" Injured Terrell Owens, hanging on, tried to play a joke on the media last week. He faked his retirement announcement on TV, then high-fived the family members he had there as props. It wasn't very funny. It was kind of sad, actually. Not because he craved an attention that shrinks by the day — that happens very fast in the cruel ecosystem where he got his fame and infamy, the spotlight going from bright to dark faster than he ever ran — but because Owens still seems to think he has some control over how this all ends.

Gary Sheffield vanished from one day to the next, unwanted for the first time in his career, the announcement before his formal one simply being a phone that stopped ringing. Same thing happened to Barry Bonds. There is no real warning, no retirement-age rest stop in the distance at 65, no moment-of-clarity siren announcing that the headaches are finally larger than the talent that always acted as aspirin. And the mirror, as much as Owens loves it, is the last place he should look for the truth."