By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
May 19, 2013

So, last night, I was sitting at home wallowing in my own despair over some of the day’s events.   Not that it takes a lot for me to drown in my own misery, but needing only Orb to win the Preakness Stakes to complete a $1,575 Pick-5 as the overwhelming favorite at Pimlico only to watch him never lift a hoof during the second jewel of the Triple Crown didn’t help matters.  At all.

So there I was, spending Saturday evening with my wife at home.  On one TV the Tigers were playing another embarrassingly sloppy road game versus the Texas Rangers which only further aggravated me.  And on our big screen, Melissa had coerced me into watching an abortion of a movie called “Safe Haven” starring Fergie’s husband and that smoking hot chick from “Dancing with the Stars.”

Now, if you are reading this article, I am guessing you will probably NEVER see this film.  Unless, you are really desperate to get laid and the only way to accomplish that goal is to watch a Nicholas Sparks movie with your special lady friend.   But, I will say it anyway ……. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!

So, this total piece of trash movie is from the same guy that brought you “The Notebook” and “Dear John.”  And no, not the really good 80′s TV show “Dear John” that starred Judd Hirsch and Wynn Duffy from “Justified”, but a horrible and manipulative Channing Tatum ROMCOM from a couple years back.

I am not spewing out hyperbole when I say “Safe Haven” is one of the WORST movies I have ever had the misfortune to see.  Like, imagine taking the worst parts of “Sleepless in Seattle,” “Sleeping with the Enemy,” “The Sixth Sense” and rolling them into one pile of shit starring a reality TV star with no acting ability who is most famous for dating Ryan Seacrest.

That’s “Safe Haven.”

This is a movie so awful that when you find out in the last few moments that Julianne Hough has been speaking to a GHOST throughout the entire movie it really isn’t that big a surprise.  And not just any ghost mind you, but the DEAD WIFE FROM CANCER of her current boyfriend who prematurely croaked with two little kids!!!!

And how does Julianne Hough’s character react to this news? Does she set herself on fire? Does she jump into the picturesque waters of North Carolina and hope to drown? Does she start crying (like my wife next to me on the couch) hysterically?

Nope.  She just walks over to Danny McCoy from “Las Vegas”, gives him and the kids a hug and …… cue END CREDITS.  THIS, after finding out that she has been conversing with the Ghost of Current Boyfriend Past for the last hour and fifty-six excruciating minutes.

And to make matters worse, the awful screenplay that EVEN Frodo “The Six People you Meet in Heaven While Father Time and Morrie Ask You To Have A Little Faith For One More Day” Albom would have been embarrassed to write was brought to the screen by the dude who directed “Chocolat.”  An awesome propaganda movie about atheism.  Which is the only reason I agreed to subject myself to another Nicholas Sparks adaptation in the first place.

ANYWAY, during the Tigers latest comedy of errors and this atrocious romantic comedy slash ghost story, I received a Tweet from one of my followers that asked me, “Hey @JeffMossDSR what do u think of @RyanFieldFSD ?”

Now, under normal circumstances I probably wouldn’t even have answered.  But, the combination of Orb, the Tigers losing 7-2 and my wife bawling at this tripe had me in a worse mood than normal.

So I answered by Tweeting: “He’s short. He’s a homer slapdick w/no journalistic credibility. He’s a pretty boy.”

It also didn’t help the Fox Sports Detroit host that he kind of reminds me of Seacrest and the thought of him having sex with THIS kinda pisses me off.

I really didn’t expect the Tweet to get much of a reaction until Field himself responded with, “I think your scouting report needs a little work…but thank you as always.”

Of course, when reading his retort that my scouting report needed a little work, I figured he meant the insulting part about being a fanboy.  I was wrong.  After telling him that he should take the pretty boy comment as a compliment, he responded with, “Haha fair enough. Since when is 6’1″ short?

I mean, the guy is right.  6-feet, 1 inch is not Bob Costas territory.  I have no clue why I thought he was shorter than that, but I am guessing it has something to do with interviewing Andre Drummond and Greg Monroe on a regular basis.  That one is on me.

But the really interesting portion of our back and forth was yet to come and it’s what motivated me to write my first article in over six months.   This is how Ryan Field responded to my accusation of him being a homer with no journalistic credibility:

“As for the rest, team partners baby. Need I say more?”

I am including this screenshot from my Macbook because at some point after making that post, Field realized that telling the city’s angriest and most critical Detroit Sports Media lunatic that he was basically bought and paid for by the home team wasn’t the wisest thing to do in a social media setting.

I mean, this isn’t surprising.  We have known for years that Fox Sports Detroit isn’t interested in covering the Tigers, Red Wings or Pistons like an ACTUAL news outlet, but instead a propaganda wing for the Detroit sports teams looking to sell tickets and merchandise.

But to my knowledge, this is the FIRST TIME someone inside FSD actually copped to it.   Which is why either Field 86′d the message or one of his bosses told him to delete the incriminating Tweet.  You know, the same way they swept Larry Murphy under the rug.

“As for the rest, team partners baby. Need I say more?”

No, Ryan, you don’t need to say more.  And really, you didn’t even need to say this to confirm what anyone with a brain already knew.  Mickey York, Shannon Hogan, John Keating, Ken Daniels, Mickey Redmond, Mario Impemba, Rod Allen and the rest of your co-workers are nothing more than corporate shills who bow down to their broadcast partners and are just modern day versions of Joseph Goebbels and Tariq Aziz.

We knew that when you went into the Tigers clubhouse in Oakland the night of September 16, 2011 wearing “AL Central Champions” swag and partied with Miguel Cabrera like you were actually on the 40-man roster.

We knew it last summer when “Stupor” Mario and “Bojangles” Allen refused to address the subject of Brandon Inge’s DFA during the first few innings of a broadcast even though everyone else in the Tigers Universe was discussing the transaction while your co-workers remained Radio Silent.

We know it every single time that Impemba and Allen defend Jim Leyland.  The pair have NEVER …. EVER criticized the manager on the air.  Instead, they tell us dummies watching that Don Kelly steps up “every time” he is asked to do so.  Right, the same Don Kelly who has a career OPS of .625.  THAT guy steps up whenever given an opportunity.  ”Baghdad Bob” thinks this kind of commentary is ridiculous.

