He used to practice on the metal flap doors that dotted the sidewalks of Harlem. Tappety-tap-tap-tappety-tip. When it got too cold, he danced in the hallways of nearby apartment buildings. Tappety-tip-tip-tappety-tap. One day, when he was 14, a fellow "hoofer" knocked on his door, said they needed somebody up at the Apollo, quick, let's go. A few breathless minutes later, he was auditioning in the basement of the most famous theater in his universe, just him and his dream and the silver plates on his shoes. Tappety- tappety-tappety-tip!
Late in the game, with the score tied, the crowd on its feet, Chuck Daly leaned toward his captain and snapped an ammonia capsule under his nose. Isiah Thomas jerked his head as if someone had slapped him right across the cheek. The message was clear: Wake up.Message received.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Sports writers get the best seats. That's what people say. But apparently, they are not good enough. Based on what I've heard at recent press conferences for Michigan's Fab Five freshmen -- including the ones for today's Final Four showdown against Cincinnati -- we media would prefer a chair smack in the middle of the court.So we could hear the trash.Trash talk, that is. Never in my years of covering college basketball have I heard more questions about this subject."Chris, what do you plan to say out there?"
* Phoenix 12, Lions 10: Detroit is the only team where quarterbacks fight over who gets to be No. 3, because that means you get to start next.* NY Jets 21, Washington 10: You have to hand it to the Redskins. In the years they don't go to the Super Bowl, they really stink.
Let's face it. Even though men and women live together, work together and sleep together, they are not always on the same page. MAN (watching Three Stooges): Ho! Haha! WOMAN: I'm leaving you. MAN: What's that, hon--ahaaahahaheee!Nowhere is this difference more apparent than in the world of sports, where men will tell you, on the scale of Truly Important Things In Life, there is 1) the 1975 World Series, 2) who was better in his prime, Magic or Bird? 3) the polio vaccine.Whereas women have it all backwards.
OAKLAND -- As I write this from the press box at the World Series, I don't have much time to elaborate. You never know when Jose Canseco may decide to go after another fly ball.And now, this week's picks . . .
All right, America. The time has come. Here, on the morning of the new NBA season, the basketball question you've been wanting to ask for weeks:How come Michael Jordan retired and Bill Laimbeer didn't?"Ha!" Laimbeer says, sneering. "That's easy! I don't have $300 million like he does."Cute. But not the answer. True, Jordan, 30, may be resting his still-lean body while Laimbeer, 36, gets up each morning with a different joint creaking in his freckled white frame.
NEWS ITEM: MONDAY MARKS THE 501st ANNIVERSARY OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS ' ARRIVAL IN AMERICA. WHILE SCIENTISTS STILL DEBATE WHETHER COLUMBUS WAS THE FIRST TO ARRIVE ON THESE SHORES, THEY ALL AGREE THAT THE LAND HE FOUND 501 YEARS AGO BEARS LITTLE RESEMBLANCE TO WHAT HE'D SEE WERE HE TO WASH BACK ASHORE TODAY . . .
There is only one person on the Boston Celtics that worries me and that is Larry Bird. You can throw out as many Dee Browns and Brian Shaws as you want. Tall guys? Bring on the tall guys, Kevin McHale, Joe Kleine, Ed Pinckney. Even the old man, Robert Parish -- who recently celebrated his 92nd birthday -- even him, I can handle. I need an ax. But I can handle him.
THE LIVE ALBOM:I come back after a month overseas, and the Red Wings have a new coach, the Pistons have Chuck Daly back, and the Tigers are within five games of first place. * And the Lions' top draft pick is holding out.
Think about 19. Think about where you were, what you were doing. Maybe getting drunk at a frat party, maybe starting a job you knew would never last, maybe flopping on the couch, watching TV, trying to decide what to do with your life. It's an in-between age, 19, and most likely you felt torn at some point by the childhood behind you and the adulthood that lay ahead. Like a wishbone.
