LAKELAND, Fla. -- If this were Rolling Stone magazine, the following might be titled "HERNDON -- THE INTERVIEW!" Not that you'd likely find Larry Herndon in Rolling Stone's colorful pages. He is not really the earring and leopard-skin type. Actually, if magazines were people you might find Larry Herndon in Gentlemen's Quarterly. Maybe Family Weekly. Certainly not Commentary. For talking has never been his favorite activity, at least not with reporters. Setting up a Herndon interview is not like pulling teeth. It's more like waiting for them to grow in.
SEATTLE -- The older guys had seen this before, a Michigan dream snuffed out by the sky-blue of North Carolina. Gary Grant, sitting on the bench for the final ticks of his college career, had seen it before. Glen Rice, tossing up a desperation three- pointer that clanked away, had seen it before. Bill Frieder, the coach who had taken this Wolverine team further than any other in his career, now pulling on the yellow towel around his neck, helpless to do anything but watch, had seen it before.
OAKLAND, Calif. -- The stadium was nearly empty now. The game was long since over. He sat in a small director's chair behind home plate, watching the tiny TV monitor."This is the first time you're seeing it?" a TV man asked."Yeah," said Mark McGwire, his eyes locked on the screen. "Wow."He did not limp. He did not need a shave. Mark McGwire did not steal all of Kirk Gibson's act from Game 1 of this World Series -- just the important part: Bottom of the ninth. Game on the line. Home run.Wow."Did you know it was gone the moment you hit it?"
Let's face it. We live in a world of basketball dunks. Slam it, ram it. Take it up and jam it. Only I've never even come close to doing one. And, most likely, neither have you. We are the dunkless. Not a slam to our names. Most of us can recall that fateful day, somewhere in high school, when we gazed at the metal rim, wondering what life must be like up there, and sadly realized we were never going to find out.Man was not meant to feel so . . . earthbound. But that is his fate, especially if he is under 5-feet-10, as I am, and is a lousy leaper. As I am.
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIF. -- GOOD MORNING! HAPPY NEW YEA-- WHAT'S THAT? TOO LOUD? OOH. SORRY. ROUGH NIGHT, HUH? I CAN TELL BY THE TORTILLA DIP ABOVE YOUR EYELID. ALSO THE FACT THAT YOU SAID "TOO LOUD" TO A NEWSPAPER. THAT'S PRETTY STRANGE, DON'T YOU THINK? BY THE WAY, YOU MIGHT WANT TO WIPE THAT DIP OFF BEFORE YOU ATTEMPT TO OPEN THE OTHER--WHOA. LOOK OUT. OVER HERE. NO.DOWN HERE THAT'SIT.TOUGH TO FOCUS WITH BOTH OF THEM, ISN'T IT?
Rain on everything. The players, the fans, the parade, everything. What had started Friday afternoon as a crisp new dream had, by Sunday night, been left soggy and limp.The Red Sox came here in first place. Now they are more in first place. The Tigers were 4 1/2 back. Now they are 7 1/2 back.Rain on everything.
BOSTON -- Well, here we are again. The Red Sox versus the Tigers. The saga continues.What will happen this time? Who knows? Many people are still scratching their heads at the outcome of last week's showdown in the Motor City. After all, the Sox came into town like hot soup; they left like a wet noodle."What happened?" asked baseball pundits, who had been ready to hand over the AL East to Boston -- until the Tigers beat them four of five. "Who are those guys in Detroit? How did they do that?"
INDIANAPOLIS -- It was a perfect American moment in need of a perfect American hero. Bottom of the ninth. Two out. Score tied. Crowd on its feet, waving flags, screaming madly: "U-S-A! U-S-A!"Drama? Ho. You'd have to look a long while for a purer drama than this: a humid August afternoon on a minor league field where perhaps the two best amateur baseball teams in the world, one Cuban, one American, had scratched and pounded and finessed each other to a 4-4 deadlock with one out to go before extra innings. Drama? Come on."NOW BATTING . . . " boomed the PA voice.
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.
