NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. -- Gary Moeller is wearing a tie these days. Pretty soon, the jacket will follow. He'll develop that special walk, the brisk pace that discourages autograph hounds. His eyes will focus straight ahead. His mind will work a mile a minute. He inevitably will have someone on his right or left, a PR guy, an assistant, and he'll turn and say, "How much time do I got?"
Let us deal today with a timely sports question. How do you choose a company softball team? I can answer this. The answer is, there are lots of ways. My favorite way is in a bar, late at night, with a hat, 50 pieces of paper, and a group of people who like to sing in Swedish, even though they don't speak Swedish. And plenty of ice. But that is just my way. And I don't hit very well.
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.
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.
