty morning TV programs.You cannot find a newspaper this week without a photo of Kennedy, an article about the film or an in-depth feature on Stone, the angst-ridden Hollywood director who likes to create movies about his favorite decade, the '60s -- such as "Platoon" and "The Doors" -- then pass them off as truth, or semi-truth, and watch the money come pouring in.

Now that the Giants have lost and the Braves have won -- and the people at ESPN who were going to televise the single biggest baseball game of the year have buried their heads in a giant fish tank -- it is time to get down to picking a winner. We're talking baseball. The playoffs. They begin tonight. I have examined the pluses and minuses of the teams. And I've come to my conclusion. Advantage: Philadelphia.

Each day he drives to a high school gym and works out with a trainer and an old friend. Then he drives home slowly, "praying I don't get in an accident and ruin everything." It is November, and for the first time in his basketball life, the game is going on without him. No practice. No paycheck.And it's his own doing."To be honest, I really wanted to play for Detroit," Chris Webber says from his home in Oakland, Calif., where he remains a restricted free agent. "When I came home over the summer, I was hoping to stay."

TORONTO -- Here I am in Canada, wandering in the wilderness. I am carrying my bat and glove. I have come to talk baseball to the youth of this nation. Tonight is the first World Series game ever outside America.I have a job to do.Ah. Here come a couple kids now. Hi, kids. What are your names?"Bob." "Doug." Let's talk about the National Pastime. You do know what the National Pastime is, don't you?"Hockey!" "Yeah, hockey!"