Detroit Free Press

Nobody died. No one got sick. But this is a sad story just the same.It is about a phone booth. In the Mojave Desert. "The loneliest phone booth in the world," they called it. It sat by itself, miles from anywhere, in a dusty stretch amidst scrub brush and dirt. Its windows were shot out. Its door was long gone. Its hinges showed decay from the harsh desert climate.But it worked.The phone booth, not far from Death Valley, originally was installed many years ago so that miners could have contact with the outside world in case of emergency.

First of all, I can't tell them apart. Britney. Christina. Jessica. Mandy. I'm not talking faces. Who's looking at ...

To his friends and supporters, I am just another dumb critic of Bobby Knight.To his friends and supporters, I am just another sheep who says a coach who chokes a player shouldn't be a coach.To his friends and supporters, I am another rube taken in by a videotape that shows Bobby Knight grabbing former player Neil Reed by the throat. I obviously can't understand the circumstances that would make Knight's actions perfectly acceptable because I am not -- as his friends and supporters will tell you -- a successful college basketball coach like Bobby.

THEY showered in silence. They dressed in silence. Brendan Shanahan dressed faster than most. He was on fire, ...

For years, I have been trying to get my mother into computers."You can e-mail me," I say."I can call you on the phone," she says."You can send pictures," I say."I can visit you in person," she says.Once again, as with pretty much everything in life, mother is proving to know best.

BECAUSE A flipping puck came off Chris Osgood the wrong way, because that puck wound up in the net, because the Red Wings went from a lead to a tie, a tie to overtime, overtime to a breakout, and a breakout to an Avalanche goal that ended Game 4 -- because of that, explanations abound.

Where did the air go?In a few choking seconds -- the time it takes for two men to streak down the ice with only one defender between them -- the Red Wings' season went from a roar to a gasp. A puck goes in, a light goes on, and now the Avalanche goes home needing one victory in three tries to move on in the playoffs.And the Red Wings must win three straight, or shave the beards and head for the golf courses.

HIS FIRST NAME is Doug and his last name is Brown and I don't care if you give him a beret, a goatee, a book of ...