The first thing Darryl Towns did, after he was shot, was stagger toward his mother's bedroom. She wasn't home. He knew that. But bleeding from the chest, the life oozing out of him, he retreated to the safest place he could think of: Mama's room.He had always been his mother's son. How many times, as a little boy, had he tiptoed down this same short hallway, curled up at the foot of her bed, and watched TV with the volume low until she woke up?
Look, I have been humiliated before. Like the time when I was 16 and I was trying to impress a girl on a cruise ship and I walked over and said, with all the suave charm I could muster, "Hi, how ya do--'?" -- and I waved my hand and knocked a glass of milk into her lap.Took me years to get over that.
You're out for a family canoe trip. You have your two young children with you. You come around a bend, and there, in the water, is a soaking wet man who has just fallen out of his canoe. He is screaming mad. He is cursing. He uses the F-word, and he uses it again and again. You paddle past quickly, trying to cover your children's ears.You're upset. You worry for your kids.But do you have a lawsuit?
He slammed the ball between his legs, then bounced up and down, then whacked himself in the helmet with both hands, then shook his fists at the crowd. I guess this is what you'd call a touchdown dance. That, or he ate some really bad Mexican food before the game.
THE U.S. OPEN, IN THE YEAR 2009 -- "Well, Jim, as we begin today's final round, this golf championship has certainly lived up to its billing.""It sure has, Ben. The leader board says it all. A challenge between the old guard and the new.""Speaking of that old guard, here's the ageless Tiger Woods ready to tee off. He's tied for the lead, and, man, he's like Father Time, isn't he? He just keeps going.""Look at that tee shot. Remarkable, for a man in his 30s.""Wait, Jim, he's gonna ...yes, he's gonna walk rather than take the cart! Wow! What conditioning!"
SEATTLE -- You want an Opening Day? Take your kids to the park, pitch them a few balls, cook some hot dogs and go home. Trust me, that's all we have left of the spirit of this thing.Smiling? Who's smiling this morning? Just because a court injunction has sent the game back to work? Just because the major leaguers will soon be in Florida and Arizona, doing in April what they should have done in February? Big deal. Nothing has been solved. Nothing has changed. They are still disgraceful, both sides, without shame. Unworthy of our cheers. Undeserving of a smile.
And still, the sun shone brightly. How could this be? Shouldn't there have been clouds and rain? How could hockey fans reconcile an absolutely perfect weather Father's Day with the image of Vladimir Konstantinov lying motionless in a hospital bed, breathing through a respirator, a brain monitor in his head?
They say bad news is best delivered through poetry. Actually, I just made that up. But pretending it is true, allow me to wax poetic after the Lions' depressing loss Sunday to the suddenly brown Tampa Bay Bucs.Barry, oh, Barry, oh,Wherefore art thou, Barry-o?We are now two weeks into the Lions' season, the season that was supposed to be the liberation of the Greatest-Halfback-Never-To-Have-A-Fullback, the season of the "organized" coaching staff, the season Sanders' awesome talent would be unleashed in its rightful power.
Somewhere men are laughing, and somewhere fans say "Yay!" but there is no joy in Detroit -- when the Lions play Green Bay.Hey. Whatdya want for nothin'?Hut one, hut two . . . HUDDLE UP!WHO'S IN THIS WEEK: Scott Greene, Marc Renaud, Barry Sanders (lifetime membership), Henry Thomas, Jim (Har-de-har) Harbaugh, Carolina and Dom Capers (doesn't Dom Capers sound like a champagne?), Eddie George, Steve Bono, Orel Hershiser, the fans at Joe Louis, the BIG SCREEN at Spectadium in Troy, and Davey Johnson, who keeps winning, and keeps getting fired.
In defense of my friend and colleague Curt Sylvester -- who I understand is actually picking the Falcons (heh-heh) to win this Super Bowl -- now hear this: That was not Curt on South Beach Thursday night, with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel, gold chains around his neck, a red rose in his thinning gray hair, doing the lambada and yelling at the bouncer, "LET ME IN! I KNOW DENNIS RODMAN! I REALLY DO!"It just looked like Curt.
WHEN HE was small, his mother watched over him.She'd say, "Don't go out without your shoes on....""Put something on your head, it's cold outside....""Make sure to take your vitamins...."Anthony Thomas listened, because he was a good son and good sons always listen. But deep down, he believed, as all kids do, that he was indestructible.Funny. Now it's his coaches who want to believe it. And they watch him almost as closely as Mom.
