PASADENA, Calif. -- They had the ball! They had the ball! Todd Krumm was cradling it, dancing with it, raising it above his head and leaping into the arms of teammate Kurt Larson, and only gravity kept them from flying off into space. All the waiting, all the lean years, all the talk of Rose Bowl jinx -- it was all crushed down and squeezed inside this little brown football, and now, Michigan State had it. God. At last.
He finally hit bottom in the cold dawn of Thursday morning, when a U.S. customs agent made him drop his pants and watched a packet of cocaine fall out of his underwear. Standing there, in a windowless room at the American border, alone, about to be charged with drug smuggling, Bob Probert was no longer a hockey player. He was no longer a Detroit Red Wing. He was no longer some tragic hero to the boozy faithful at Joe Louis Arena, who all along have continued to chant, "Hey, leave Probert alone!"He was a criminal suspect.Arrested. Cuffed. And led away.
That's it. Cut it out. Not another word about William (The Refrigerator) Perry. I'm sick of hearing about William (The Refrigerator) Perry. I'm tired of seeing his face on everything. I'm tired of all those silly stories about how much he weighs. Enough!
Well, here we are, just one week from the end of the NFL season, and this is what we can say about the playoffs: Nobody's going.Or everybody's going. Who can tell? With the sudden parity in the NFL, a .500 record can be your ticket in, or your ticket home. We can anticipate a very long day next week, in which the NFL pundits try to sort through the numerous tie-breaking procedures.But somebody will inevitably be unhappy. And what happens if, after all the analysis -- division wins, points against, and toughness of schedule -- there is still a tie?
SEOUL, South Korea -- They never found the men who killed Damon Hembrick. Whoever did it robbed him and stabbed him and threw his body in the street in front of the McDonald's where he was working. And they got away. This was two years ago, they are still out there somewhere, and Anthony Hembrick, Damon's older brother, thinks about them all the time, even here, at the Olympic Games.
"Hey, if I were somebody else, looking at me? I'd think I was an a------, too."-- Bill LaimbeerBOSTON -- Wait. Don't tell me. You hate his guts. He's a stiff, a boor, a spoiled brat, an actor, a loudmouth; he can't jump, he can't block shots, he runs like a pregnant deer, his nose is pointy, and, when he high-fives, it looks like party time at nerd training camp."Who cares?" says Bill Laimbeer, sitting across the breakfast table. He reaches over with one of those long arms. "I'm gonna have some of your grapes. Thanks."
TEMPE, Ariz. -- Well, it didn't take long. The first Impossible To Answer Sports Question of 1986 came in the late afternoon of January 1, when the final gun went off here at the Fiesta Bowl.Did Michigan win it? Or did Nebraska lose it?I figure you can make a case for either side. And you will. Depending on what colors you prefer in your sweaters, blue or red.This was one of those games that people argue about in the car ride home, each one countering the other with a seemingly valid point, until they all go hoarse and have to turn on the radio.
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- All afternoon, the only thing that hung in their way was the scoreboard. They were clobbering the national champions, hurting them, leaving them dizzy. Michigan State had Notre Dame breathless and confused; the Spartans had them every which way but beaten. The scoreboard. The damn scoreboard. If only they could pound that thing, tackle it, knock it silly until it coughed up some points the way the Fighting Irish had been coughing up the football.
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.
