CALGARY, Alberta -- What is it about hockey losses that melts the hardened heart? Here was Brendan Shanahan, head slumped, sitting in a visitors' dressing room that looked as if a hurricane had just blown through it, gloves and socks and tape strewn across the floor. It was noticeably devoid of players, most of them preferring not to discuss what had just happened out there on the Saddledome ice, a stunning 1-0 overtime loss that ended the Red Wings' top-ranked season and in all likelihood, their roster as we know it.
Well, I lost them. All 60 songs. I don't know where I put them. They could be under a sock. They could be behind a credit card in my wallet.Sixty songs. Gone like that. That's what I get for living in the era of shrinking music.See, kids, once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far, away -- the 20th Century -- music came on big discs called 78s. They were heavy, solid things. You could bang a nail with them or throw them like a Frisbee. Odd Job could flick one and take someone's head off.Who is Odd Job, you ask?That is why you're kids.
What they did to Steve Yzerman last summer, you wouldn't wish on a prisoner. They cut his leg bone with a saw, then chiseled it until a path was opened. They wedged that path wider with a fork-like device, then inserted a steel plate, then tightened that plate with screws, then packed it with spare bone material. Then they woke him up.They call this medicine."Osteotomy" is its official name, and if you're lucky and you fully recover, you have less pain as you walk your grandkids to school. You are not supposed to resume an NHL career.
And you thought Solomon had it tough. Dividing a baby might seem simple compared to the task attempted by a Florida jury last week.The jury tried to determine blame in the death of a teacher gunned down by a 13-year-old student. You remember this case. Nathaniel Brazill, the student, was sent home on the last day of school for tossing water balloons. He came back with a gun from a neighbor's house. He asked his teacher, Barry Grunow, if he could speak to a girl in the class. Grunow said no, not in the hallway, but he invited Brazill into the classroom.
I hadn't watched a baseball game on a small, handheld TV set since 1986, when I was stuck in a cab in New York City. That game -- complete with snowy fuzz -- was an American League championship affair, featuring an unlikely comeback by the star-crossed Boston Red Sox against the California Angels in which the Bosox were one strike away from elimination yet ultimately reached the World Series.
THE BALL was snapped, a starter's pistol for Randy Moss. He bolted downfield and, for several seconds, was shadowed by cornerback Terry Fair. Then Moss, like an Olympic sprinter in overdrive, pulled away, leaving Fair a quarter-step, half-step, then a full step behind....Nearly three years ago, Fair and Moss were side by side on another stage. A stage of hopefuls. It was draft day in April 1998. Like other college stars, Fair, out of Tennessee, and Moss, out of Marshall, waited by telephones to hear about their future.
Here's one big reason the Tigers made a smart move in hiring Alan Trammell: We like him. All of us media types, print, TV, radio. And if we like him, he'll get the benefit of the doubt, and the team will get better press, and the hammer might come down on this hapless franchise in August instead of April. Hey. When you're flailing as badly as the Tigers, that's smart business.
PHILADELPHIA -- The floor at the First Union Center was so stuffed with people that, from above, it appeared that someone had dumped a massive jar of human jelly beans all over the court. Where would they put all these bodies? Fans with signs. Celebrities from Jesse Jackson to Chris Rock. Photographers, dancers, women in halter tops, men in silk suits. Then the lights dropped and drummers emerged and fireworks exploded and an inspirational film clip announced the 76ers to their first home championship crowd in 18 years. By the time they bellowed,
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.
