The man was hunched over the bar, his back to the crowd. A blond woman kept coming up to him. He would smile, then look down at his glass, until finally she went away."You know who he is," someone said."Who?" "That guy. That's Harold Snepsts."I looked again. It was Harold Snepsts. This was last summer, a week or so after hockey season ended. I walked over.I said, "Hey."He looked up wearily. Then, upon recognizing a familiar face, he smiled."Did you hear the news?" he asked."What news?"
TORONTO -- Well, I'll tell you. I heard a lot before this series started. "It's in Canada, for cripes sake. It'll snow on you. How can you have the national pastime being decided north of the border?"
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay.My, my, my, what a wonderful day.Burn those gee-tars. Torch those pickup trucks. Melt those Willie Nelson albums into a ball of hot wax, and mold it into a Lion.A roaring Lion.Detroit 26, Dallas 21.Wow.Hot damn.Sounds so good, I'm gonna say it again.Detroit 26, Dallas 21.Like gunning down Billy The Kid. Like knocking out Muhammad Ali. One punch. Like taking on the IRS and finding out they made the mistake.
MOSCOW -- So there I was, racing through downtown Moscow in an illegal car, with a frantic U.S. wrestler in the backseat, and a frantic Russian translator in the front, and visions of a quick death dancing in my head.But let's back up a minute. . . . As some of you know, I do a morning sports radio bit on WLLZ (98.7-FM). And on Monday, I had this idea. Why not get Andre Metzger -- a Grand Rapids native, and one of America's best amateur wrestlers -- to talk live from Moscow?
PALOS VERDES, Calif. -- I am walking past the cliffs that drop into the Pacific Ocean. I am walking past the Corvettes and the BMWs and a dark blue Mercedes. I am walking past the tennis courts and the long turquoise pool.I am visiting Bill Laimbeer's old high school.High school?"Do people really go to class here?" I ask Laimbeer's former coach, John Mihaljevich, 52, who greets me dressed in a red windbreaker, sunglasses, shorts and a deep tan. "Do they actually study, you know, math and science and all that?""Oh, yeah," he says. "All that."
MINNEAPOLIS -- Somewhere, Jack Morris was grinning. Somewhere, Doyle Alexender popped a beer and nodded sympathetically. Somewhere, Mike Henneman, Frank Tanana, Willie Hernandez -- all the Tigers, probably -- gave a sigh and a look that could be summed up with four words: "Have fun, St. Louis."Have fun. Your turn. What took place in the fourth inning of Saturday night's deafening World Series opener may have been historic, a surprise, a bomb, but it was a painfully familiar explosion to Detroiters. Seven runs? Did the Twins really score seven runs in one inning?
He was last in line for introductions, not by choice, but because the Red Wings knew that when the announcer called his name, you wouldn't be able to hear anyone else's."NO. 29 GILBERT DELORME . . . " boomed the voice, working its way down the list."NO. 34 JEFF SHARPLES. . . . "
OAKLAND, Calif. -- The fun begins when he steps off the bag. His spikes in the sand make no sound, and yet you swear you can hear each new footstep, like horseshoes on concrete. One step. Two steps. He's three steps off and leaning now. . . . Surely the pitchers hear this. Surely the catchers hear it, too, like a pulse, like a telltale heart. Rickey Henderson makes everybody nervous.
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.
