Already some people are licking their chops at the thought of Petr Klima coming to Detroit. Klima is a hell of a hockey player -- maybe the best in Europe. Fast. Strong. Gifted.He is also 20 years old, alone, and in the middle of defecting from his country, Czechoslovakia.Early last week, he disappeared from a hotel in West Germany, where his Czech team was training. The whispers began. He's doing it.
The top rebounder in the NBA cannot dunk a basketball two- handed. His leap is a laugh. In a team footrace, he might finish behind the trainer.The top rebounder in the NBA never struggled as a child. Never walked the streets. At age 17, he had a new car, a gift from Dad. His only summer job -- in a tire warehouse -- lasted a week."Manual labor," he groaned. "I hate that."
SAN FRANCISCO -- The last time I wrote a column from this seat, there was fire in my hands. An earthquake had struck, Candlestick Park was dark, most of the frightened crowd had already rushed the exits. Alone, with no lights and one working telephone, I took a cardboard lunch box, lit it with a match, and, holding its flame above me so I could see, I tapped out the keys to send a story to my newspaper.
The floor was thumping, the house was dancing, screaming, dying, waiting for a sign, an assurance, and here came Isiah Thomas, grabbing a pass and turning his back and bouncing it to Dennis Rodman on the baseline. And Rodman rose like destiny and slammed the thing through and hung on the rim with same sweat-soaked determination the Pistons have found to hang on to this crazy series. That was the sign. The Silverdome went insane.
NEW YORK -- She is the trusty sidekick, the co-star, the comic book character destined to be paired with someone bigger. Pam Shriver has won every Grand Slam tournament in tennis alongside Martina Navratilova. But she has not won any alone.She tries. She advances. Then sooner or later, her doubles partner, the best woman tennis player on the planet, comes around to beat her. Sooner or later, Navratilova gets the trophy, and Shriver gets a handshake. This is the way it seems to go. Partners. Rivals. Sooner or later.
When I awoke Monday morning, I pushed a hand through my hair, only to feel something sticky and hard, like straw dipped in molasses.How weird, I thought.Dried champagne.It was not meant for me, that champagne. I was merely caught in the crossfire at Tiger Stadium, a bubbly explosion between one player (Mike Heath) and another (Frank Tanana). Not my champagne, not my celebration, and yet part of it had stuck to me overnight; and, in a certain way, part of me had stuck back.
PASADENA, Calif. -- Suddenly the magic was gone, dried up in the California wind and blown out to sea. Jim Harbaugh took his first snap of the third quarter -- and how many of those had signaled fireworks for Michigan this season? -- and, look out, he overthrew Greg McMurtry by a mile. Second snap. Harbaugh was sacked. Third snap. Harbaugh scrambled, dumped the simplest of lobs to Jamie Morris.Morris dropped it.Michigan punted away.
NEW ORLEANS -- Send in the clowns. And the dancing bears. Super Bowl XX was a joke, a bad joke if your seat was in New England -- because the Patriots were merely the cookies to keep the kids quiet, and the Bears were the show. The whole show.It was merciful when they brought down the curtain on this, the Super Bowl which may have set new records for false expectations. An even match, some had called it? Even?
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
