by Mitch Albom | Mar 16, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
It is not my place, as a travel-weary journalist with a clanking jump shot, to offer sky-walking, world-famous, unspeakably rich professional basketball players a hair-styling tip.
But I’ll do it anyhow.
Yo. NBA.
What’s with all the bald heads?
I go to a Pistons game last weekend, I’m lost. I can’t tell half the players apart. Bald. Bald. Bald. It’s like a Hare Krishna convention.
No less than six, count ’em, six totally hairless Pistons. Half the team. And I’m not including Ron Rothstein, who is losing his hair the old-fashioned way, though stress.
by Mitch Albom | Mar 15, 1993 | Detroit Free Press, Sports
IDITAROD DIARY, CHAPTER 11:
In which we learn absolutely nothing, except that someone night be dead out there. NOME, Alaska — And the winner is . . .
Nobody?
“Have you heard anything?” someone asked in the confused race headquarters on Front Street, where this grueling Iditarod dogsled race was supposed to have ended already — and I was supposed to be heading back to Planet Earth. “What’s the latest?”
by Mitch Albom | Mar 14, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
When tragedy strikes — a murder, a terrorist bombing, a devastating hurricane — there are some who rush to help, some who feel sympathy, some who simply watch.And there are some who pull out contracts and say, “Great stuff! Sign here!”These...
by Mitch Albom | Mar 11, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Uh-oh. Now they had Jalen Rose’s attention. Now he was awake. The Illinois crowd had foolishly decided, as college crowds do, to take yesterday’s headlines and turn them into nasty chants, and with Rose at the free throw line, some...
by Mitch Albom | Mar 10, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
Maybe you are lucky enough not to live in the low end of the city, and so the idea of being some place where drugs are used, or sold, or both, still seems shocking. It isn’t. It happens all the time in Detroit. So it is really no jolt that Jalen Rose, a city kid, a Detroit kid, was in a house where drugs were found last October. This does not make him an addict. Or a user. Or a dealer. He is none of those things. He is a city kid who has friends, old friends, from way before he wore that maize and blue uniform, and some of those friends are involved with drugs.
by Mitch Albom | Mar 8, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
Mike Peplowski deserved better than this. He had the scars, and he put in the years. No way a Spartan like him should have to exit the greatest rivalry of his college career on the short end, while two young Wolverine players, Ray Jackson and Chris Webber, danced on the scorer’s table, shaking their hips and leading the crowd in a wave. Peplowski looked down. He kept walking.
by Mitch Albom | Mar 8, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
Mike Peplowski deserved better than this. He had the years. He had the scars. No way a guy like him should have to exit the greatest rivalry of his career not only on the losing team, not only after a crushing overtime defeat, but while two enemy players, Ray Jackson...
by Mitch Albom | Mar 3, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
He calls himself the fifth wheel, or “Fab Four plus one,” and he sits most often on the edge of the spotlight, as the ESPN cameras zoom in on his more celebrated teammates. Few people know that Ray Jackson was every bit as famous back in Austin, Texas, as...
by Mitch Albom | Feb 28, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
NEWS ITEM: “The Golf Channel,” a 24-hour cable network devoted entirely to the sport of golf, was announced recently. Programming is yet to be determined, but creators promise “a non-stop feast” of shows dealing with the nation’s new No....
by Mitch Albom | Feb 26, 1993 | Detroit Free Press
Dennis Rodman was sitting on his bed with a few friends watching television and counting the minutes to his new life. It was 8 p.m. He had one hour left as a Piston. That’s what he figured. That’s what he wanted.
“I been traded yet?” he asked a visitor.
“Not yet,” came the answer.
“Damn,” he said.
