ST. LOUIS -- Steve Yzerman sat on the bed in his hotel room and looked at his watch. The bus would not leave for 20 minutes, but he already was dressed in his blue sport coat and tie. His shirt collar was tight and stuck out. His hair was mussed. He folded his hands uncomfortably across his lap. With his boyish face, he looked like a school kid waiting for the car pool."Last year at this time, we weren't even in the playoffs," he said, staring at the TV. "I was skating down at Joe Louis Arena when the playoffs began for everybody else."
TAMPA, Fla. -- Jim Kelly knocks things over. He wakes up the whole football neighborhood. Noise follows him, it has since his mess-around days as a kid in western Pennsylvania, where his idea of fun was to strap on a helmet and attack his brothers. ARRRRRRRR! Even now, a millionaire quarterback in the biggest game of his life, he admits to a "linebacker's mentality." And given his thick neck, his broad torso, and his affection for a pitcher of beer, he might still become one.
So this is how far it has sunk. Tom Monaghan, who used to worship the turf Bo Schembechler walked on, now fires him in the middle of a Monday afternoon. Sends out a press release. Cites irreconcilable differences. Like some kind of marriage that went south.Which, I guess, in a way, it was. Monaghan is the same guy who once came to Bo's house on a snowy winter night and begged him not to leave the University of Michigan for Texas A&M. He was near tears. He offered Bo a pizza franchise to stay.
SAN FRANCISCO -- On one sideline, the miracle man stood alone, watching, his back stiff, his hand throbbing, his body racked with pain. For the first time in most people's memory, Joe Montana could do nothing about the finish of a championship game. Nothing but pray.
WIMBLEDON, England -- How about this? A couple of normal American kids won at Wimbledon. By "normal" I mean no drug busts, no police records, no terrorizing fathers, no private jets, no exposed belly buttons, no Barbra Streisand infatuations, no earrings. Well. I take that back. The girl wore earrings. But in her ears, not her nose.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- All Terry Cooney has to do is go out to the mound, lean into Roger Clemens' ear and whisper, "Young man, you say that one more time, and I'm throwing you out of the game."He does that, he gets no arguments this morning. He does that, he looks smart and mature and patient, which is how umpires are supposed to look, right? As opposed to looking like a baby without his bottle.
Today's column will be A WINNER! It will be THE SURPRISE HIT OF THE FALL!It has BLOCKBUSTER WRITTEN ALL OVER IT!It is THE FUNNIEST COLUMN I'VE READ ALL YEA--Sorry. You caught me practicing. I have decided to give up my current line of work, which is, well, I'm not sure, whatever it is, and go into movie reviewing.I don't mean the long, gracefully written reviews Pauline Kael did in the New Yorker. Or the serious criticism found in the New York Times, Boston Globe, or this newspaper.
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.