We knew that your station had no journalistic credibility when every member of the Red Wings broadcast team from Redmond and Daniels down to Darren Eliot defended Justin Abdelkader’s illegal hit on Toni Lydman.  Going as far to say to say that it was a CLEAN play that didn’t deserve a PENALTY when in actuality it was a reckless hit worthy of a two-game PLAYOFF suspension.

I could go on and on with anecdotal evidence on why you and your brethren are nothing more than mouthpieces for the Detroit sports teams, but what’s the point?  YOU.  DID.  IT.  FOR.  ME.

“As for the rest, team partners baby. Need I say more?”

The worst part about this evolution from actual broadcasters to propagandists is that it didn’t even need to occur.  Do the Tigers, Wings and Pistons really think that giving their announcing teams carte blanche to say whatever they want would decrease viewership or attendance?

When Ernie Harwell,  George Kell,  Al Kaline or Kirk Gibson called it down the middle, did that hurt the Detroit Tigers baseball organization? And if so, why are these man still so revered in town? By the fans and the organization? (Well, maybe Gibby isn’t revered by team management, but not because he was an honest broadcaster.)

Of course not.  But there was a huge sea change when Impemba and Allen were hired by FSD and there is no turning back now.  These two jackasses might as well have pompoms in their perch overlooking home plate at Comerica Park.

And if you think that the corporate umbilical cord is only relevant to Fox Sports Detroit then you probably aren’t familiar with the work going on at 97.1 “The Ticket” or even the local newspapers who are terrified that any critical opinion could lead to less access to the four major sports organizations in Detroit.

And if you think the teams weren’t independent before, the fact that they have their own “employees” covering the beat (Jason Beck, Tim Twentyman, Mike O’Hara, Keith Langlois) and spewing their own sunshine and rainbows makes them even more impenetrable to real criticism.

Which is why I haven’t written an article in over six months.  I have given up.  I started this website over ten years ago in an attempt to keep the local sports media accountable and I have utterly failed.

Things are worse than ever and with the advent of Twitter it is only going to get worse.

We have two terrible newspapers, one online outlet in MLIVE which isn’t any better, a bunch of eunuchs getting paid by the organizations to cover their employers, one radio station that vacillates between talking about everything but sports and acting as the Marconi version of Fox Sports Detroit and then FSD itself.

Which is basically why I have resorted to guerrilla warfare tactics on Twitter and abandoned long form articles.  (Or as that genius Terry Foster would call it, “gorilla warfare.”)

Attempting to fight the good fight by throwing bombs at these douche bags while still trying to influence the minuscule portion of intelligent Detroit sports fans who actually know better.

I’d rather watch a sequel to “Safe Haven” than beat my head against the wall and rail about the various Detroit sports media transgressions on here using 2,000 words a few times a week.

See you in another six months.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
May 29, 2013

So, over the last few weeks, DSR co-founder, Gregg Schultz, has been going through all of the emails ever sent to the DetroitSportsRag during the decade the site has been in existence.

I have never done a wonderful job archiving the emails, but fortunately for YOU, most of the correspondence that came into the site also went to Gregg. And I don’t think he has ever deleted an email. Like, ever. Dude probably has 5,000 “Spanish Prisoner” missives from Nigerian royalty in his Microsoft Outlook inbox alone.

Most morons who have written to ME never knew that the email which was posted on the DSR was actually a community inbox that also went to Schultz and Danny Fox.   Including my own father at one point.

(Tom Kowalski was pretty much the only media member who asked for a direct email from me to make sure anything he said wasn’t going to be read by multiple people.)

Anyway, over the last few days I have posted some email beauties on Twitter from members of the Detroit Sports Media.   Here is a sampler platter until we get to the main course.

These were fun emails to reminisce about considering Jemele Hill now works for a little site called “ESPN.com” and Terry Foster and I are now bitter enemies who have engaged in a couple of infamous Twitter Wars.

But, they weren’t a bombshell like the email I am going to release in this column.

So, here is the backstory.   Back in the late 90s, Rob Parker published a book that included a bunch of his old columns.  You know, garbage that nobody wanted to read in the first place.  He titled it, “Getting Robbed: 50 Columns from America’s Angry Black Sports Columnist.”

Shockingly enough, nobody wanted to read a “Greatest Hits Album” from a jackass who could barely string two sentences together.   The foreword was written by Pistons guard and executive Joe Dumars, but it would turn out that wasn’t the only contribution the Hall of Famer would make regarding this endeavor.

When the book predictably flopped, Parker ended up owing his publisher a fairly sizable amount of dough.  The figure that was frequently bandied about was $5,000.00.

In a bizarre coincidence, the publisher was financially backed by former Detroit Red Wings defenseman, Aaron Ward.  The former first round NHL pick was a friend of former WDFN-1130 program director/personality Gregg Henson.  You might remember the famous “Whatever he hits, He destroys” drop that Henson and Jamie Samuelson would play on their show.  That was in reference to Ward.

So, when Parker had to make good with Ward’s company, he went to Dumars for a stimulus package.  This was unethical on so many levels.  Parker was a sports columnist for the DETROIT NEWS and he was asking for a bailout from a guy he had to cover on a regular basis.  Hell, the foreword alone was probably a journalistic no-no.

But obtaining a $5,000.00 “gift” from one of the most powerful sports personalities in Detroit when you are a columnist for a major daily? Even Jayson Blair and Scott Templeton would have known this was off limits.

Anyway, this information trickled back to Henson.  Who told me about it.  I had other sources and I figured that I was pretty much immune to a lawsuit from Parker.  The story was that Ward and/or his partners actually received a CHECK from Dumars to cover Parker’s debt.

Apparently, Parker didn’t even have the brains to get cash or a check written out to “Cash” from the Pistons exec.

So, I ran with the story.  Soon after, I received an ominous email from someone claiming to be an attorney for the Detroit News.  The paper wanted me to stop writing that Parker had taken money from Dumars, who at this point was the General Manager of the Pistons.

