SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras -- The flight took off Monday morning, before sunrise, with stars still dotting the Detroit sky. Within an hour, there was breakfast served, cheese omelettes, muffins, piping hot coffee. Newspapers were passed around. Conversations were spirited. Nineteen people, including an NBA coach, a local businessman, airline reps, a TV executive, an ambassador and several journalists, had come together to do some good. Or so we thought. We were bringing supplies to a hurricane-ravaged area. We felt excited, maybe even a little bloated in how benevolent a thing this was.
Tuesday morning at 9 a.m. -- long before the other players would arrive -- Mike Ramsey entered the Red Wings' locker room. It was empty, freshly vacuumed, the music playing softly over the stereo. Ramsey went to his locker, grabbed his two pairs of skates, his pads and his helmet. The only other thing he had brought with him three weeks ago were his sticks. He decided to leave them behind.As he headed for the door, he stopped at the blackboard. He picked up the chalk and squeaked out a message."Thanks guys. Good luck, (signed) Rammer."
Alvin Harper was so alone, he could have shot off a flare. He waved his hands. He jumped up and down. And, as is often the case with his team, he watched as the ball went somewhere else, the wrong place, thrown by a quarterback who has a lot to learn. Harper walked slowly back to the Tampa Bay huddle, shaking his head, wearing those silly orange pants.
Welcome, welcome, yes, you're in the right place, the U.S. Open, at Oakland Hills -- hey, you with the sandals on, it's OK. Stop hiding in the corner. No one's going to kick you out. This might be the most exclusive country club in the metro Detroit area, and on most weeks they wouldn't let you near here with a bazooka, but today, everyone is love 'n' knickers. That's the great thing about the U.S. Open. It's American! You pay for a ticket, they have to let you in -- no matter how badly you're dressed.
DENVER -- The ugly thud could be heard in the rafters. It was Brendan Shanahan's head smashing into glass. The bone cut the skin. The blood surged down his face. It ran in map-like lines, down his cheeks, chin and neck, trickling into a thin red river that dripped into the neckline of his jersey.The fans jeered. The players cursed. The refs blew the whistle and dived into the scrum.Game on.
SHE AWAKENS today as she always has, her lid open to the sky, her grass stretching for sunlight. But this time, there is something in the autumn air, something final, something sad. Like a fading belle of the ball, she seems to sense it, yet ignores it. This will be the last morning of her baseball life. She knows it. She inhales proudly and raises her blue and white chin to the morning light."Are you ready?" the city seems to ask."Ready," Tiger Stadium sighs.
He remembers his goals. Both of them. You ask Kris Draper if he can describe the two times he scored during the regular season and he gushes, "Oh, yes, of course. . . . You want me to describe my assists, too?"
BOSTON -- The worst part of dying this way, he said, was that he couldn't dance. Morrie loved to dance. For years he went to a church hall not far from Harvard Square, where once a week they would blast music and open the door to anyone, dance however you wanted, with whomever you wanted. Morrie danced by himself. He shimmied and fox-trotted, he did old dances to modern rock music. He closed his eyes and fell into the rhythm, twirling and spinning and clapping his hands.
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.
