A Facebook Reconnection

     This week has had its share of unusual events. There were Tiger Woods chronicles and the continuation of the Winter Olympics with the United States capturing gold by defeating Canada in Women's Ice Hockey and in Curling. Drexel University's men's basketball broke an all-time record, by coming from 34 points down to roar back and defeat the University of Delaware. Seton Hall won a 2 day basketball game against Providence, condensation from the ice floor underneath the basketball court causing a major interruption of the game at the Dunkin' Donuts Center.

     All good stuff. I could write about the Golden State Warriors or the Cleveland Cavaliers as I seemingly do every week. Or I could write about the Boston Red Sox finally landing slugger J.D. Martinez. Not to be outdone, the New York Yankees acquired infielder Brandon Drury from the Arizona Diamondbacks to plug up a hole at either second or third base. Plus I could report on the Yankees' spring training thus far and about Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. Plus there is a late-breaking scandal that has been reported by Yahoo! Sports involving college basketball and agent payments to players.

     Lots of topics to monitor and expound upon. But it was a simple Facebook post that caught my eye and reminded me that I should make the person in the post the subject for this week's blog.

     I am branching into a different area of sports this week. I am becoming a writer profiling another writer. But not just any writer. Let me explain.

     Mitchell David Albom is that writer. Some of you may know him as a best selling author. Others may know him as a revered Detroit sports columnist and regular contributor to ESPN's late and award-winning Sunday morning staple, The Sports Reporters. That is where I first really encountered Mitch Albom, when I would work my Sunday morning schedule to fit in the stellar round table discussions among well-known sports columnists on the topics of the week.

     That was significant enough for me to become conscious of him as a sportswriter. I read some of his columns. And I researched who Mitch Albom really is. I came away with a picture of an incredible man.

     Born into a Jewish family in Passaic, New Jersey, the 59 year old Albom spent his early, formative years in Buffalo, New York before his family resettled in Oaklyn, New Jersey, a South Jersey suburb of Philadelphia. His family encouraged Albom and his siblings to reach out to the world and explore it. None of the three remained in the Philadelphia metropolitan area after finishing high school.

     Albom so wanted to get away from Oaklyn that he finished high school in three years; I say that facetiously, as this accomplishment demonstrates his overall brilliance and superb intellect. He matriculated at Brandeis University, majoring in sociology.

     He ventured to New York City where he went to continue his dream to become a musician. Albom began his music career in high school and continued it in college and even enrolled in the Berklee College of Music where he studied jazz piano. He has been well-recognized as a lyricist and as a musician.

     While playing in various bands, Albom started to be drawn towards journalism. He started working for the Queens Tribune, a weekly paper. His success there led to admission into the prestigious Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.  As he secured his Master's Degree in Journalism, Albom supported himself with nighttime gigs as a jazz pianist; a baby sitter; and freelance writer for SPORT Magazine. It is likely through work for SPORT that he encountered the venerable Dick Schaap, a well-known author, critic and television reporter, who became editor of SPORT in 1973. Schaap was the permanent host of The Sports Reporters and Albom appeared frequently on the program.

     Albom pursued and received an M.B.A. from Columbia while writing freelance articles for SPORT and Sports Illustrated and The Philadelphia Inquirer among other publications.  Ever resourceful, the intrepid and aspiring writer Albom paid his own way to the Olympics, hustling articles he wrote from the sites.

     In 1983, The News and Sun-Sentinel, a daily paper located in Fort Lauderdale, presented Albom with his first steady work in journalism. He started out as a feature writer, quickly ascending to a columnist role.

     After winning the Associated Press Sports Editors award for Best Sports News story, in 1985 Albom began his association with the The Detroit Free Press, which continues to this day, where he is the lead sports columnist. Rapidly, his columns became a very popular staple in the rich Detroit sports tapestry. When the Detroit News merged weekend editions with the Free Press, Albom began a non-sports column in 1989 in the "Comment" section devoted to living in America. That column eventually became nationally syndicated. Both columns are still written by Mitch Albom, maintaining his ongoing love affair with Michiganders.

     Mitch Albom's prose is populist and germane, intellectual but not condescending. His sports writing is so widely accepted that the Association Press Sports Editors have named him best sports columnist a record 13 times. He has won over 200 prestigious awards and was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame. Albom has his detractors within the business; those protests are far-outweighed by the breadth of his popularity.

     Albom has endured criticism and he has made mistakes; he and four editors were suspended briefly in 2005 for a mistake rushing to meet a deadline which Albom made regarding players attending an event when they did not. In hindsight, his editor felt that she mishandled the mistake by blowing it out of proportion due to a critical segment's loud complaints. This unfortunate blot on his record proved that, perhaps, Mitch Albom is human.

     Albom also has a daily radio show which started in 1987 and now airs on WJZ, a powerful, clear channel outlet in the Detroit market. Naturally, Albom handles the 5-7 p.m. drive time 5 days a week, with a general discussion on a number of non-sports topics and current events. In 2001, MSNBC simulcast his show. For good measure, he hosts a sports call-in show on Monday nights.