If you want to read about that farce, the Metro Times summed up it pretty well in this article.  You should REALLY click the link if you haven’t read it before.

Seriously, click the damn link.

Now, you have to keep in mind, America’s “Angry Black” Columnist was calling out everyone in town for their supposed misdeeds at the time.  Except Dumars who would get a bi-monthly fellating from his own personal, Judith Regan.

Rob Parker NEVER wrote a negative word about Joe Dumars in his time as a Detroit News columnist.  Not once.  Not even when the Darko Milicic pick blew up in the Pistons face.   While everyone else in town was getting put on blast by Parker, Dumars skated by like Paul Coffey in his prime.

And not only was Parker calling for everyone else’s head in Detroit, he actually was stupid enough to mock Rod Marinelli’s daughter for marrying a bad defensive coordinator.  Which I actually found humorous.  Until he then lied about his “close” relationship with Marinelli which led to his demotion at the News which then led to Parker quitting the paper all together.

Dumars? Waab treated him like someone who once loaned the writer five large.  The “kid gloves” treatment was a running joke among Parker’s media “friends.”

You might ask after 800 plus words, why am I bringing all of this up today? Well, when Schultz was perusing the old DSR emails, he found a doozy from one Terrence Reginald Foster.

When the DSR started ten years ago, Foster wasn’t a co-host on the most listened to sports talk radio show in town.  His radio career was floundering and the News treated him like a red-headed stepchild.

Terry Foster had several axes to grind.  So he attempted to ingratiate himself with the DetroitSportsRag.  He even wrote an article about the site in the News.

We then met at Mr. Joe’s Bar in Southfield to discuss Foster writing for our site.  He penned an article for the DSR which had to be taken down in under 24 hours because the News didn’t want T-Fos moonlighting.

And they sure as hell didn’t want him writing articles for a website that was BOMBING his fellow employees,  Lynn Henning and Chris McCosky, on a daily basis.  That was when I wasn’t accusing Rob Parker of being on the take or writing like a third grader.

Foster was paid $125 (or maybe it was $150, who knows) for the article and even though we had to almost immediately take it down, he never returned the cash.

You see, Terry likes to take advantage of just about any situation he is in.  He can’t say no to ANYTHING.  I am sure that is why he wrote that awful Detroit Tigers book that nobody cares about and why his name is currently going up on two Detroit area restaurants that probably won’t be open nine months from today.

Who the hell is going to go to a restaurant in FRASER because Terry Foster’s name is on it? I mean, we are talking about FRASER!!!!! People didn’t even go to Jacques Demers’ restaurant in Southfield and that guy actually did something in this town.

(In a weird coincidence, both Demers and Foster are illiterate.  When does Dexter Manley get a pub in Westland?)

Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling is embarrassed at how Foster uses his 97.1 gig to shill for his other business ventures.   It is amazing that CBS Radio lets him get away with this crap, but there isn’t exactly a lot of quality control going on at “The Ticket” anyhow.

F-Terry.

Let’s back on point though because I need some sleep.

The following email was sent to me from Foster on August 4, 2003.  At the time, Parker was a columnist for the News and Terry was not and this didn’t sit well with Foster.   At all.

He would bitch about Parker to anyone who would listen.  I vividly remember  Foster droning on and on about Parker’s missteps during a phone call outside of the old E.G. Nicks in West Bloomfield.  When I was supposed to be inside for my sister’s wedding rehearsal.

But, this correspondence took the cake.

The column Foster was referring to was the one where I gingerly accused Parker of taking the money from Dumars.

You are the fucking man. That column about Parker was so on the mark.

The only mistake you make is calling the bail out by Joe a rumor. It happened. Now you did not hear this from me but Joe has confirmed it with me.

He said it was true. He bailed rob out.

And Rob just kisses his ass. Notice how rob is hard on everybody. But he is soft on the Pistons. Come on.

You are right, Terry. I didn’t HEAR it from you. I READ it from you.  The utter backstabbery (made up word) on display in that email is breathtaking.   Not only did he throw Parker right under the SEMTA, he did it to a guy he BARELY KNEW who wrote a blog attacking the Detroit Sports Media.

Amanda Bynes’ vagina thinks this behavior was reckless.

(Oh, and if you are asking why I have an unfinished “Reminder” in that Mac Screenshot, well, I guess I can now check-off, “Make the next Terry Foster/Rob Parker/Joe Dumars meeting EXTREMELY uncomfortable.”)

This email is almost ten years old now and I totally forgot about it until Gregg forwarded it to me on Tuesday.  (Shit, now that I think about it, I believe I missed my sister’s ten-year wedding anniversary.  Oops.)

I knew that Foster had TOLD me that the story was accurate and that Dumars supposedly confirmed it, but I didn’t recall that I had WRITTEN EVIDENCE.

(The other crap in the email from Foster was Detroit News gossip regarding the dismissal of longtime columnist George Cantor who has since passed way and a fired editor at the paper.  I don’t have the time or the inclination to get into all of that mishegas, suffice to say that was more dirty laundry that Foster was airing out to barely an acquaintance.)

And you know what, I would never have posted this if Foster didn’t go on Twitter last year and tell his thousands of followers that I was a racist.

And then Tweet out that he was going to “leave me alone” because I had some sort of family/personal issue.  Could you be a little more specific? I have tons of issues.

I probably would have respected the “you did not hear this from me” in his email if he didn’t wrongfully label me a racist because I personally think HE sucks.  And he just happens to be an African-American.

Hell, if his studio gangsta partner, Mike Valenti, would have gone public with his Direct Messages on Twitter where he informed me that Terry was dead wrong and I clearly wasn’t a racist or that two-faced coward, Matt Dery, would have done the same, we might not be where we are today.

But, where we are today is a really fun place for the DSR.  Creating havoc as always.

And while there may be craft beer on the menu at the new “Foster’s Famous Smokehouse and Sports Bar” in Fraser, I am guessing Rob Parker’s All-Star (Hot) Dawgs won’t be making the cut.

This is so fucking great.

Stay tuned for more emails from the vault.

Unless Dery has Gregg assassinated tomorrow.

Hahahaahhahahahahahahahahahahhha.

To. Be. Continued ………..

