Detroit Free Press

Before we begin this year's debate I want to inform my boss that Curt Sylvester has been working much too hard lately, and we should send him on a nice vacation for six months, or as long as the doctors think it will take.

I see by the melting snow and the euphoric look on John Lowe's face that it is once again spring and therefore time for Opening Day. But before the baseball zombies attack my house like creatures from "Night of the Living Dead," banging on my windows with their fantasy league stat books and chanting, "Come ouuuut. Come ouuuut. Choose a pennant winner . . . or . . . DIE!" let me say this: John. Zombies. The rest of you. I have bad news:Baseball ain't the same.And it is no longer King.

Why should we?What compels us to go marching into Somalia now? Who do we think we are?Why must our sons and daughters, most of whom have never been anywhere near Somalia, now risk their lives to help straighten out its mess?Why should even one of them take a bullet? And we all know more than one of them will. Why should we?Why does America pour countless millions into trying to feed some distant African nation, when people here at home are sleeping in the streets and begging pennies for food?

Jack and Jill went up the hill to figure out the economy.Jack said, "We're in a recession."Jill said, "No, we're not."Jack said, "How do you know?"Jill said, "How do you know?"Jack said, "Look at the unemployment rate. It's going up."Jill said, "Look at the prime rate. It's coming down."Jack said, "But the stock market has dropped 400 points in the last six months."Jill said, "It's gained 200 points in the last three months."Jack said, "Look at the cost of gas. It's skyrocketed. It's through the roof."

Today we answer the most talked-about question in sports: Is it possible that Wilt Chamberlain slept with 20,000 women?Wait. Let me check my watch.Make that 20,001.Chances are you have heard about Wilt's claim. He wrote it in his new book, "A View From Above," which I always thought referred to his height. Maybe it refers to the mirror over his bed.

CHICAGO --As he climbed the steps, he heard the national anthem -- and a jolt went through him that left him numb. They were starting the game. And he wasn't out there. When he took his seat, far from the action, they dropped the puck -- and another jolt. He wasn't out there.And when Chicago scored the first goal, and then another, putting the Red Wings in a deep hole on this suddenly critical playoff series game, the sensation was the same. A jolt, and then--"Empty," he sighed.

I never got much out of reading Thoreau. Maybe because I read him in high school. An urban teenager doesn't exactly fall for a guy who moves to the woods and talks to squirrels. I do, however, remember one line he wrote. It struck me when I read it and it has stayed with me all these years: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation."What did he mean by that, I wondered? Did grown-ups really have it so tough? Quiet desperation? Such contrasting words. Like "dying hope." Or "deafening silence."Or "I didn't mean to hurt my babies."