OAKLAND, Calif. — The fun begins when he steps off the bag. His spikes in the sand make no sound, and yet you swear you can hear each new footstep, like horseshoes on concrete. One step. Two steps. He’s three steps off and leaning now. . . . Surely the pitchers hear this. Surely the catchers hear it, too, like a pulse, like a telltale heart. Rickey Henderson makes everybody nervous.
So tonight the Tigers begin their final series of 1989, in New York City, a perfect cemetery for a garbage season. Say good-bye to this year’s model. Hopefully, we’ll never see it again.
I paid my respects Wednesday night, the final home game. The atmosphere in the clubhouse was not morbid. It was more like a huge sigh of relief, the kind where you wipe your brow and tap your coat pocket to make sure you haven’t lost your plane ticket home.
Let me tell you about the social event of the football season, the marriage of Bob and Kim Gagliano, live, on the radio, an event that can be summed up with the following sentences:
“Are they ready yet?”
“No! Throw on another Van Halen record!”
Now. There are many ways in which a man and woman can be joined in holy matrimony. Most of them do not involve headphones. Nor do most include a disc jockey who says, “We’ll be back with the wedding, right after this. . . . “
I was ready to take Jerry Holmes apart. And I wouldn’t be the first. All day long, he had been flat-out humiliated by the Chicago Bears, whacked, smacked and stacked. They threw long on him so often, he needed his own ZIP code. Watching him chase the receivers was like watching an elephant chase the Concorde.
Up it goes, down it comes, touchdown. Up it goes, down it comes, touchdown. It was a simply awful display of defensive football that snuffed out, believe it or not, an exciting Detroit offense, and brought the Lions to their knees for the third straight time this season.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. — All afternoon, the only thing that hung in their way was the scoreboard. They were clobbering the national champions, hurting them, leaving them dizzy. Michigan State had Notre Dame breathless and confused; the Spartans had them every which way but beaten. The scoreboard. The damn scoreboard. If only they could pound that thing, tackle it, knock it silly until it coughed up some points the way the Fighting Irish had been coughing up the football.
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