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
May 29, 2013

I would like to clarify one item from the article I posted on the DSR earlier this morning regarding Rob Parker and Terry Foster.

In the posting, I stated that former Michigan Wolverines and Detroit Red Wings defenseman Aaron Ward was a part of the company that published Parker’s book, “Getting Robbed: 50 Columns from America’s Angry Black Sports Columnist.”

The company involved was CFW Creative Sports.  At the time that Joe Dumars  bailed Parker out of his poor book sales with a personal check, Ward was no longer involved in CFW Creative Sports.  Ward had no financial or controlling issue in the company at that point.

While the “W” in CFW once stood for Ward, he had TOTALLY dissolved his interest in the group.

The DSR apologizes for any confusion regarding the current TSN studio analyst’s role in this decade old plus fiasco.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag.com
May 29, 2013

So, last night DSR co-founder Gregg Schultz was sifting through all of our DetroitSportsRag.com emails and he found another gem that NOBODY at the site remembered receiving.

I am not sure if I took one of GOB Bluth’s “Forget-Me-Now” pills after receiving the following note or what the fuck happened, but I have ZERO recollection of this ……

(Click on image to zoom)

Yes, you read that correctly.  Almost ten years ago to the date, Mike Valenti, sent an email asking me for a DSR writing gig.  This was when he was still working in Lansing and eating six Jersey Giant subs a day and washing them down with a box of desserts from the Grand Traverse Pie Company on Grand River and Hagadorn.

Not to go all Jimmy Devellano on ya, but I am totally flabbergasted by this revelation.

I am not sure what is funnier, that Valenti loved the site and in particular the cracks on the media or his atrocious grammar.

It kind of reminds me of the famous poem, “First they came for the Jews …..”

I mean, the dude was emailing me for a WRITING JOB and dropped the following:

freinds 
poeple
oppurutnities 
hillarious

Like, did Hotmail NOT have freaking spellcheck in 2003?!!?!?!?!?!

Maybe this is why AM1270 decided to pair Valenti with Foster way back when.   They pulled the two resumes from the pile with the most spelling and grammatical errors and said, “Yep, this is a good match.”

Anyway, Valenti eventually submitted an article to me which he wanted posted on the DirtSpurt.  I am not sure why he wanted me to post it on MY site since he had his own website, “The Sports Inferno.”

But, here is the third trimester of an abortion that Valenti sent to me:

I dare you to read that without getting a corneal ulcer yourself.   This guy wanted a WRITING gig at a site that was constantly mocking the AWFUL Detroit Sports Media and THIS is what he came up with?

And you want to be my latex salesman?

Like, I double dog dare you to get through the whole damn thing.  And who the fuck was supposed to edit that? A plastic surgeon working on the chick who had her face eaten off by a gorilla would have an easier task.

Needless to say, we never posted this excrement.  And eventually I forgot that Valenti submitted anything to us at all.  When the Studio Gangsta got his WXYT gig, we immediately went at it and I didn’t put two and two together that Ass Clown Pocket Square Douchebaggery was the guy who wanted in at the DirtSpurt.

Valenti must have spent the last ten years wondering if I was ever going to remember this correspondence.  And hoping that I would not.

And I wouldn’t have if Schultz didn’t start email diving recently and discovered these golden nuggets.

So, to summarize, both Valenti and Foster were desperate to write for THIS site.

Fortunately, the DSR has higher standards than Infinity/CBS Radio.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag.com
May 30, 2013

Not seconds after Brent Seabrook’s deflected shot had evaded Jimmy Howard in overtime of Game 7 sending the Chicago Blackhawks into the Western Conference Finals and the Red Wings to the Eastern Conference offseason did I start to wonder what could have been.

The underdog Wings had just played as tight a series possible against one of the best regular season NHL teams in the 96 years the league has been in existence.  A Hawks team that would have been on pace for an incredible 132 points if the season wasn’t reduced to 48 games because of the lockout.

And yet, after 21 periods of play, the series between the juggernaut and the team that didn’t qualify for the postseason until the last day of the season was deadlocked.   Game 7 was tied 1-1.  Chicago had scored 15 goals in the series.  Detroit had scored 15 goals in the series.   If these two teams were any closer after seven games, Trent Reznor could have serenaded them with “I want to fuck you like an animal …… I want to feel you from the inside.”

So, you can imagine how aggravating it was to realize just how close the Wings came to the upset knowing the Wings were playing at a huge disadvantage in this matchup. First of all, a franchise that was only one of a handful in the league that tried to block the salary cap from existence spent the 2013 season almost $7.5 million UNDER the cap.

Secondly, while the Hawk players celebrated the 3-1 series comeback on their home ice, the Wings had another TEN MILLION DOLLARS in cap space watching from the United Center press box in the form of healthy scratches Todd Bertuzzi, Ian White, Mikael Samuelsson and Jordin Tootoo.

Yep, the Wings pushed a team that at one point played HALF THE SEASON without a loss to the brink of elimination with basically $52 million of a $70 million salary cap being utilized!!!!

This was David versus Goliath if David’s only weapon was a cheap ass, hand-me-down slingshot at his disposal.

But, did anyone in the Detroit media question Wings General Manager Ken Holland for his failure during the past couple of seasons to add the necessary pieces to win a series like this?

Was there one voice in town that questioned why in the last few years of Nicklas Lidstrom and Pavel Datsyuk’s careers and the prime of Henrik Zettberg’s has Holland failed to do anything to give this organization a fighting chance? Of course not.  Instead, we get the slapdick fucktards at 97.1 Tweeting out what a great job Holland has done rebuilding on the fly.

Or worse yet, a column from well-known Holland cheerleader/propagandist Helene St. James in the Free Press LAUDING the GM for his inactivity and patience.   

This THING believes she is a journalist? Instead of ripping Holland for his asinine signings of Samuelsson and Tootoo in the offseason and his failure to improve his club at the deadline for a second straight year, she fellates him because the team was somehow doing well DESPITE HIM.

Seriously, I’d like to take that scarf she is always wearing and choke some god damn sense into her.   And what is she covering up with that accessory anyway?  A hickey that Holland gave her?

