TAMPA, Fla. -- Yippee! The Lions won. I vote we end the season right now.Why wait the final two weeks? They could lose the final two weeks. Please, somebody. Put it in ice. Let us finish this desperate journey on a happy note, even if it did come at the expense of the Buccaneers, Florida's answer to the poster child."How does it feel?" someone asked Darryl Rogers, after his Lions knocked off Tampa Bay, 20-10, Sunday to end a four-game losing streak and raise their record to 3-10."It feels," he said, "like a change."
It's taken me the entire NFL season, but I've finally figured out Darryl Rogers. Sort of.Remember when he arrived last spring, fresh from the college ranks, a seemingly laid-back, unassuming, you-respect-me- I'll-respect-you kind of guy?Yeah. Well. I never trust that type. There has to be more. A fire in the belly. A skeleton in the closet. A Jack Daniel's in the desk. Something.
COSTA MESA, Calif. -- The Giants players were all in their designated seats. Only Tony Galbreath's seat was empty. He would not be available today. He had taken the big leap, stepped off the silver screen of the Super Bowl. Like the hero in the "Purple Rose of Cairo," he was walking through real life now.With a movie camera."Oh, man, look at all these people," Galbreath said, eyeing a mob of reporters around teammate Phil McConkey. "This is no good. Excuse me . . . Excuse me . . . "
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."
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.
