Itried to be nice.I tried to be mellow, calm and understanding. I tried to say, "It's only hockey, and hockey is sports, and sports is brotherhood, and brotherhood means peace and love for everyone, right?"I tried.But now I must come clean. I must tell you the reason the Phoenix Coyotes, who play the Red Wings tonight in their deadlocked playoff series, will have to be, and I don't want to overstate things here, destroyed.
TAMPA, Fla. -- Complimenting a team on beating Tampa Bay is like complimenting a surgeon for washing his hands. Still, bad things often happen when the Lions play the lowly Bucs. So fans should be thankful this morning. Truth is, Detroit knew things would be fine when, late in the first quarter, the Buccaneers (franchise motto: "Forget the game, get a tan") had one of those plays they now will try desperately to keep out of their football video.
EASTLANSING -- Even in paradise, the dark clouds managed to find A. J. Granger. He already had endured a long bout with mononucleosis that left him weak and depleted on the basketball court, haunted him his entire sophomore year.Then, after getting over that, his mother was in a car accident, breaking five ribs and her wrist.
AN OBVIOUS question: Who were these guys?These couldn't have been the same Pistons who crawled under the tires of the Atlanta Hawks the previous two playoff games. The crushed-by-Mt. Mutombo Pistons? The can't-break-70-point Pistons? Where'd they go? Who were these guys?Who was this Lindsey Hunter? Not the Lindsey Hunter from Games 1 and 2. That Lindsey Hunter couldn't buy a basket and couldn't finish a play. That Lindsey Hunter heard his father call him up after Game 2 and say, in so many words, "You were terrible." And that was his father!
NAGANO, Japan -- I have this nightmare every now and then. I close my eyes, and I am back in Barcelona, watching Charles Barkley tell a packed audience that the NBA had arrived, so the rest of the world "should just take their ass-whipping and go home."I wake up in a cold sweat.Like a switch thrown by Dr. Frankenstein, the original Dream Team spawned a monster too large to subdue. Letting multimillionaire basketball stars into the Olympics was like letting Imelda Marcos into the Athlete's Foot.
NEWS ITEM: After selling 10 million copies worldwide, "Bridges of Madison County" finally falls off the New York Times best-seller list, ending a near-record 162-week run.MADISON COUNTY, Iowa -- She looked at him long and hard, and he looked at her. From across the kitchen, they were locked into each other's souls, solidly, intimately. When she breathed, she could smell him, and her nostrils quivered with his manhood."I want to make love," she whispered.
It's true, playing big-time college basketball can get you fame, money and lots of female admirers. But sometimes you're happy with a black eye."That was my proof that I was really on the team," says Michigan's Erik Szyndlar, who took an elbow from Robert Traylor in practice a few years ago, and got a shiner the size of Brazil. "My eye was so swollen, I couldn't see or read anything. But I was telling everyone, 'Robert Traylor gave me this!'"It showed people that I really did play for Michigan."
HE WAS known for his running, but will be remembered for his final walk. Barry Sanders, arguably the greatest running back in football, spent 10 years dodging contact in the NFL, only to depart with his own rocking elbow to the face. The recipients were his team, his coaches, his fans and his city. And the black eye is just beginning to swell.See Barry walk.
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.
