OAKLAND, Calif. -- It was the biggest moment of his baseball life, he was about to pitch the bottom of the ninth, lead his teammates to the promised land of the World Series, and there he was -- sitting in the dugout, his head back, his eyes closed."What were you doing?" someone asked Orel Hershiser."I was singing hymns," he said.Oh.
He sat in an office behind smoked-glass windows. He wore a sports jacket and a button-down shirt. No pads. No helmet. These were the final 60 minutes of Doug English's football life. He was going out as a civilian. "You OK, big fella?" a front-office guy asked."I'm OK," English said."You mind waiting here until the press conference?""Well, I don't have any other plans," English said.
Sometime this afternoon, I will drive over to Jacques Demers' place and honk the horn. That should make at least two punk rockers happy. I am talking about the two guys who stopped me outside Joe Louis Arena before the first game of this crazy Toronto-Detroit playoff series -- they had leather pants and leather jackets and spiked hair and Red Wings shirts; I can only assume they liked punk rock -- and who only wanted to ask me this: "Did you drive Jacques to the game tonight?"And I said no, not this time.
Petr is getting a new car. He does not know what kind. But he hopes it will be very fast.We are in a Chevrolet dealership. Petr is sitting in a chair, looking at the ceiling. Petr's translator, Ivan, is doing the talking, because Petr speaks no english."K-l-i-m-a," says Ivan, spelling Petr's last name. "He is new hockey player for Red Wings . . . yes . . . he make lots of money, don't worry."Ivan laughs. Petr laughs, too, even though he has no idea what's going on.
CALGARY, Alberta -- The van that would take me to the greatest adventure of my life was speeding toward the East German border. The driver, a bearded man called Bob (Bullet) Hughes, was talking nonstop. He wore a red cap, to hide his bald head, and furry boots, one of which was slammed on the gas.
The hour was late, the game had long since ended, and the last fans were filing out of the Silverdome. Suddenly, Isiah Thomas, still in uniform, emerged from the Detroit locker room, walked down the tunnel -- "That's Isiah! Hey, ISIAH!" -- and entered the room where the Boston Celtics were packing up. He had come to shake hands with the vanquished."Hey . . . " he said, offering a palm to Dennis Johnson."Hey . . . " said Johnson."Hey . . . " he said to Danny Ainge."Nice going . . . " said Ainge.
NEW YORK -- It was all behind her now, the last match, the last press conference, the last walk through the fans as they sang her name and reached to touch her. Chris Evert was alone with a friend in the women's locker room, dressing for the last time after 19 glorious summers of U.S. Open tennis."I have an idea," she suddenly said to Ana Leaird, a high school classmate who now serves as PR director for womens' tennis. "Tell Andy I fainted.""No! Really?""Yeah. Tell him I fainted."
EAST LANSING -- In the end, nothing could hold them back, not history, not the critics, certainly not the Indiana defenders. There was an end zone to reach and California somewhere beyond it, and so the Spartans players charged, dove, banged, twisted, scored, scored, and scored again, until there was nothing left, no way they could lose, and with the clock down to its final seconds the crowd stormed the field in one glorious wave of celebration:Go Green. Go White.Go West.Michigan State is in the Rose Bowl.
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.
