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.
Irecently returned from Japan. I have the business cards to prove it.There are business cards in my pants pockets and my shirt pockets. Last night I found one in my hair. This is because Japanese people, upon meeting in a business setting, immediately bow and present their card. And you are supposed to present yours.Unless, of course, you don't have one. Like me. In which case you stand there holding their cards and smiling stupidly, like the neighbor who has no candy for the trick-or-treaters."I am honored to meet you," my Japanese associates would say.
Marcus Ray knows better. He's a senior, he's a captain, he had all last year to hang with his buddy Charles Woodson and witness, up close, the vultures that come swirling when you have NFL potential. He's seen fast talkers. He's seen the jewelry and the nice suits and the fast cars.
Here we go again. That splash you just heard was the Lions and their fans jumping back into the murky waters of a quarterback controversy. No matter which side you take in Wednesday's bombshell announcement by coach Bobby Ross -- Scott Mitchell out, Charlie Batch in -- don't view this as a tidy answer for the Lions' woes.It never is.
When you take a few months off and then come back to work -- as I do today -- it's comforting to know that certain things remain the same.Barry Sanders giveth . . ....and Scott Mitchell giveth away.That old song was sung again Sunday afternoon at the Silverdome, where it was hot enough to faint, and, thanks to Mitchell, understandable if you did. Here was Sanders scoring three touchdowns, racking up 229 yards of brilliant offense, and leaving the highlight people scrambling for film.And here was Mitchell handing the game over.Not once, but twice.
Iremember when I first used the word "cool." I was maybe 8 or 9, and my older sister was playing one of her records."This is really cool," she said."Yeah, cool!" I repeated.I had no idea what we were talking about. I think it was the Partridge Family. But it felt good to say "cool." I knew, deep down, that I needed to be cool. I knew that cool would let me be with other cool people doing other cool things, which -- given the era -- meant antiestablishment.
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.