     Albom's workload and work ethic is impressive enough if merely limited to what I have outlined thus far. Not only an excellent a columnist, radio host and television panelist, his gift to mankind, still within his capacity as a writer, is found in the books he has authored.

     Given his exceptional workload, it is surprising that Albom could write one book. Incredibly, but yet not surprisingly, he has penned eight award winning books and five plays. Albom's name and The New York Times best seller list are synonymous.

     His first two best sellers were sports books. Bo: Life, Laughs and Lessons of A College Football Legend, co-authored with the late Michigan Head Football Coach Bo Schembechler in 1989, started the hit parade.  He followed that up with Fab Five: Basketball, Trash Talk, the American Dream,  which came out in 1993, chronicling the exploits of the Michigan basketball team which reached the NCAA Final Four twice, when the players were freshman in 1992 and again as sophomores in 1993.

     The book which has defined Albom to America was not a sports anthology. It was Tuesdays With Morrie. Morrie Schwartz was Albom's Sociology professor at Brandeis. When Schwartz appeared on Nightline, a late night television news program on ABC hosted by Ted Koppel, a friend of Albom's told him about Schwartz's battling the terminal disease ALS (also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease). Albom, who had been very close with Schwartz, felt guilty and reconnected with his former mentor. That started a series of 14 visits on Tuesdays whereby Albom would fly to suburban Boston to talk with Schwartz about life and death. Albom convinced publishing house Doubleday to print his book about those visits as a way to cover the costs of Schwartz's demise.

     Published in 1997, the book has sold over 14 million copies, has been translated into 45 languages, has been the subject of a TV movie produced by Oprah Winfrey, a two man Off- Broadway play which Albom co-authored. It is taught in the curriculum of many high school classes. Albom set up the Tuesdays with Mitch Foundation from some of the proceeds. A truly legendary book.

     In 2003, his second book was published. The Five People You Meet In Heaven was another rousing success, making the Times list again on its way to selling 10 million copies in 35 languages. Another TV movie ensued--this was the highest rated TV movie of 2003.

     For One More Day was a childhood-inspired novel which quickly made its way to the top of the charts in 2005. It is about a son having one more chance to connect with his deceased mother. Oprah produced a 2 hour TV movie from this novel.

     Have A Little Faith came next in 2009.  A non-fiction book, it is borne out of Albom's relationship with his hometown Rabbi, Albert L. Lewis,  and what Albom did to write a eulogy for him. He had a re-awakening of his faith as a result. This reawakening in turn caused him to make contact with an African-American pastor in Detroit who ministered to drug addicts and others down on their lot in a church which leaked when there was rain. This relationship with Henry Covington, a former addict and an ex-convict, along with his eulogy experience combined for another unique book and another TV movie.

     Albom's next two books also were acclaimed. The Time Keeper was a fictional story about the man who made the first clock in history and who was banished to a cave for centuries, gets a reprieve and tries to save two unlikely souls. The First Phone Call From Heaven centers around a small Michigan town receiving phone calls from deceased ones and a search for the truth.

     His last book, The Magic Strings Of Frankie Presto, arrived in 2015. The life and death of this fictitious character, a giant in the music business, is narrated by the voice of Music. Actual big name musical talents like Tony Bennett, Wynston Marsalis and Darlene Love gave first person impressions for the book. What made this a unique book was a 17 song soundtrack written and performed by Albom and others, as if these were the greatest songs written by Frankie Presto.

     Once a struggling musician looking for direction after college, Albom is estimated to have a net worth beyond $10 million. He has found a way to express himself through writing while finding himself.

     What caught my eye on Facebook was an announcement that Albom is writing a sequel to The Five People You Meet In Heaven. The Next Person you Meet In Heaven will be available on October 16. The staggering number of positive hopes for this new book made me think about Albom. And why haven't I read a single book of his. After all, I am extremely impressed with Albom's career..

     My wife and I began a two person book club upon our retirements. We have focused exclusively on the litany of books written by Daniel Silva about his Israeli spy Gabriel Allon. Silva has reached the #1 slot on the Times chart and has an eighteenth spy novel ready for consumption in July. Once finished with all of Silva's books, we switched to the primarily southern attorney-based novels of John Grisham.

     We are nearing the end of the Grisham list. We need a lift to recharge our reading. This is where Mitch Albom's books come into play. Who better to read than one of the most accomplished authors and columnists in the country? If ever there was a person to cite as a perfect example of a Renaissance man, it is Mitch Albom.

     I have been chiding myself for not thinking about his writing sooner. Nonetheless, I am thankful that Facebook has done something good lately, generating a tremendous enthusiasm in anticipation of Mitch Albom's new book, given the fire it has taken for unwittingly influencing the 2016 election.

     I ask you, my loyal readers, especially those in book clubs, to look into the writings of the extraordinary Mitch Albom, if you haven't already done so. Should you opt to read some or all of his works, I think you will be as interested as I expect I will be.

     Thank you, Facebook, for pointing me in the right literary direction. It is time for Mitch and me to get closer.