PHILADELPHIA-- As reporters gathered outside the Lions' locker room after yet another early-season loss, they pulled out their notepads and prepared to face the players. One guy looked around and mumbled, "Anyone got any new questions I can use?"It was a grim but accurate statement about pro football in Detroit. Same questions. Same answers. Same dull toothache. The Lions, under Wayne Fontes, play their games the way they play their seasons -- too casual at the start, a mad rush at the end. Almost always, they come up short, talking about "next week."
By now, Michigan fans have worked up a healthy lather of hatred for Penn State -- its boxy uniforms, its middle-of-nowhere location, its consistent dominance.After all, on Saturday Penn State tries to take what Michigan wants -- an undefeated season, a Rose Bowl, maybe a national championship. And as a writer in the land of maize and blue, I, too, would like to work up an angry boil for these Nittany Lions. What is a Nittany, anyhow? Is it like a ninny? A nitpicker? A nitwit?See, I'm trying to get into the hate.But I can't. Not fully. For one reason.
One by one, in moments like these, he pulls us back into his rooting section. Here was Sergei Fedorov Thursday night, second period, the game dangerously close, chasing a loose puck, accelerating until he gathered it in, then juking on the Phoenix defender, Gerald Diduck, who fell to the ice just trying to keep up. Keep up? It was like trying to bottle a hurricane. Sergei curled past the fallen player as if racing a lawn mower around a tree stump, then glided until the perfect angle on the goalie came into his crosshairs.
Last week, the bosses of baseball said they were thinking about selling ad space on the players' sleeves. This sent baseball lovers into a twitching, neurotic frenzy."Not the uniforms!" they protested. "Those uniforms are sacred!"Personally, I don't understand how the uniform is sacred when the player is paid by a corporation, the stadium is named after a bank and the scoreboard keeps flashing commercials.Besides, why should a baseball player's arm be different? Every other inch of the country is sponsored by somebody.Take a typical American day.
LADIES AND gentlemen, kiss your sports fan good-bye.Check back in a week. Follow the trail of empty pop cans and pizza boxes. Listen for the sounds of a whimpering voice, hoarse from screaming. Sniff the aroma of unwashed jeans, dirty socks and ...OK, forget the sniffing part.You get the idea. We are about to enter the mother lode of sports hysteria. Seven days of playoffs without a break. Red Wings. Pistons. Red Wings. Pistons.Two sports. Two teams. Two playoff series.And -- get this -- alternate nights!
There were no warm-ups for Herman Moore. He began the week on crutches, and now, on Sunday morning, he took the first bus over to the stadium -- "The one with the players who like to get here and sleep," he would say later -- but he did not sleep. Nor did he stretch or even jog. He went straight to the trainer, Kent Falb, who hooked Herman's left foot to an electric stimulator: two pads, some conducting jelly and a flipped switch on a little black box.
MINNEAPOLIS -- With the sellout crowd roaring like an evil engine, and the Lions down to the last play that mattered, Charlie Batch took the snap, dropped back, looked desperately to the end zone -- and got absolutely flattened by John Randle.So there's one thing he and Scott Mitchell have in common.
It could have been a night to forgive the sins, to embrace boxing once again. Instead, when the decision was announced, you realized why you threw this dumb sport out of your house in the first place.
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.
