TAMPA, Fla. -- There is a man. He does exist. A man who makes trends meet. A man for all reasons. A man who tickles the fancy of nearly every type of sports fan in this scattershot country, and that's a lot of tickling. There is a man. There is Kirby Puckett.Kirby Puckett?
You had to like this right away: Bennie Blades, the Lions' No. 1 draft pick Sunday, took a jet from Miami, a helicopter from Metro Airport, a car from the parking lot, and now, 7 p.m., he was courtside at the Silverdome before the Pistons-76ers game, awaiting his introduction to the people of Detroit."Yo man, take some shots," yelled Pistons forward John Salley over the blaring music.
Kenyatta Jefferson did not see the gun until it was inches away. The man shot him in the head. He fell to the ground, and landed at the feet of his friend, Willie Tucker. He remembers his blood dripping on Willie's Nike sneakers, and someone pleading, "Don't shoot, don't shoot."Then Willie ran. The man shot him in the shoulder. Derrick, Kenyatta's older brother, heard the shots and came running back toward the store. "You shot Kenyatta!" he screamed. The man said, "Here's what you get for Kenyatta." He shot Derrick in the leg. Then he fled.
The TV behind the bar flashed a picture of Gary Kasparov, who had just won the world chess championships in Moscow."What a bore," said the man next to me. Not really, I said. Chess can be exciting."Yeah? How?"Strategy. Pressure. Timing."But there's no action. They just sit there."Not all of them."Come off it," he said, slurping down his beer. "Those guys are just a bunch of sissies in suits."
PASADENA, Calif. -- They came, they saw, they conquered. Now it is time for the New York Giants to do what all great American sports heroes must do:Endorsements.Phil Simms for American Express:
So Bill Ford came out of his office and turned on the shower and washed Darryl Rogers clean. "He'll be back next year," Ford said to a couple of reporters Thursday. "I just want to put that to rest." And then he said the same thing to the Lions themselves, and then the TV guys got a hold of it, and with that, we spritzed away all those dirty rumors that Rogers, the coach whose team has gone from 7-9 to 5-11 to 2-9, might somehow be in danger of losing his job.
He has snuck into the spotlight like a sweet old uncle you never knew you had, the kind who brings lots of presents."HEY, JAMES!" the crowd screamed, slapping his hands, as he walked through the Silverdome tunnel after the Pistons beat the Celtics, 98-94, in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals. "WAY TO GO, JAMES! ALL RIGHT, JAMES!"
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.