Only in Detroit can you go four years without making it past the second round and get a column written in a major daily that commends you for doing NOTHING.

While an exec like Ray Shero spends every waking moment as the Penguins GM thinking of ways to add players at the deadline, or pulling off a blockbuster deal or how to sign an unrestricted free-agent who will actually DRESS in the postseason, Holland continues to live off his reputation built on the 1989 NHL Entry Draft (when he was a scout for the team) and Håkan Andersson’s scouting abilities.

At this point, I’d love to know Holland’s plan.  He hasn’t made a blockbuster trade since he dealt Slava Kozlov to the Buffalo Sabres for Dominic Hasek.  And that was THIRTEEN YEARS AGO.  And that trade was precipitated by a phone call from Hasek’s agent, Rich Winter, telling him the vertebrae-less goalie wanted to play in Detroit.

His last monster free-agent signing was Marian Hossa.  That occurred when he received a phone call while pumping gas from RICH WINTER telling him that Hossa wanted to play in Motown.

Now, here is what happens when Rich Winter doesn’t call Ken Holland’s cell phone.  He trades first round picks for Kyle Quincey.  He gives worthless bums like Tootoo and Samuelsson $5 million instead of spending that money on Jiri Hudler. He decides to make it a priority to re-sign a floater like Johan Franzen instead of keeping a world-class player in Hossa.

And as some of my Twitter followers have pointed out, if Franzen played in a Canadian city instead of Faux Hockeytown, the Swede would be getting absolutely KILLED for his horrid play of late.

Making a Sophie’s Choice of Franzen over Hossa is so AWFUL that it would be the equivalent of Meryl Streep choosing to save that little kid from “The Twilight Zone” who banished anyone who didn’t do exactly what he wanted to a cornfield for them to never return over Willow Smith.

Look, if Holland is just going to idly sit by the phone and wait for someone to call him with an unbelievable offer like some sort of glorified order taker, why don’t we just replace him with one of the hipsters who takes your corned beef order at Zingerman’s?

And not only did Holland fail to acquire any help at the trade deadline AGAIN, he passed up a golden opportunity to deal underachieving Valtteri Filppula who will be an unrestricted free-agent on July 1st.

In an interview with Greg Brady of Sportsnet 590 in Toronto on Memorial Day, Holland insinuated that he could have received a first round pick (in a deep 2013 draft) if he dealt a guy who somehow believes he is worth $5 million a year.

And it isn’t hypocritical of me to pine for that sort of trade and also complain about Holland’s failure to improve this squad.  Ya know, he could have done BOTH.   Hell, the Sharks traded Ryan Clowe at the deadline to the Rangers and they lost a seven game series to the defending Cup champs.  Making a shrewd deal like that could have opened up other options.

(And I am not sure Tomas Tatar off his point-per-game playoff performance in Grand Rapids wouldn’t have outplayed Filppula anyhow for the remainder of the season.  Fil kinda sucked this season.)

Also, can we stop hearing Holland’s famous, “Adding Player X from the injured list is like making a deadline trade.” No, Ken, adding an injured Bertuzzi or Samuelsson to the lineup in March is just like ADDING AN INJURED VETERAN TO THE LINEUP.

This season Holland justified his inactivity by telling the fawning media that adding Danny DeKeyser as a free-agent and Darren Helm from injury would be the equivalent to making a trade deadline acquisition.

Do you know what is like making a deadline trade? MAKING A FUCKING DEADLINE TRADE!!!!!!

So stop used-car selling us on this other bullshit.  Please.

Also, can the media stop whining about what a great loss to the front office Jim Nill will be.  As far as I can tell, Nill’s main responsibility was drafting North Americans. And how the hell has that gone for us recently?

It would seem that Nill’s biggest contribution to the Wings was being a family friend to DeKeyser. If the offshoot was going to be lousy North American drafts over the last decade, I would have just preferred to hire DeKeyser’s pastor as an advanced scout.

Furthermore, while 2011 draft pick Tomas Jurco was getting ready to take on the Oklahoma City Barons with Grand Rapids and looking forward to his 2017 call-up to the Wings, the kid Detroit passed on (Brandon Saad) was on the ice to start overtime of GAME SEVEN in a crucial 4-on-4 situation.

The same Brandon Saad who is a finalist this season for the Calder Trophy.

The same Brandon Saad who played with the Saginaw Spirit of the OHL.

I mean, the Dow Event Center is a good 90 minutes away from the Joe so I can understand how Holland and Nill missed unearthing this phenom. Not that Saad would have been in the Wings lineup this season EVEN IF they had drafted him.

Ya know, Detroit still likes to let their young lads marinate in the AHL for five years before giving them an opportunity. In fact, Holland is so adverse to inserting young boys into the lineup, he probably thinks any fellow GM who gives a guy like Saad a chance before they turn 25 should have to go door-to-door when moving into a new neighborhood and introduce themselves.  Or be part of some sort of registry.

Look, Kenny, just because you call up a prospect before they are legally allowed to rent a car from Hertz, doesn’t make you a member of NAMBLA.  It’s okay, pal.

And please spare me the “future is bright” nonsense that is mainly coming from a bunch of morons who didn’t watch one Red Wings regular season game and all of a sudden became experts in the playoffs™ (Mitch “Condescending Baggins” Albom.)

You might think some of the dead weight contracts are coming off the books …. but they are not.  The Wings have ten million dollars tied up in 2013-4 contracts for Bertuzzi, Samuelsson, Tootoo and Carlo Colaiacavo. And don’t even get me started on the $7 million allotted to Jonathon Ericcson and Kyle Quincey.

AND the salary cap is going down to $64 million. AND arguably the second best forward who will hit free-agency this summer is a guy on the team who wants too much money and should have been dealt for a first-round pick two months ago.

And while guys like Joachim Andersson, Gustav Nyquist, Tatar, Ryan Sproul, Xavier Ouelett, Calle Jarnkrok, Martin Frk and Jurco might be nice serviceable NHL players, none of them is an heir apparent to Pavel Datyuk, Henrik Zetterberg or Nick Lidstrom.

NONE of those young players are considered by talent evaluators to be among the top thirty prospects in the world.

