Detroit Free Press

LAKELAND, Fla. -- I am too old for this. I have a car in the garage and a life insurance policy and a coat and tie somewhere. I am grown up. But I am standing behind the batting cage in spring training, and that is where it always begins. "Phone call," someone yells."Coming," I say, but I do not move.My fingers curl around the metal links. The sun is warm. I am watching the Tigers take batting practice and my eyes are closing and my mind starts to drift. I am too old for this. "You wanna take a try?" I hear the player ask. "Me?" I say.

Every now and then, a terrible problem arises which I must help solve. Usually it involves my dog and the carpet. But today, I am called upon for an even nobler cause. I am here to prevent embarrassment. I am here to prevent grown men from walking into Joe Louis Arena carrying baseball gloves. I am here to prevent grown women from entering Tiger Stadium with octopus in their bags. The problem, of course, is baseball and hockey. Same day. Same town. How confusing! The Tigers open their home season this afternoon; the Red Wings continue their playoffs this evening.

PASADENA -- Uh-oh. Death before this. That's what was racing through Jim Harbaugh's brain the first time he threw a pass in a Michigan practice. It wasn't a bad pass. Not for a nine-year- old. The problem was neither he nor the football was supposed to be there. Harbaugh was the son of a Wolverine assistant coach, Jack Harbaugh, and he was playing on the sidelines with the other coaches' sons, and his pass accidently flew out into the middle of the big boys' practice and when he heard the whistle shriek there was only one question left to be answered.Would he get out alive?

ST. LOUIS -- The stands were a sea of red, and boiling over. "Tonight! Tonight!" they chanted. Everybody in this city was repeating those words. The cabdrivers. The brewery workers. The guy in the bird suit jumping around outside the stadium."Gonna be tonight, Cardinals. . . . Bring it home tonight, Cardinals. . . It all ends tonight, Cardinals. . . . "

He stepped inside the hospital room and took a deep breath. There lay his father, a strapping truck driver who had always been the image of strength. The sheets were pulled up to his waist."Come here, son. I want you to see this."Joe Dumars walked slowly to the edge of the bed."It won't do any good to feel sorry for me, you know. I don't need that now. Just look and get it over with."He pulled back the sheets. The left leg was gone, amputated at the knee. Diabetes. Dumars looked down and fought back the tears.

The Michigan basketball players walked slowly to the airport gate, some talking, some joking, some, like Rumeal Robinson, wearing headphones to tune out the world. If you expected anger, grief -- well, there was none. No tears. They had lost their coach to a better offer, they had been stiffed two days before their biggest tournament, but if they learned anything from Bill Frieder, Papa Hoops, who had kissed them good-bye on the evening news, it was to take care of yourself, baby.

I have a friend in Boston. He is very successful. Whenever I visit him, he picks me up at the Boston airport and it is always crowded and we drive on the Boston expressway which is always crowded and we go to a Boston restaurant and wait for a table because it, too, is crowded, and he talks about the new hotels and the new office buildings and theater and concerts and blah, blah, blah, and so I take the ketchup and dump it in his lap. Because the point is this: Boston is getting too big for its own good.Which is where Detroit comes in.

You got the job, kid. The news was hardly a surprise. By the time the press conference began Monday morning, you couldn't find anyone in the state who didn't know Steve Fisher would be named head basketball coach at Michigan. After all, he had just guided the Wolverines to six wins and a national championship. A national championship? No other coach had ever done that here. You got the job, kid.Was there ever a doubt?