Ask the average American sports fan, "Who's contending for the NBA scoring title?" he'll probably say, "Kobe, Iverson and that guard from Detroit."Welcome to Jerry Stackhouse's world, where the sign could read, "Be careful what you wish for." Nearly every NBA player dreams of being "The Man." Some even ruin careers over it.Jerry Stackhouse actually got it. Grant Hill went away. No big names were signed. And Stackhouse became The Man on the Pistons the way Eminem became The Man for musical controversy, the way Dr. Phil became The Man for relationship rescues.
That thump you just heard was the sound of a city falling to its knees and begging Curtis Joseph to forgive and forget.Or maybe it was Mike Ilitch fainting.Truth is, there were many things going bump in Hockeytown on Tuesday after Red Wings goaltender Dominik Hasek announced that the Grand Experiment was over, that his groin was not improving, that he was done playing hockey this year.
Put on the coffee. Pull open the shades. The Detroit Lions, awakening from a decades-long slumber, are today, officially, entering the 21st Century.They are, for the first time, hiring a coach that other teams actually covet. They are, for the first time, paying the kind of money the top teams pay and the top coaches get. They are, for the first time, jumping feet first into the sandbox with the other top NFL teams, looking to a proven, young winner to guide them -- instead of some who-dat face they got on the cheap.
That our flag was still there through the gloom and despair hanging on porches, flapping in schoolyards painted on cheeks of young mothers whose husbands are leaving to face the rockets' red glare, bombs bursting in air and our flag is still there
How could someone do that?" a friend of mine asked. "How does someone get so sick?"He was talking about the sniper who has been systematically killing innocent people in Maryland and Virginia, stalking them in their everyday acts, then shooting them as they put gas in their car or mow their lawns."He's jut picking them off, like target practice," my friend said. "He kills one, then he goes and kills another! What could possibly make a person that twisted?"
Editor's note: This column contains lyrics that could be offensive. But the Free Press thinks they're important to understand the columnist's view.So I went to the Eminem concert in a football stadium last week and here's one good thing I can say about it right off the bat: There were no long guitar solos. That was good. There were also no musicians. That was bad.
It was a ride to work like any other ride to work, except Brendan Shanahan had 50 cigars in the backseat. He would give them out to his teammates. He would shake their hands. He would tell them the details of the story, the date (Saturday); the time (3 in the afternoon); the names (Maggie and Jack); the birth order (Maggie first, Jack second, one minute apart); his wife's condition (good); his condition (good); the grandparents' condition (over the moon).It was a ride to work like any other ride to work -- except everything had changed.
BECAUSE I like Brett Favre, as a guy and as a quarterback, I almost felt bad for him at the end of Sunday's game, surrounded by Lions, looking desperately downfield, forcing a bad pass and watching it land in the arms of the wrong guy to choke a would-be miracle....Well, I said "almost."In the end, I choose to feel about Favre's fate the way I did about eating crocodile down in Australia: It's payback. Eat or be eaten.
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.