Holland has built a stable of fifth and sixth defenseman on the current roster and some nice second and third line forward prospects.  That’s it.  So don’t get carried away with the youth movement narrative.

Like most intelligent Wings fans, I was desperate for guys like Nyquist and Tatar to get quality minutes this year.  Not because I thought they were the second coming of Vladimir Tarasenko or Dougie Hamilton, but because they WEREN’T corpses like Dan Cleary, Bertuzzi and Samuelsson.

Which would all be fine and good if Ken Holland was living in 2004 and not 2014.  Holland’s supposed plan when Datsyuk went back to Russia or Zetterberg got old was to replace those $6.5 million level contracts with unrestricted free-agents who would just be dying to play in Detroit.

Well, we saw last summer that NOBODY is dying to come here anymore.  Justin Schultz went to Edmonton and Zach Parise and Ryan Suter signed in Minnesota.  Not exactly the equivalent of “taking your talents to South Beach.”

The ugly truth is the Wings play in one of the worst arenas in the league.  The JLA is dilapidated and you are as likely to see a dead rat in the Joe’s bowels as a discarded octopus.

And if Holland was still relying on being able to sell UFA’s like Hossa on the Wings “mystique” and their dominace, well, the city’s glowing reaction to a second round EXIT tells you all ya need to know about the “mystique” that remains.

And yet nothing will happen.  Ken Holland probably has the same job security of a Supreme Court Justice in this town.  And I am not insane enough to go “Pelican Brief” on him.

This team needs their own Ray Shero to navigate the changing NHL and the fact that the team’s best players are getting up in age.

I love Pavel, but if the rumors are true and he is only going to play one more season in North America, well, I would put him on the market and see what I could get.  Even if Datsyuk’s plans are known, some team would still give up a TON for the perennial All-Star.

Zetterberg wouldn’t be untouchable either.  Hell, NOBODY on that roster should be.

Ken Holland does not have the imagination necessary to get the Wings back to the top and his vision is directly opposite to the not so distant history of this organization as one of espionage and outside-the-box thinking.

Shuttling players out of Czechoslovakia in the trunk of  a car, assisting prospects in defecting from the Goodwill Games, setting up fake meetings with oncologists to test pale looking defenseman for cancerous tumors.

I mean, do you think ANY of those ballsy moves would have occurred under a Ken Holland regime?

We are talking about a pussy who outright refuses to draft Russians due to the lack of a KHL transfer agreement.   This is the type of guy who would have risked an international incident?!?!??

I.

Don’t.

Think.

So.

And it was those types of risky maneuvers that led to the Wings “Dynasty.”  An era that Holland had less to do with than Jimmy Devellano or Håkan Andersson , yet Kenny receives accolades from the Detroit sports media like he was the grand architect.   (Please See: Samuelsen, Jamie.)

Like, just today, Holland had the nerve to say the following:

“We hope to have a healthy Todd Bertuzzi. We hope to have a healthy Mikael Samuelsson. You can look forward to September 2013, and think we are going to have a real good competition.”

No, no, no!!!!  What you should be doing is using your two buyouts gifted to you by the recent CBA on those two UNMITIGATED DISASTERS!!!!! But, ya won’t.

And if you think I am the only one who believes that Holland has dealt Mike Babcock a compromised hand over the last few years, well you should read this quote:

“To be at the level we’re at we have to improve our hockey club.”

That was Babcock’s annual dig at Holland from last night to DO SOMETHING this offseason and that barb is as predictable as the player’s cleaning out their lockers.

Don’t worry, Mike.

Maybe Rich Winter will think of something.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag.com
May 29, 2013

For the last couple of days I have been digging around to find out what is really going on at the University of Michigan regarding the apology that Frank Beckmann issued after getting social media heat for his latest Tea Party inspired buffoonery.

You probably know by now, but the radio voice of Michigan football also serves as a lowest common denominator, homeless man’s version of Sean Hannity on the WJR airwaves in the morning.  And please don’t read that as any sort of compliment towards Hannity.

And you probably also are aware that this moron one-upped Fuzzy Zoeller and Sergio Garcia by penning an atrocious column blaming “Political Correctness” on the issue of fried chicken and African-Americans.

In that column, Beckmann basically wrote that black people in America should be proud of the fried chicken stereotype and not run from it or be offended.   Treat it like a badge of honor.

And that this whole mess of other golfer’s thinking Tiger Woods enjoys fried food is President Obama’s fault.

We are still awaiting official word from this dumbass if watermelons are to be considered a heroic fruit and if so, will Gallagher and Gallagher II be forced to stop crushing them with sledgehammers.

Anyway, tonight the Free Press broke the story that the University of Michigan has condemned Beckmann for writing the asinine column and had a hand in writing the apology.

This is what the Freep didn’t tell you though and what will probably be coming out in the next few days according to DetroitSportsRag.com sources:

• When contacted by the University of Michigan, Beckmann first claimed that he doesn’t really write the columns published under his name in the Detroit News.
  Beckmann told the university that an intern basically writes the first draft and the WJR blowhard either slightly edits it or just signs off on the damn thing. Beckmann told the people at Michigan that he barely even read the column before it went to print.
• Upon learning about the controversy, Michigan head football coach was livid at this potential distraction and also was concerned that it could lead to negative recruiting in the homes of young African-American recruits.   And it isn’t like this is an isolated incident as Beckmann spews his conservative nonsense five days a week on the “Great Voice of the Great Lakes.”  Have you seen a lot of black faces at Tea Party rallies?
• Hoke wanted Michigan to get rid of Beckmann.  Now.
• Michigan was concerned that taking any punitive measure against Beckmann for his opinions could lead to contractual issues.
• U of M’s Director of Collegiate Athletics David Brandon stepped in and his staff helped write the “Beckmann apology.”
• Beckmann did not like some of the wording in the apology and softened it up.  It would appear he paid more attention to the apology than the actual editorial that got him in trouble.
• Beckmann’s broadcast partner Jim Brandstatter is extremely pissed off at the wingnut over this latest distraction.

This is all we know right now and this story is still developing.  It would not appear that the furor is over and if Hoke is still irate this is getting press, things could get even uglier for Beckmann.

