‘Day’ Albom’s latest on life and death

Mitch Albom sees dead people.

Actually, he sees living people – and lots of them – and they like to talk to him about death.

Albom, the award-winning sports columnist and radio host who writes best sellers on the side, comes across readers of his books almost everywhere he goes.

“And within a couple seconds, they’re telling me some of the saddest stories of their lives,” he says.

Those tales helped shape the idea for Albom’s latest book, “For One More Day,” the story of a suicidal ex-baseball player who is given one final chance to spend time with his dead mother.

“I noticed that most of the time it was about parents,” Albom says of his discussions with readers. “There seemed to be a lot of baggage and issues that people don’t resolve with their parents, and then all of a sudden, their parents are gone.

“So I began to wonder, ‘Well what if you actually did get one more day with a parent who was lost – not in heaven, but on Earth – and how would you actually be if they were suddenly there? Would you be the same? Would you apologize? Would you make up for all your lost time? Would you fall back into old habits?’ So I began to explore that.”

He did so in the form of Chick Benetto, a man beaten down by life in the years since he briefly played in the major leagues. After an awkward attempt to end it all, he is given an extra day with his mother, Posey, who teaches him one more lesson that might just save his life.

Their relationship is loosely based on Albom and his mom, who is alive and well in his home city of Philadelphia.

“I wanted to write something that reflected her influence on me and the influence of mothers who do it the right way while she was still around,” he says.

Albom entered the literary stratosphere with 1997’s “Tuesdays With Morrie,” a first-person account of his visits with mentor Morrie Schwartz and their talks about life and death amid Schwartz’s losing battle with ALS. The book has sold 12 million copies worldwide to date.

His 2003 follow-up, “The Five People You Meet in Heaven,” which has sold 8 million, explored the question of what happens when you die. Both books were made into TV movies.

“One More Day,” released last month, is also at the top of best-seller lists.

It’s being offered at Starbucks locations nationwide, with the Seattle-based coffee giant contributing $1 from the sale of each book to Jumpstart, an educational organization that works with preschoolers.