WHEN I SAY "WE WON," DO I REALLY MEAN WE? I wrestle with being a sports fan. Is there any value in my endless hours sitting there staring at the Cubs or the Pistons or the Red Wings or the Bears? I mean, as Shaq reminds us time and again, they're businessmen. It's not personal. Right?

One of my big issues with the Cubs is that, for me, Steve Stone and even Chip Caray, by way of his legacy, were as much "Cubs" to me as any of the current crop of players. No, they were more "Cub" to me. They were the essence of my Cub experience. And so without them, more often than not, I'm starting to see a bunch of hired hands passing through town who have more in common with the guys on the other teams than they do with the Chicago citizenry.

Steve Stone was Chicago baseball in a way that it'll take years for Dusty Baker and Derek Lee and Carlos Zambrano to be, you know.

The Pistons, on the other hand, somehow feel "Detroit" to me. They're a bunch of scrappers, a team getting by on heart and hard work, with a dose of old-school talent (rebounding, spot-up jumpers, sticky defense).

Still I wonder why they matter to me, and if they should. How much Detroit is still in me?

I'd like to root for the Midwest to beat the South, the West, and the East. I could get my heart into that. But only if they made sure the players were actually *from* those regions. That's the thing: Maybe we should all just stick close to where we were born.

Or maybe I should wait to post until I'm coherent.

Nah.