MIAMI -- I have a confession to make. Four years ago, when Joe Montana was last playing in a Super Bowl, a certain Florida sports columnist wrote that he was a "wimp."It was meant tongue-in-cheek. After all, Montana was the enemy, leading his 49ers against the hometown Dolphins.
LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Thomas Hearns was clean. Smooth skin. Not a mark on him. He was talking to a couple of women in tight dresses, and his entourage had a party on its mind. And this was about 30 minutes after his fight.Marvin Hagler wasn't so clean. It took him an hour to emerge after his bout, and he wore sunglasses to cover the swollen tissue over his eyes. He moved slowly, everything was beginning to ache, and when someone asked him for an autograph he answered softly: "I can't do that for you right now. I can't sign with my hand. How about we just shake instead, OK?"
The New Guy was already on the phone Monday morning when the old guy came in to tell him he was leaving."You can have the office now," said Darryl Rogers."Oh, no, that's not necessary," said Wayne Fontes."It's OK. I got all my stuff out.""Thanks . . . I'll just stay here for a while."
KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Who lost?How could anyone lose in this? This was a classic. A battle of guts. All right, so Michigan State comes home today, their NCAA tournament over two wins shy of the Final Four.Don't look for tears here. This was more of a Spartans' victory than a lot of victories, this 96-86 loss to Kansas. For this was a night when the team that drew its life's blood from a jut-jawed young man named Scott Skiles, suddenly found itself without him for seven minutes that could have killed the Spartans. They didn't shrivel. They didn't bleed. They didn't die.
I hate to get serious on a Monday morning, but I think some people have got this "Lions Lose Anthony Carter" drama a little mucked up.If you listened to all the theories floating around out there, you'd believe that:A) Lions GM Russ Thomas was shanghaied by Don Shula, who backed out on a deal, or . . . B) The Lions were too cheap, too incompetent, too dunderheaded to make a deal, or . . .
One by one, they took their last at-bats of summer. Darrell Evans said goodby with a fly to right field, and Alan Trammell signed off with a hard line drive to shortstop . . .
INGLEWOOD, Calif. -- No problem, dude.The lights? The cameras? The fast-paced LA action? Was all that supposed to bother the Pistons Tuesday night? Was it supposed to embarrass them, intimidate them, make them play like pretenders in Game 1 of this National Basketball Association final? "Chill, baby," the Pistons seemed to say as they jogged off the Forum court, having stunned the Lakers, 105-93, to draw first blood in this championship series. "What do you think? We never played basketball before?"
Well, if I were Kirk Gibson, I would duck. Certain fans get dangerously upset when he doesn't play great, and this year, overall, Gibson is playing "terrible." That's his word for it anyhow. Terrible. Then again, he has nights like Wednesday, when he hit two home runs, one of them halfway to downtown. On nights like that, certain fans want to jump out of their seats and hug him to death.
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.
