WASHINGTON -- Hey, bus driver. Pull over. Let me off. I am not taking this ride again with the Lions. Not if Sunday night was the destination. You can drop me right here, thank you. I'll walk the rest of football season. It has to be better than watching interceptions, missed tackles, slips, drops, fumbles, stumbles, blown coverages, bad special teams, sacks, balls flying over receivers' heads, no pass rush, stupid penalties and countless touchdown dances by the other team.Hmm. Did I leave anything out?
WASHINGTON 20, DETROIT 17: So what if Rodney Peete hasn't played more than five minutes all summer? So what if Barry Sanders has barely broken a sweat? So what if the Lions now have a tight end on their team, but nobody knows who he is or what exactly he does? Hey. I still think the Lions can cover the spread. If you can't be optimistic in the first week of the season, you're hopeless.MINNESOTA 17, CHICAGO 14: Refrigerator Perry gets hungry. Eats teammate Neal Anderson. Bears lose.
Barry Sanders has something on his mind. He walks over to Jim Arnold, the punter, and sits on a stool nearby. Arnold is talking to a reporter, but his words grow jumpy as he glances at Sanders just sitting there -- What does he want? Why doesn't he interrupt? -- and finally, Arnold stops talking to the reporter altogether. It is damn near impossible to ignore Barry Sanders, even if he is sitting still."What's up?" Arnold asks."I need a favor from you, man," Sanders says."Name it." Sanders grins, sort of embarrassed. "Nah, really, man," he says.
I never got to say good-bye to Scott Hastings. Neither did anyone else around here. He was traded a few weeks ago, to Denver of all places. Jack McCloskey, who moves the pieces on the Pistons' board, made the deal, then telephoned Hastings in Atlanta, where he lives in the off-season. "Hello, Scott?" Jack said, and Hastings acted surprised, like he was hearing from an old college buddy. "Hey! Jack! What's up?" And Jack chuckled and said, "Come on. You know what's up."
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.
