CLEVELAND - Jeff Garcia got behind the wheel and floored the gas, and we all sat up to watch him drive. There were two games going on Sunday, the football game recorded for history and the game Lions fans were playing at home, called "What Did Garcia Do That Joey Harrington Wouldn't?"
Moses parts the water, but Kenny Rogers turns the tide.On a night when the weather said it's time to stop playing baseball, Rogers took the mound Sunday night and said no, we play on, we play like Game 1 never happened, we play like this magical Detroit year is still, well, magical. For the third time in this postseason, Rogers lifted his teammates' chins, said, "Watch the old man do it," and went out there and hurled a masterpiece.
The game was about over, the Lions had won, and here came the ice water, over Rod Marinelli's neck and shoulders."How many times," someone asked him after the game, "have you had one of those buckets dumped on you?""This was the first one," he said.
Like a lot of guys, I don't get the whole Martha Stewart thing. To me, sheets are sheets, artichokes are artichokes, and as long as the quarterback doesn't throw any interceptions, I'm happy.Then last week, I interviewed Martha Stewart, on radio, for her new book about building a business.When I came home, I told my wife and a female friend the news. And both of them gushed, almost in unison, "You were nice to her, weren't you?"Well, I said, she did go to jail."You were nice to her, weren't you?"
Somewhere, as you read this, cables are being laid and cameras are being hoisted. Somewhere, as you read this, tickets are being enveloped or moved across cyberspace. Somewhere, as you read this, a field is being groomed, logos are being repainted, and merchandise is being unpacked and displayed, caps and shirts and jackets with official tags emblazoned with a single phrase that pulls this crazy movable feast from one October to the next:World Series.In Detroit?To paraphrase "Field Of Dreams," if you wait long enough, it will come.
This should make you angrier than you have been over almost anything since Sept. 11 - and that includes the war in Iraq.A recent report showed that 75% of fake bombs or bomb parts got past Transportation Security Administration security at Los Angeles International Airport and 60% got past TSA screeners at Chicago's O'Hare.Those are two of the busiest airports in the world. Those are two of the juiciest targets a terrorist could desire.
And on the seventh day, they played baseball.I think it was baseball.It wasn't Tigers baseball. Not the brand we'd gotten used to in this postseason. It was more like a badly cracked egg: first the yoke broke and soon pieces of shell were floating everywhere. Home runs were surrendered. Errors were made. Balls went flying where they weren't supposed to go flying. And the Detroit bats - swinging too often at first pitches - were all but silent.
EAST LANSING - The weather was perfect, the stadium was packed and the whole town was pounding with green-and-white optimism.And then the game started.And Ohio State pulled the Spartans' pants down.Not ready. Not yet. The records suggested that Michigan State was an elite team, but records are just numbers. The field tells the tale. And on the field, there were the Big Boys and there were the Wannabes. Before this game was 15 minutes old, it told an age-old story about one team that has done it and one team that is still dreaming about it.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
