by Mitch Albom | Apr 20, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
If you want to know the truth, I’m much too busy to be writing this column, since, in addition to my duties here, I also serve as a professional football scout.
That’s right. I serve to spot those players the NFL overlooks in its annual draft.
Hey, it’s not that those NFL guys aren’t thorough. It’s just that, well, they sometimes miss some really prime candidates who suffer a teeny-weeny blemish on their record, such as double-homicide. I blame the media. You know how the media can be.
by Mitch Albom | Apr 17, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
I have this theory about the Red Wings in the playoffs. This is my theory. They should leave town.
I don’t mean for good. I mean for the start of each series. Even if they have earned home ice, decline it, start on the road. Begin each series with enemy fans, booing and hissing, telling them they’re no good. There’s less pressure to please the home crowd. And I think they’ll perform better.
by Mitch Albom | Apr 16, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
He used to lie about his summer vacations. Said he did the most incredible things. Ran with the bulls in Pamplona. Was a ball boy for Andre Agassi at the U.S Open. Played backup goalie for the Irish World Cup team. Anything that would startle and impress.Brendan...
by Mitch Albom | Apr 15, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
“Robinson, I need a man that will take abuse and insults. If some guy slides into you and calls you a black so-and-so, you’d come up swinging. And you’d be justified. But you’d set the cause back 20 years.”
“Mr. Rickey, do you want a ballplayer who’s afraid to fight back?”
“Jack, I want a ballplayer with guts enough not to fight back.”
There was a long pause.
“Mr. Rickey, if you want to take this gamble, I promise there will be no incident.”
— Jackie Robinson and Branch Rickey, as recounted by the scout who brought them together, Clyde Sukeforth.
by Mitch Albom | Apr 14, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Doug Collins cares. He cares beyond food sometimes. He cares beyond sleep. He cares so much that there were tears in his eyes when the Pistons finally beat the Bulls on Sunday afternoon, and it hardly mattered that Dennis Rodman and Toni Kukoc weren’t in...
by Mitch Albom | Apr 13, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
The lights flashed on, but she had not flicked the switch. The TV changed channels, but she had not touched the remote. There was a voice on her phone that interrupted her conversations with burps, curses, and laughter — but there was no one in her house on the other extension.
The modern-day version of a haunting was happening to Debbie Tamai and her Windsor family. Only this phantom was not some long-buried soul, but a very real, very alive, very conniving punk who calls himself “Sommy” and who thinks it’s cute to terrorize a family.
by Mitch Albom | Apr 11, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
All week long, I’ve heard people dismiss this new book which claims Isiah Thomas had a gambling problem. Not because they know Isiah. Not because they were at the house where these high-stakes dice games supposedly took place.
No. They dismiss it by saying, “I don’t believe anything that uses unnamed sources.”
I heard the same thing a few weeks ago, when all those charges were coming
out about the Michigan basketball program, charges that a booster had been funneling money to players for years. The critics’ response?
by Mitch Albom | Apr 8, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Some things you do for love, some you do for tradition. In frosty weather, with the season already a week old, and the team — let’s be honest — not expected to win as many as it loses, those who came out for Opening Day at Tiger Stadium on Monday afternoon did it for tradition. They did it because their folks did it. They did it because they love the first pitch, the organ music, because some rituals you keep alive, even if, for the moment — with empty seats and an alien roster — they don’t make much sense.
by Mitch Albom | Apr 3, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
What’s the most important part of your body? Your mind, right? Well, you’d better protect it. Because something is trying to get it. That something is a shoe company called Nike.Consider a recent commercial featuring black baseball stars thanking Jackie...
by Mitch Albom | Apr 1, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
INDIANAPOLIS — The game had the awkwardness of a teenager learning to dance, the stickiness of wet paint, the color of an unripe banana. Whacks, pokes, dumb passes, ill-advised shots. It simply was not polished basketball
— the inevitable problem with inexperienced feet being asked to walk the highest rope.
And yet . . .
