"What on earth is preventing you? The Cincinnati Reds have retired it. The Ft. Worth Kats have retired it.

It's time.

If you don't do it now, you might never get him back to Comerica Park to do it another time. In fact, you won't.

This is going to be a sad-and-glad occasion at the same time. We'll see that some of the players from 1984 are getting gray. We'll see that some might even be getting old.

Sparky, however, has long since gotten old.

He doesn't travel a lot -- doesn't even play golf a lot anymore, from what we hear. Not as much as he used to, anyway.

And make no mistake, he's returning for this reunion for one reason and one reason only. It's not for Mike Ilitch. It's not for the organization. It's definitely not for the attention.

It's for his guys -- the players on the team that went wire-to-wire. From their 35-5 start to beating the San Diego Padres in five games in the World Series.

And they, in turn, are coming back to see him. Some of them, perhaps many, wouldn't have attended otherwise."

-- From today's Detroit News