I mean, can you blame Hoke for thinking that someone like Urban Meyer might use this against him in a recruiting battle? “Hey kid, did you know the voice of the School up North’s football program is a racist, climate change denier who also hates everything about the Fab Five and regularly blabs about it?”

One last thing.  I attempted to get a response to my story from Denise Ilitch who is on the Board of Regents at the University of Michigan.

Of course, Denise is Mike’s daughter and at one time had an executive position at Olympia Entertainment.   When she was working with the Red Wings and Tigers, she was not very happy with Gregg Henson’s opinions on the Tigers who were in the midst of a 119-loss season.

At the time, Henson was the program director at AM1270 (WXYT) and a host on the airwaves.  AM1270 was the flagship station of the Wings and Tigers.

According to my sources, Denise went to Henson’s boss (Rich Homberg) and demanded that he be removed from the station as his comments were detrimental to the broadcast partners.

Because of Denise’s protestations, Henson was moved from AM1270 to 97.1.  At the time, 97.1 was a talk station and not a sports station.

So, while Denise Ilitch refused to address my questions about this subject, she might have tipped her hand a little.

When I posted on her Facebook page that she should, ‘Pull a Gregg Henson on Frank Beckmann’ she responded by “liking” my post.

Keep in mind this is also the same Denise Ilitch who considered running for Governor of Michigan in 2010.  As a Democrat.  Who probably isn’t a big fan of Beckmann’s politics.

Stay tuned ……

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag.com
May 31, 2013

In the last few years the Detroit Free Press sports section hasn’t exactly been a bastion of journalistic excellence.  Actually, it has been a huge embarrassment for the once great newspaper.

You’ve had the paper’s legendary columnist write a column about a Michigan State basketball game.  Before it occurred.

Then the paper let a COLUMNIST lead an investigative witch-hunt into a football coach who he didn’t like personally.

This was followed by yet another columnist writing a piece about a no-hitter when he didn’t even watch the damn game.

Not to be outdone, the Freep’s senior baseball writer embarrassed himself last year by putting Raul Ibanez on his AL MVP ballot.

And I haven’t even gotten to the third trimester abortion that comes out of Jeff Seidel’s laptop on a regular basis.

But, the one thing we haven’t been able to pin on any of the Freep sports writers is plagiarism.  Well, maybe, until now.  You be the judge.

So, on Wednesday afternoon before the deciding Game 7 of the Blackhawks/Red Wings series, NHL.com writer Brian Hedger posted an article about the last Western Conference matchup between the two Original 6 teams.

Mitch “Condescending Baggins” Albom also decided to come down from his perch atop Mount Superiority and grant us peasants his journalistic brilliance by covering Game 7.   As you might know, Frodo is only a part-time sports columnist these days as his priorities are on his philanthropic efforts in Haiti and writing new morbid novellas for soccer moms and nursing home residents.

Now, keep in mind that Hedger’s piece was posted at 2:34pm and Albom’s theoretically didn’t write his column until AFTER Game 7 was played.  I say theoretically because we know Frodo isn’t exactly adverse to writing about events that have yet to occur.

Here is a quote from Hedger’s article:

The Red Wings and Blackhawks have clawed at each other for 87 years, played the most head-to-head games in League history and are separated by roughly 280 miles. There’s a lot of history recorded, Hall of Fame nominations earned and blood spent between two of the most iconic teams in professional sports.

And here is a snippet from Albom’s article:

No more first or second rounds for the Wings and Hawks. No more clawing through one another to reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

I guess that it could be a coincidence that they both used a form of the word “claw.” Nothing really earth shattering here as long as there aren’t any other coincidences, but …….

Here is another paragraph from the NHL.com writer’s article:

Longtime fans on both sides will see more than just Jonathan Toews and Henrik Zetterberg battling in the faceoff circle on Wednesday night. Seeing the winged wheel and Blackhawks logo, for some, will remind them of classic clashes from the past between guys named Hull and Howe, Mikita and Lindsay, Yzerman and Savard.

And now, a word from our favorite death obsessed Hobbit:

Fight over. With the playing ghosts of Hull and Howe, Mikita and Lindsay, Yzerman and Savard nodding from above, the two teams skated past each other and shook hands, and the rivalry as we’ve known it — and this last entertaining series — was history.

WHOA!!!!! Hull and Howe, Mikita and Lindsay, Yzerman and Savard.  The same exact pairing of player names in the same exact order for two franchises that have been in existence for over 90 years and have dressed thousands of players?!!?!?

That’s not a coincidence unless your name is Lynn Hoppes.

I don’t know if this rises to the level of plagiarism, but it sure is lazy.  You would almost have to believe that Albom copied and pasted Hedger’s article.  I also wonder if the game heading into overtime and deadline issues caused this to occur.

We all know how Albom likes to blame “deadline issues” when crap like this hits the fan.  Just ask Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson.

I have learned that the incompetent gentleman (Freep sports editor Gene Myers) who runs this dysfunctional sports department is aware of these “coincidences” and plans to take no action at all.   The higher-ups at the paper would excuse Albom if it was found out that he killed a hooker and then apologize to their “star columnist” that they didn’t get him a JDate account in time.

Just like when Myers refused to respond to the accusations that Drew Sharp wrote a column about Justin Verlander’s no-hitter when Sharp clearly didn’t watch the game even though I made SEVERAL ATTEMPTS to elicit a response.

The sports section of the Free Press has become a running joke in town and the fact that Albom is even allowed to work part-time as a columnist is ridiculous.

There is no way in holy hell that Albom witnessed three Red Wings games during the regular season yet come playoff time he is a regular Bob McKenzie meets Eric Duhatschek.

Anyway, this is what happens when you send someone who is busy finishing his latest book in which Morrie tells Father Time to have a little more faith because a small town in Michigan is receiving phone calls from the five people you meet in Heaven.

Just the other day, the Chicago Sun-Times fired its entire photographic staff and replaced the actual living and breathing human beings with iPhones.

Maybe it is time the Freep’s publisher shitcans the entire sports department and replaces these morons with Galaxy S4′s.

