Since Pistons season has everyone in this town crazy again, we might as well mix a little basketball in with the football this morning. If the Pistons played in the NFL, what teams would they be with?* Isiah Thomas: I see him with Houston, at quarterback, replacing Warren Moon.
WASHINGTON -- Hey, bus driver. Pull over. Let me off. I am not taking this ride again with the Lions. Not if Sunday night was the destination. You can drop me right here, thank you. I'll walk the rest of football season. It has to be better than watching interceptions, missed tackles, slips, drops, fumbles, stumbles, blown coverages, bad special teams, sacks, balls flying over receivers' heads, no pass rush, stupid penalties and countless touchdown dances by the other team.Hmm. Did I leave anything out?
NEWS ITEM -- For the first time in history, NBA players will compete for the U.S. Olympic basketball team. This week, Sports Illustrated printed a "projected" Olympic starting five on its cover -- Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing, Charles Barkley and Karl Malone. While all of them are multi- millionaires, none will be paid for the Olympic experience. They say they can adjust. . . . Barcelona 1992GUIDE: "Buenos dias, gentlemen, and welcome to the Olympic Village. My name is Emilio. I am your guide. And these are your rooms."
HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. -- I plop on the hotel bed. I turn on the reading light. Here, in my lap, are rosters, old newspapers, and media guides. I blow off the dust.It is bowl week.Time to relearn everything."Let's see," I say. "Michigan. OK. I know they had a decent season. I think they won the Big Ten. It seems to me there was something about ties, wasn't there? Lots of ties?"
Steve Yzerman looks like hell. Or as much as a heartthrob can look like hell. The left side of his face has a red mark from forehead to chin -- "a glove cut," he says -- and his pouty upper lip still has the vertical scar from 30 stitches, turning it purple and slightly swollen.
He came back to the bench during every time-out, sweating like a coal miner. He did not look up, not at the screaming crowd, not at his teammates, not at his coaches. He had a semi- dazed expression that seemed to say, "Don't bother me, now. I'm working."
Before we begin this year's debate I want to inform my boss that Curt Sylvester has been working much too hard lately, and we should send him on a nice vacation for six months, or as long as the doctors think it will take.
I see by the melting snow and the euphoric look on John Lowe's face that it is once again spring and therefore time for Opening Day. But before the baseball zombies attack my house like creatures from "Night of the Living Dead," banging on my windows with their fantasy league stat books and chanting, "Come ouuuut. Come ouuuut. Choose a pennant winner . . . or . . . DIE!" let me say this: John. Zombies. The rest of you. I have bad news:Baseball ain't the same.And it is no longer King.
Why should we?What compels us to go marching into Somalia now? Who do we think we are?Why must our sons and daughters, most of whom have never been anywhere near Somalia, now risk their lives to help straighten out its mess?Why should even one of them take a bullet? And we all know more than one of them will. Why should we?Why does America pour countless millions into trying to feed some distant African nation, when people here at home are sleeping in the streets and begging pennies for food?
MINNEAPOLIS -- A goal! A goal! Their kingdom for a goal! The Red Wings were down to the last gasping seconds of their 1992 season, their best season in years, all those victories, all of the weary days from October to April, the first-place finish, the rave reviews, all that excellence and effort now dripping away, dying before their bleary eyes, unless . . . unless they could put that puck in, just once. That would be enough. The score was 0-0. And they were in overtime. One goal! They live or they die.
Jack and Jill went up the hill to figure out the economy.Jack said, "We're in a recession."Jill said, "No, we're not."Jack said, "How do you know?"Jill said, "How do you know?"Jack said, "Look at the unemployment rate. It's going up."Jill said, "Look at the prime rate. It's coming down."Jack said, "But the stock market has dropped 400 points in the last six months."Jill said, "It's gained 200 points in the last three months."Jack said, "Look at the cost of gas. It's skyrocketed. It's through the roof."
Today we answer the most talked-about question in sports: Is it possible that Wilt Chamberlain slept with 20,000 women?Wait. Let me check my watch.Make that 20,001.Chances are you have heard about Wilt's claim. He wrote it in his new book, "A View From Above," which I always thought referred to his height. Maybe it refers to the mirror over his bed.
