by Mitch Albom | Mar 9, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Like many people, I have trouble picking a favorite movie, a favorite food or a favorite song. But I have always been able to pick a favorite possession:
My passport.
It has long been at the top of my list, ever since I got my first one as a teenager on a trip to Paris. I had never been overseas before, and at the airport, when I slid my passport under the glass, the French officer said,
“Vous ete Americain?”
And I said, “Oui.”
And he stamped my entrance to his country.
by Mitch Albom | Mar 6, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
The snow fell on the parking lot. The seats inside were largely empty. It was the last home game at Crisler Arena, and it was seniors night — both of which were mixed blessings in this sunken Michigan basketball season. On the one hand, this U-M team has only...
by Mitch Albom | Mar 5, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Lindsey Hunter tried. Man, he tried everything. He bumped him. He thumped him. He put a hand in his face, he put a hand near the ball. He pressured him and harassed him and breathed on him and forced him into the air in an awkward, falling-back fashion, the way a man is forced off a cliff.
And it didn’t matter.
by Mitch Albom | Feb 17, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Travis Conlan, stuck with the worst job of the day, likened it to “being in a graveyard and running into tombstones.” The tombstones were the Indiana players who, in the second half of Sunday’s game, kept smacking into Conlan in order to free a bouncing freshman named A. J. Guyton.
And if they were the tombstones, Guyton was the ghost.
by Mitch Albom | Feb 16, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Here was the ad:Cruel, nasty, neurotic, paranoid, antisocial but basically happy SWGF, 31, seeks same between 18-40 for miserable relationship. Ah, love.Our most important emotion comes in some pretty funny boxes these days. I know this, because last Friday,...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 14, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
We laughed at him, poked fun at him, maybe whispered behind his back about those silly ties and those corny cheers he led. But deep down, we all felt we should have been a little more like him — this strange, thin man with the thick glasses who wandered through the aisles of our lives, yelling happily at the top of his lungs.
The Brow is gone. And the stadium just got very quiet.
by Mitch Albom | Feb 13, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Look, I have been humiliated before. Like the time when I was 16 and I was trying to impress a girl on a cruise ship and I walked over and said, with all the suave charm I could muster, “Hi, how ya do–‘?” — and I waved my hand and knocked a glass of milk into her lap.
Took me years to get over that.
by Mitch Albom | Feb 12, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
The sports world is full of errors in judgment: The Lions drafting Andre Ware, World Team Tennis, Fox creating a blue puck.
Still, lately it seems like a plague of bad decisions has infected sports, and it’s even worse than usual. For example:
OLIVER McCALL VS. LENNOX LEWIS
A couple of years ago, Don King was talking about one of his fighters. He couldn’t remember his name, so he said, “Who’s that junkie I got?”
by Mitch Albom | Feb 9, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
Anyone who has ever tried to be the “good” child recalls the frustration of seeing a “bad” brother or sister get more attention when they did something wrong.And, what was worse, they also got more attention when they...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 7, 1997 | Detroit Free Press
In the empty years, when Doug Collins was out of coaching, All-Star weekend was when he and his daughter, Kelly, would share some quality time. Of course, because they both love basketball, this still meant going to the game. But they sat together in the stands. They laughed and pointed out special plays. And when the game ended, they went not to the tunnel, but to the parking lot.
