I rarely comment on items that have appeared in newspapers. I figure you may already have read it and have your own ideas.

But … I was struck, a few days ago, by how the same section (Friday) of the same newspaper (the Los Angeles Times) could have one column so spot-on valuable and fun … and one so spectacularly wrong.

The good news: T.J. Simers, professional pain in the rear, has become the Twilight Years Muse of John Wooden, former UCLA basketball coach. Simers’ updates on The Coach have become some of the best stuff Simers does.

He abandons his “needling smart-ass” shtick for Coach Wooden and just lets the man speak, which shows self-discipline and a willingness to admit that at least one source is bigger than this particular writer.

Wooden, if you haven’t been following him, is probably the greatest living American. No. Really. He is. I’m quite serious about this. Not only did he achieve more in his chosen profession (college basketball coaching) than anyone before or since, Wooden is and always has been a life coach.

He dispenses more wisdom in five minutes than our elected leaders do in five hours. He’s something like a hundred wise grandfathers rolled up into one, and if he knew right from wrong when he was young, his long life has given him miles more of perspective about what really matters. It’s all about traditional virtues and hard work and fairness and dignity and teaching and helping … well, all those good things that often sound false and self-serving from lesser beings.

There should be a John Wooden Channel in which we get 24/7 Meaning of Life lessons from the man. I honestly believe everyone who has come in contact with him is a better person for it. We have been lucky to have him on this planet for nearly a century, and we have been supremely fortunate to have him in Southern California for six decades.

Simers has a wonderful rapport with Wooden, who is certainly sharp enough — even at age 98 — to grasp that LAT’s Mr. Page Two likes to be a little saucy. Someone who was as self-important as John Wooden ought to be would have no sense of humor about himself. He wouldn’t let T.J. Simers anywhere near him. But Wooden is humble, too.

And it isn’t the first Simers session with John Wooden. I hope it will not be the last.

Then there is the bad news: Kurt Streeter’s remarkably dopey call for the Dodgers to sign Manny Ramirez to a long-term contract.

If you had set out to find the Poster Man-child for guys who ought to be playing on one-year deals … Manny Ramirez would be your guy.

His team needs to have his full attention, and only when he’s playing for a big payday does he seem fully engaged. (Just ask the Boston Red Sox.)

And that is what the Dodgers have gotten from Manny during his a fabulous three or so months with the team.

End of last season? His contract was ending. And he tore it up with the bat for the Dodgers.

This season? Manny can opt out of his two-year Dodgers contract at the end of this season, Season 1. So he’s out there tearing it up again.

What you do not want to do, at all costs, is sign this guy to a long deal with guaranteed money. That would mean he doesn’t have to play hard for X number of years, while still gettting paid, and take “Manny being Manny” in whatever wacky direction Senior Ramirez finds amusing.

But Streeter calls for lots of years with Manny. Lock him up — and throw away fiscal responsibility.

Manny is 36. His legs hurt. As long as he is with the Dodgers, he has to play defense, and that means more wear and tear on his lower extremities — as well as some brutal work with the glove out in left field. He could hurt himself at any moment. At his age, he could go south as a hitter, too, any day.

It makes no sense — none — for a National League team to tie itself to Manny for something like four years, which is what he and his agent, Scott Boras, want. Manny is a man of the moment, there here and now. Not the future. Certainly not the distant future, “distant” in this case being 2011 or beyond.

Oh, and to make sure Manny isn’t being taken advantage of, here are the terms of his contract, according to Dylan Hernandez of the Times:

The contract is worth $45 million over two years and includes a no-trade provision and an opt-out clause that the 36-year-old Ramirez can exercise at the end of the first year.

Ramirez’s salary this season is $25 million, with $15 million deferred without interest. If he declines the $20-million option for 2010, he will receive $5-million payments over the next three years. If he exercises the option, he will also receive $10 million in 2010, plus $8.33 million in each of the three years after that.

The $25-million salary makes him baseball’s second-highest-paid player behind Alex Rodriguez at $32 million. The Dodgers will pay for Ramirez to stay in a hotel suite when they’re on the road.

So, no, it’s not as if the Dodgers are taking advantage of the guy.

He has the right to tear up that contract after this season and go back out on the open market. And more power to him, if he can get that done. (Which probably requires a big rebound in the U.S. economy.)

The Dodgers then will have a chance to decide if they want to sign him again. And the market will decide. If we still are in recession, Manny may not have many suitors, same as last winter.

And remember, Manny may like playing here — and I believe he does — but he is a mercenary. It’s a business for him, as it is for all these guys. And should be. If he can get a bigger deal somewhere else, where he feels comfortable, etc. … he will do it. No matter how many Dodgers fans fawn over him this season.

The Dodgers have done the right thing: They have the guy on their roster, and they’re paying handsomely for him, but they aren’t tied to him for a length of time that might include the guy not being able to play. At all.

To suggest otherwise is just jarringly wrong-headed. I mean, I’ve written a lot of columns, and some days you just want to be provocative. But urging the Dodgers to sign an increasingly creaky 36-year-old goofball to a long-term deal? A horrible idea.