ATLANTIC CITY -- Larry Holmes was flat on his back, his legs spread apart, while the referee tried to jiggle the mouthpiece from between Holmes' teeth. A mob of people hovered over him, three guys in red satin jackets, a policeman, a doctor."Get out, get out," the ex-champ mumbled.
MOSCOW -- So I wanted to jog around the Kremlin. What's the big deal? I mean, you gotta jog somewhere, right?"You're insane," a colleague said."Hope you like Siberia," another said."Boys, boys," I said, slipping on my running shoes, "the Kremlin is just a big building. Buildings are meant to be jogged around."They shook their heads."Nice working with you," one said."Can I have your bags?" another said.
"We won't have a very long practice today. Just long enough to throw up."--Chuck Daly, Friday morning Adrian Dantley had his feet up on the seat. Bill Laimbeer was asleep with his mouth open. Rick Mahorn sat with headphones over his ears.
MIAMI -- You expect, now and then, to run smack into your conscience. You just don't expect it to happen at the Super Bowl. A game. A gunshot. And, in the land of beach and sun, we suddenly ask ourselves what America is all about.
When they first told him three people were dead, that it was a crime, that when he was finally released from the Pontiac hospital where he now lay, immobile, his head in a brace, his thumb sewn to his hand, he would be charged with manslaughter, this is what Reggie Rogers said: "Why?
KANSAS CITY -- Big men don't cry. That much you learn with your baseball milk. So I guess the idea of a 6-foot-3 home run hitter bawling is pretty much out of the question. Just the same, I keep visualizing Steve Balboni, all 225 pounds of him, returning to his hotel room after the game, stripping down to his undershirt, cuddling up with a bag of Doritos, and weeping.It is not because he is sensitive, which he is. It is not because he speaks with all the volume of a monk, which he does. It is not because, without his cap, he looks like the "before" picture for a hair-weave ad.
We interrupt you, America, to bring this rumbling from the Midwest:Pistons. Wings. Pistons. Wings.Ba-boom.The words create a growing frenzy, like a sparrow's heartbeat, like a Baptistchurch service, like the music from "Jaws." They are on the lips of every auto worker in Dearborn, every lawyer in Birmingham, every elevator-rider in every office building in downtown Detroit.Pistons. Wings. Pistons. Wings.Ba-boom.
They come clanking into the playoffs like some science fiction monster, unbeatable, unstoppable, unkillable. Buh-dump. Buh-dump."Hello," they say, "we are Detroit.""AHHHHHHHHHH!"People scatter. Sirens roar. The police turn on the spotlights to try to blind them into submission. Suddenly they are Godzilla in basketball shorts, the favorites, the invincible army."Excuse us," they say to the people of Boston, "we don't mean to make a fuss. Is this the way to the Garden?""AHHHHHHHHHH!"
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.
