Let me tell you about the social event of the football season, the marriage of Bob and Kim Gagliano, live, on the radio, an event that can be summed up with the following sentences:"Are they ready yet?""No! Throw on another Van Halen record!"Now. There are many ways in which a man and woman can be joined in holy matrimony. Most of them do not involve headphones. Nor do most include a disc jockey who says, "We'll be back with the wedding, right after this. . . . "
ANN ARBOR -- They used to go back to their apartment after the games, and friends would come by and the two of them would put on a rap record and shout along with it and do some dancing and laugh until it hurt. It would be easier after a win, but they'd do it after a loss, too. Hell, most losses fade quickly enough.
The first question is whether Alan Trammell deserved it. The answer is yes. "Most valuable player" is a funny phrase -- it means different things to different people -- but if you spent time around the Tigers this season, you know Trammell, the shortstop and cleanup hitter, was oozing the right stuff.
LAKELAND, Fla. -- I am too old for this. I have a car in the garage and a life insurance policy and a coat and tie somewhere. I am grown up. But I am standing behind the batting cage in spring training, and that is where it always begins. "Phone call," someone yells."Coming," I say, but I do not move.My fingers curl around the metal links. The sun is warm. I am watching the Tigers take batting practice and my eyes are closing and my mind starts to drift. I am too old for this. "You wanna take a try?" I hear the player ask. "Me?" I say.
Every now and then, a terrible problem arises which I must help solve. Usually it involves my dog and the carpet. But today, I am called upon for an even nobler cause. I am here to prevent embarrassment. I am here to prevent grown men from walking into Joe Louis Arena carrying baseball gloves. I am here to prevent grown women from entering Tiger Stadium with octopus in their bags. The problem, of course, is baseball and hockey. Same day. Same town. How confusing! The Tigers open their home season this afternoon; the Red Wings continue their playoffs this evening.
PASADENA -- Uh-oh. Death before this. That's what was racing through Jim Harbaugh's brain the first time he threw a pass in a Michigan practice. It wasn't a bad pass. Not for a nine-year- old. The problem was neither he nor the football was supposed to be there. Harbaugh was the son of a Wolverine assistant coach, Jack Harbaugh, and he was playing on the sidelines with the other coaches' sons, and his pass accidently flew out into the middle of the big boys' practice and when he heard the whistle shriek there was only one question left to be answered.Would he get out alive?
ST. LOUIS -- The stands were a sea of red, and boiling over. "Tonight! Tonight!" they chanted. Everybody in this city was repeating those words. The cabdrivers. The brewery workers. The guy in the bird suit jumping around outside the stadium."Gonna be tonight, Cardinals. . . . Bring it home tonight, Cardinals. . . It all ends tonight, Cardinals. . . . "
He stepped inside the hospital room and took a deep breath. There lay his father, a strapping truck driver who had always been the image of strength. The sheets were pulled up to his waist."Come here, son. I want you to see this."Joe Dumars walked slowly to the edge of the bed."It won't do any good to feel sorry for me, you know. I don't need that now. Just look and get it over with."He pulled back the sheets. The left leg was gone, amputated at the knee. Diabetes. Dumars looked down and fought back the tears.
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.
