They aren't all winners, but this one's OK

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A kind reader posted a comment at the end of a recent blog asking where he could find the column I wrote for newspapers of Nov. 3, 1999. The column, written after the death of the great Walter Payton, was about living life to the fullest because none of us can know when it's our time to go.

I did a quick search and was able to find the column in a couple of paid-archive sites but wasn't able to find it for free. So I scanned the hard copy of the column I had saved and am making it available here. I apologize if the print's a little small. You might need to magnify it in your window.

One might say it was fortuitous that I happened to have in my possession a column that a reader wanted to see nearly 13 years later.

Well, I saved a hard copy of every one of the nearly 2,400 newspaper columns I  wrote over the years. I always wanted to have something to show my kids and my grandkids that represented what the old bald dude did for a living. As it turns out, my bound volumes serve as kind of a history of the most important sports stories from my time in Minneapolis and Chicago. Not sure why, but I think that's cool.

When I was AP's Minnesota sports guy from 1985-94, I used to write a weekly column. My goal was to be a daily newspaper sports columnist, so even if I was in the middle of a 12-hour work day and a 60-hour work week, I made time to write that column. And I knew I'd need examples of my work -- we used to call them "clips" -- to land the kind of gig I wanted.

Every few weeks, usually late some night after having covered a Twins or Vikings or Gophers game, I'd go into the bureau's back room and look through the stacks of newspapers from around the state. I'd find the best presentations of my columns, carefully clip them and then Xerox them. Then I'd punch holes in the page, put them in one of the binders and number them.

One night, my colleague Jimmy Golen -- a young'un then but now an award-winning sportswriter for AP Boston -- saw what I was doing and asked: "Why do you number them?"

I said something like: "I want to know when I match Cy Young with No. 511."

Not missing a beat, Jimmy said: "Hate to break it to you, Mike, but all of Cy Young's 511 were winners."
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On Walter Payton, the media and keeping things in perspective

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I just got this email from a man named Jim Helm, who used to read my Copley Newspapers columns in the Springfield Journal-Register:

Mike-Springfield Journal-Register/Nov. 3, 1999. Your column “There’s No Time Like Today to Give Thanks.” I have had that article on the wall in my office ever since. I read it again today. Thanks for writing it. It has made me a better person. Best regards-Jim


Wow. That didn't just make my day ... it also made my week and month and year. And maybe my decade, too. 


That column, which I wrote after Walter Payton died at 45 from liver disease and cancer, was about embracing life every day because we are promised nothing in this world. That this reader thought to display it prominently and read it regularly -- and then thought to send me a note about it nearly 13 years later -- reminds me of some of the reasons I wanted to become a journalist in the first place.


Nowadays, many folks all but sneer when they make references to "the media." I admit that I sometimes am exasperated by some of the things my former colleagues do, too. Still, I continue to believe fervently that a strong press is vital to our democracy.


And, on a smaller scale, the media has the unique opportunity to make a difference by putting everyday occurrences into proper perspective. I tried to do that as often as I could during my career, and it pleases that a reader such as Jim Helm thinks I occasionally succeeded.
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