Detroit Free Press

Sometimes, this is the only thing more baffling than the people in sports: the people who try to get close to them.Take the cases of Marge Schott and Michael Irvin.

You cry when you lose Wimbledon. Some cry on the inside, and some cannot help it, the tears flow right there on Centre Court, in front of everyone.You wouldn't think there was much in common between Jana Novotna, the blond Czech who hopes to win her first Grand Slam today, and Boris Becker, the redheaded German who Thursday waved good-bye to this tournament forever. But they do share this: They have both shed tears for Wimbledon.

The little girl died of starvation. She was 4 years old. Her mother didn't like the way she looked -- said her face reminded her too much of her father -- so she didn't feed her. The child withered to skin and bones. When the cops found her dead body, they also found six other living children, who slept together on one mattress in the rat-infested New York City apartment. The 32-year-old mother, now facing murder charges, was pregnant again.

The sisters were doing it for themselves. There were two of them, Tonda and Trina, older and younger, 2 1/2 years apart. They would compete at every little thing, racing, eating, jumping. Tonda vs. Trina.And then along came baby brother."We figured we could double-team him," Tonda says now, laughing. "It would be the girls against the boy."

One false move. That's all you get now. One false move and they chop your head off, leave you hanging upside down in the spotlight. Too bad, see ya, thanks for joining us in The Public Life. A good man is without his job this morning. He might never coach again, all for a mistake that is made a thousand times every day all over this country. Gary Moeller's crime was not getting drunk and making a fool of himself -- heck, they'd have to fire half the football people in America for that.

MIAMI-- I was awakened Super Bowl morning by a phone call from a radio program that wanted to know if I was shocked.No. The only thing that shocks me is that a radio program, a TV network, a newspaper reporter or anyone in this tangential business of covering sports thinks they really know what "kind of guy" a player is.

LONDON -- I can still see the old train station in that northern Italian village. Can still feel sun on the back of my neck and the weight of a huge canvas pack on my shoulders.I was just out of college, traveling across Europe, as kids did back then. I had little money -- too little to spare for phone calls or a newspaper -- and the next train wasn't for hours. I took a place against the white stone wall of the station, dropped on my rear end and exhaled."This," I said to myself, gazing at the hot empty streets, "must be what they mean by 'the middle of nowhere.' "