by Mitch Albom | May 28, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
Nobody died. No one got sick. But this is a sad story just the same.
It is about a phone booth. In the Mojave Desert. “The loneliest phone booth in the world,” they called it. It sat by itself, miles from anywhere, in a dusty stretch amidst scrub brush and dirt. Its windows were shot out. Its door was long gone. Its hinges showed decay from the harsh desert climate.
But it worked.
The phone booth, not far from Death Valley, originally was installed many years ago so that miners could have contact with the outside world in case of emergency.
by Mitch Albom | May 21, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
First of all, I can’t tell them apart. Britney. Christina. Jessica. Mandy. I’m not talking faces. Who’s looking at their faces?I’m talking belly buttons.I’m talking midriffs. Halter tops. Push-up breasts in push-up bras.I’m talking...
by Mitch Albom | May 14, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
To his friends and supporters, I am just another dumb critic of Bobby Knight.
To his friends and supporters, I am just another sheep who says a coach who chokes a player shouldn’t be a coach.
To his friends and supporters, I am another rube taken in by a videotape that shows Bobby Knight grabbing former player Neil Reed by the throat. I obviously can’t understand the circumstances that would make Knight’s actions perfectly acceptable because I am not — as his friends and supporters will tell you — a successful college basketball coach like Bobby.
by Mitch Albom | May 9, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
THEY showered in silence. They dressed in silence. Brendan Shanahan dressed faster than most. He was on fire, burning from the inside. He exited swiftly, avoiding eye contact. He got on the bus with his head down.This was last Friday night, in Colorado, where the...
by Mitch Albom | May 7, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
For years, I have been trying to get my mother into computers.
“You can e-mail me,” I say.
“I can call you on the phone,” she says.
“You can send pictures,” I say.
“I can visit you in person,” she says.
Once again, as with pretty much everything in life, mother is proving to know best.
by Mitch Albom | May 5, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
BECAUSE A flipping puck came off Chris Osgood the wrong way, because that puck wound up in the net, because the Red Wings went from a lead to a tie, a tie to overtime, overtime to a breakout, and a breakout to an Avalanche goal that ended Game 4 — because of that, explanations abound.
by Mitch Albom | May 4, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
Where did the air go?
In a few choking seconds — the time it takes for two men to streak down the ice with only one defender between them — the Red Wings’ season went from a roar to a gasp. A puck goes in, a light goes on, and now the Avalanche goes home needing one victory in three tries to move on in the playoffs.
And the Red Wings must win three straight, or shave the beards and head for the golf courses.
by Mitch Albom | May 3, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
HIS FIRST NAME is Doug and his last name is Brown and I don’t care if you give him a beret, a goatee, a book of Dostoyevsky and a flask of vodka, he still wouldn’t look Russian. He is as American as they come, with a New England accent, a college...
by Mitch Albom | May 2, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
IGOR Larionov always had been a quiet man, but this was a different silence. Here, in the year he would turn 40, he was playing out the final days of his contract. An offer he once deemed “insulting” had been pulled off the table with nothing offered in its place. He was facing an ugly truth, one all athletes face sooner or later. His reputation was exceeding his productivity.
by Mitch Albom | May 1, 2000 | Detroit Free Press
TO: Grant Hill The Deliberating Superstar c/o The Detroit Pistons
Dear Grant,
I trust this letter finds you well, at least as well as a man can be three days after ankle surgery. While you were in the hospital, did you remember to avoid the Jell-O? I’m sure you did. You’ve always been smart.
Which brings me to your future, where you must also be smart. It is not my place, as an aging sportswriter who can barely make a lay-up, to advise a sleek young NBA superstar about his prospects.
But I’ll do it anyhow.
