Here’s something I once did for this job: I lit my lunch on fire.
It was 1989, and an earthquake had just hit San Francisco, where I was sitting inside Candlestick Park about to write on a World Series game. The stadium had thundered, the players and fans had frantically evacuated and it was dark. No lights. Despite police warning us to leave, I had stayed, along with several other sportswriters, to get a story filed.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementBut I couldn’t see.
So I got a match and lit my box lunch on fire. And as the cardboard burned, I read the words off my screen into a pay phone, as my sports editor on the other end took them down.
Just another night on the job — one I have been doing, they tell me, for 40 years now. It doesn’t feel that long. Some of it, like writing about Michigan facing Ohio State for all the marbles, feels like yesterday.
Then again, some of it, like the Lions sniffing a Super Bowl, definitely feels new.
Mitch Albom's first columnist photo at the Free Press and his most recent one.40 years of incredible moments, around the world
Here are a few other things I did for this job: Got chased by bulls in Pamplona. Walked the Great Wall of China. Raced Lance Parrish in a swimming pool. Took John Salley to his first hockey game. Flew in a biplane to cover the Iditarod in Alaska. Watched the lights go out on Tiger Stadium.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI visited Scott Skiles in jail. Sat next to an injured Kirk Gibson on a long flight home. Got into an argument with Bo Schembechler when he came out of a shower, wearing nothing but a towel. Went to sit down in the home of a bereaved Detroit mother who’d lost her son to gun violence and heard her warn me, “Don’t sit there. They shoot through the windows.”
Got a bucket of ice water dumped on my head by Willie Hernández (sadly, one of his more accurate pitches that year). Became a lucky charm driver for Jacques Demers during the Red Wings playoffs. Created a fictional World Series after a baseball strike canceled the real one.
Went to Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. Went to Honduras after the devastation of Hurricane Mitch (of all the names) in 1998. Went to Haiti after the catastrophic 2010 earthquake.
I’ve written too many columns about rich, selfish athletes, but plenty about truly humble, amazing ones. I’ve written too many stories about drunk drivers taking innocent lives, but plenty about brave people helping to save them.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI’ve written too many columns having to defend Detroit, but plenty about what’s great about it. And I’ve written too many columns about loss — my parents, our little girl, friends, teachers, major influences — but plenty about inspiring people who are still here, shaping our lives for the better.
When I began newspaper writing, there were no cell phones, and our computers took batteries. Yet somehow today, we have earlier deadlines than we did back then.
When I began, nearly 650,000 people got a Free Press newspaper every day. Today, it’s a fraction of that, and the majority read it on a phone, tablet or computer screen.
It’ a shrinking business, harder than it ever was. So why stay?
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementI guess because, also when I began, I received a letter at the Free Press offices — before I’d ever written my first column — from a married couple. I’m guessing they were older. It welcomed me to Detroit, wished me well, then added — I’m paraphrasing here — “We know you won’t stay in Detroit long, because none of the good ones do. But we hope you enjoy our city while you are here.”
If you wonder why I’m still here after 40 years, the answer is somewhere in that letter.
A job of making connections, in Detroit and beyond
Mitch Albom talks to guests at his fifth annual EAT Detroit event VIP reception at Michigan Central Station in Detroit on Monday, June 9, 2025. The event is a fundraiser for Albom's Say Detroit charity.I’ve mentioned what I’ve done for this job. Here’s what this job has done for me.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementIt has taken me around the world. It has exposed me to the most glorious sports moments, and the most heartbreaking.
It has given me entrée to places people dream about going — champagne-doused locker rooms, Olympic stadiums, championship parades, spring training batting cages.
It’s given me notoriety and it’s taught me humility. It’s brought me face to face with people I will always remember, and some I wish I could forget. It’s honed my writing skills the way a grinding wheel sharpens a blade, and taught me never to get too attached to your sentences, because they might end up trimmed to fit a tire ad.
But mostly, it has provided a megaphone, and a stethoscope, to a city and state that I love, one that I’d never been to before arriving in my mid-20s, yet feels more like a true home than anyplace I have ever been in my life.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementThe purist joys of this job are not the seats you get in the Super Bowl press box. They are the moments you walk into a local coffee shop and see someone reading your column. Moments someone spots you and yells, “Hey, Mitch, are the Lions gonna do it today?” Moments the family of someone you eulogized takes your hand and says, “Thank you.”
What this job does for me, and what I hope I do for it, is connect us, your voice to my ears, my voice to yours. And no matter how the newspaper business changes, until they shut down the final printing press, that will always be the dynamic.
It is one I remain proud to practice. Forty years, huh? So be it. Just a number. I feel blessed and lucky to do this job. And If they’ll have me, I’ll continue doing it, as long as I can so decently, with compassion, and the occasional wink.
Also, thanks to backlit computers, I no longer have to set my lunches on fire.
AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementSo I got that going for me.
Which is nice.
Contact Mitch Albom: [email protected]. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom on x.com.
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: 40 years at Detroit Free Press, and I still feel like the luckiest guy
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