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.
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.
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.
