Detroit Free Press

ALTHOUGH IT IS fashionable these days for Detroit athletes to announce their retirement -- often in a foreign ...

LOOK, THERE'S your father, sitting in the rightfield seats, handing you a hot dog and telling you be careful, don't get mustard all over your shirt. And over there, near the third-base line, that was your grandma, holding her little pencil and writing names delicately in her scorecard, "Kaline, RF, Horton, LF, Freehan, C . . ."And out there, in the bleachers, wasn't that your first girlfriend, looking the way she did back then, her hair in a ponytail, her eyes feigning interest as you pointed out the players and proudly quoted their statistics?

LOOK, THERE'S your father, sitting in the rightfield seats, handing you a hot dog and telling you be careful, ...

SHE AWAKENS today as she always has, her lid open to the sky, her grass stretching for sunlight. But this time, there is something in the autumn air, something final, something sad. Like a fading belle of the ball, she seems to sense it, yet ignores it. This will be the last morning of her baseball life. She knows it. She inhales proudly and raises her blue and white chin to the morning light."Are you ready?" the city seems to ask."Ready," Tiger Stadium sighs.

Once again, the eternal question arises: "You call that art?"This time, the questioner is Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York City, who is so incensed by a new exhibition that he is threatening to take over the museum.And this time the art in dispute involves the Virgin Mary, which has long been a favorite of the masters, and elephant poop, which has not.

Idon't want to burst any bubbles here, but if Barry Sanders' father has to make an appointment to talk to his son, just how influential can he be?I mean, imagine the big "showdown" this weekend.DAD: Barry, I'm here. Let's talk.BARRY: And your name is ...?Believe me, all this entire sad affair proves, once again, is when they say it's not about the money, it's about the money.

LIKE I'VE BEEN saying for years, once the Lions dump that Sanders guy, they can win a few football games.Well. You got a better explanation? This is no longer the team you knew and loathed, Lions fans. That was clear at the start of the fourth quarter Sunday, in Game 2 of The Year of Living Barrylessly. The Lions (now known as "The Silver and Who?") lined up for a punt near their end zone. Everything went fine until the snapper actually snapped the ball, which subsequently flew over John Jett's head and landed somewhere in downtown Pontiac.

I'm sorry.To you, who are reading this column in the kitchen. To you, who are reading over coffee at the deli. To ...