ANN ARBOR, Michigan.  Gary Sheffield, the outspoken outfielder for the Detroit Tigers who transformed an upper-body tic into a powerful home-run swing, was today named Director of Affirmative Action at the University of Michigan Law School, whose program of racial preferences was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2003.

"No, I don't want to be your friend, you freaking half-breed."

"When it comes to making finely-calibrated distinctions on the basis of race, Gary's the man," said Evan Caminker, Dean of the University of Michigan Law School.  Caminker said Sheffield would report directly to him on issues of diversity and racial purity, but Sheffield moved quickly to correct his boss, whom he characterized as a "pasty-faced nerd who sits in a liberry" all day.   "Nobody tells me how to do things," Sheffield explained to reporters. "I do things the way I gotta do them, and that's it."

The Shef's Idol:  Sammy "I've Gotta Be Me" Davis, Jr.

Sheffield has been in hot water recently after saying Derek Jeter, his former teammate on the Yankees, "ain't all-the-way black."  Jeter's mother is white, his father is African-American, his maternal grandfather is an Aleutian Islander and his dog is a colliedoodlekeet, a mixture of a border collie, a French poodle and a parakeet.

"When you're Gary Sheffield, you're way the hell far out in left field--all the way!"

"Jeter used to come to me and basically used to tell you what (Torre) is all about, he's a good man, he's this, he's that," Sheffield said. "But like I tell Derek Jeter, 'That's you. It's one thing that they treat you a certain way - you don't feel what other people feel, 'cause you've got a brain.' "

Morris Albert:  "Feelings, whoa, whoa, whoa Shef's got different feelings . . ."

Those close to him say that Sheffield's prickly temper may be due to his use of anabolic steroids, whose side effects include irritability, back acne and shriveled testicles.  "You can hardly blame the guy," said Joel Upham, who covered Sheffield during his years with the Yankees.  "It's not easy attracting Baseball Annies when word gets around that your shoulder blades look like a fourteen year-old's face and your testicles are the size of pistachio nuts."

Copyright 2007, Con Chapman