SEOUL, South Korea -- So let me tell you what happened yesterday. I mean today. I mean . . . tomorrow. No. Wait. Do I? Forget it. It wasn't that good a story.Welcome to Korea, home of the Summer Olympics, where you never really know what time it is, but if you ask enough people, you definitely won't know what time it is. You will, however, end up with lots of business cards, which you can give to other people, and maybe one of them will have a watch.
Today, he's not such a genius. The team is a mess, the good players are barely hitting the ball, and fans are yawning and waiting for football season. Bill Lajoie will ride it out. The same way he rode it out when everybody loved him. Remember? Two years ago?"In some ways this is easier than that," sighs the man with the thick eyebrows who, as general manager, is the wheeler- dealer for the Tigers. "In a winning season, like '87, you have to be so alert. The slightest little crack, you have to jump in and fix it."
LOS ANGELES -- And here comes Richard Pryor. He walks over, grabs John Salley's hand and begins to shake it. A photographer requests a picture, and the two men turn toward the camera."Spider maaan," says Pryor, looking not at Salley but straight at the lens, "you Detroit guys are taking care of business.""Yeah, we are," says Salley, also looking straight ahead. "You're kickin' some butt," says Pryor."Thanks, Richard.""Takin' care of biddd-ness!""Yeah, Richard.""I lost 50 bucks on you, man.""Sorry, Richard."Click, click.
SEOUL, South Korea -- So let me tell you what happened yesterday. I mean today. I mean . . . tomorrow. No. Wait. Do I? Forget it. It wasn't that good a story.Welcome to Korea, home of the Summer Olympics, where you never really know what time it is, but if you ask enough people, you definitely won't know what time it is. You will, however, end up with lots of business cards, which you can give to other people, and maybe one of them will have a watch.
Today, he's not such a genius. The team is a mess, the good players are barely hitting the ball, and fans are yawning and waiting for football season. Bill Lajoie will ride it out. The same way he rode it out when everybody loved him. Remember? Two years ago?"In some ways this is easier than that," sighs the man with the thick eyebrows who, as general manager, is the wheeler- dealer for the Tigers. "In a winning season, like '87, you have to be so alert. The slightest little crack, you have to jump in and fix it."
He leaves the stage still kidding himself, still believing he is somehow above the game, which, let's face it, is what got him thrown out in the first place. "I never bet on baseball," Pete Rose insisted again Thursday morning, the day he was banned for life apparently for exactly that.And thus ends the most excruciating sports story of the year. Not with a final thud of justice, but with the whoosh of verbal swords. "He did it," says Bart Giammati, the commissioner of baseball. "No I didn't," says Rose. "Good-bye," says the commissioner. "I'll be back," says Rose.
ST. CLOUD, Minn. -- They treated him like a freak, and he never deserved that. "The things I do, I've done all my life," says Jim Eisenreich. But people just saw what they saw, a center fielder suddenly twitching and gasping for breath, bending at the waist, not sure he would ever find air again. Just like that it could happen. In the middle of the game. And he would call time out and run off the field, scared and embarrassed. He was suffering from a disease, he says, Tourette's Syndrome, but he didn't know it then, and his club, the Minnesota Twins, didn't believe it.
THE LIVE ALBOM (Valentine's Day Edition)* If I had wings and a little bow and arrow and I enjoyed wearing a diaper, I might play Cupid for the following couples on Valentine's Day:Jim McMahon and Andy Warhol. Refrigerator Perry and Pia Zadora. Sparky Anderson and Olive Oyl. Petr Klima and Annette Funicello. The Iron Sheik and Iron Maiden. * And maybe Danny Ainge, Pat Sullivan and that kid from "Webster." A menage a twerp. * Speaking of Valentine's Day, how about a gift from the NBA: 82 All-Star Games a year, with one regular-season game in the middle?
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.