I am aware a Galaxy S4 can’t chronicle a sports event, but having no sports department at all would actually be an improvement.

The following is a photo array of Detroit Sports Media personalities (both current and former) who have blocked @JeffMossDSR on Twitter.  Cowards, the lot of them.  It would actually be easier to post a gallery of those who have NOT blocked @JeffMossDSR. 

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag.com
@JeffMossDSR
June 5, 2013

It would appear that Detroit’s poor excuse for a “sports station” on the radio has now upped the ante in the ongoing battle to see which media outlet in the Motor City will be the cause of my massive heart attack.

In an attempt to generate more traffic to the station’s atrocious website, CBS Radio this week added Ashley Dunkak to its impressive stable of bloggers which includes chromosome deficient inbreds like Jeff Riger and Eric Thomas.

When Jamie Samuelsen trumpeted the new hire, I jokingly Tweeted out, “Fresh Meat,” not knowing that this woman might be the biggest abomination “The Ticket” has exposed to mankind.

In her first “article” for WXYT’s website, Dunkak picked the subject of the Detroit Lions and head coach Jim Schwartz’s job status in the context of recent Bill Ford’s comments.   Forgetting for the fact how awful this puff piece was when considering the team has won one playoff game in 55 years, this person couldn’t even get simple facts correct.

In Dunkak’s original posting she wrote …

“Even in the context of three straight losing seasons for the Lions, Ford expressed confidence in coach Jim Schwartz and the people with who Schwartz has surrounded himself.”

Three straight losing seasons? THREE STRAIGHT LOSING SEASONS? Like, the Lions haven’t had many winning seasons in the past decade that it is so difficult to categorize.  By my count they have had one.  In 2011.  When they made the FUCKING PLAYOFFS, ya dingbat™ (Jean Stapleton RIP.)

And that was their first postseason berth since the Year 2000.  This is not difficult math like counting Scott Anderson’s chins.

I mean, how do you get that WRONG unless you are a total know nothing? Anyway, I Tweeted out what an abortion she was and within minutes the correction had been made.  Did I get a thank you from her? NOPE, instead I got Bruce Villanch to “block”, John.

And if you think her debut was horrible it was nothing compared to her follow-up article regarding Grant Hill titled, “Did ‘Relentless Competitor’ Grant Hill Leave Pistons A Parting Gift?”

Yes, Grant Hill left a parting gift for the Pistons when he backstabbed the franchise by signing in Orlando.  A big steaming pile of shit.  This dumbshit actually thinks that Grant Hill was trying to HELP the Pistons by leaving.  No, seriously.  Read this …..

Hill left the Pistons in 2000, after six years with the team. He was an unrestricted free agent, so he could have left Detroit with zero reimbursement – no more marquee player, no compensation to go try to find another one. Instead, Hill agreed to a sign-and-trade agreement (reportedly for slightly more money) that allowed the Pistons to acquire Ben Wallace, who was instrumental in the team’s championship a few years later.

Are you a child, Ashley? Or just a fucking simpleton? Grant Hill agreed to a sign-and-trade because it was financially BENEFICIAL to him.  That’s it.  He wasn’t trying to help anyone, but his agent’s pocketbook.

This twat actually had the unmitigated gall to minimize Hill’s financial incentive by labeling it “slightly more money.”  Oh, really? Read this from a July 5, 2000 report regarding the difference in salary:

The Magic are offering Hill and free agent forward Tim Duncan six-year deals worth $67.5 million, the most allowed under the collective bargaining agreement. They can get seven-year, $86.5 million contracts if the Magic and their current teams agree to sign-and-trade proposals.

$19 million guaranteed difference? Well, what’s $19 million between friends? Oh, do you think that extra season and $19 million difference was a little HUGE due to Hill’s subsequent injury issues?!?!?!?!

(Editor’s Note: After this article was originally posted, fellow DSR correspondent Justin Spiro made an excellent point.  Not only was there a $19 million difference in salary, Hill didn’t have to pay a state income tax in Florida.  He obviously would have in Michigan.)

SLIGHTLY MORE MONEY?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

And does this partial birth abortion believe that Ben Wallace was a superstar in 2000? When Big Ben averaged 4.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game? Hell, Joe Dumars didn’t even want Wallace, he wanted John Amaechi for Christ’s sake.

This type of revisionist history makes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claims that the Holocaust didn’t occur look tame.

But, what can you expect from Dunkak? This is a person who titled her blog, “The Fabulous Sports Babe.” Like, are you that oblivious to the world that you weren’t aware there was someone already named the “Fabulous Sports Babe?????”

In unrelated news, I am changing the name of the DSR to “The Boston Sports Guy.”  That’s available, right?

And I love her sources for the article.  Terry Foster and former NBA scrub Steve Henson.  She interviewed idiot Foster because he is now a co-worker.

Henson? He went to Kansas State.  The same college that Dunkak attended.  How fucking lazy.

That would be like me getting quotes from my wife Melissa and dog Chili for this article.

“Do you really have to call her a twat in this column?,” said Melissa Moss.

And if she actually interviewed Dumars for this piece, why didn’t she ask Joe D. if Hill was trying to HELP the Pistons by leaving him high-and-dry.  If he was assisting Dumars why didn’t Hill answer Joe’s phone calls to see what was up? If Hill was being magnanimous, why did it take a chance meeting with Bob Wojnowski on a plane ride back from Orlando for the story to come out that Hill was jetting Auburn Hills?

I can’t believe I am even having this discussion 13 years later.

So who gave us this latest 97.1 gift? Based on Twitter, it would appear that Dunkak was hired by Christy Strawser, the digital content director of CBS Radio.

So Christy, what are the rest of your plans for Gotham now that you have fiendishly given this ignoramus a platform?

Some digital content directors aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some digital content directors just want to watch the world burn.

Of course, there is another theory being promoted by DSR co-founder Gregg Schultz regarding this latest WXYT travesty.

He doesn’t think there is an actual Ashley Dunkak.  He thinks it is a creation of the people at 97.1 to put the final nail in my coffin.   Invent a fake persona to write an article a day until Moss’s heart implodes.

We will know within days if “Dunkak” writes an article wishing AIDS on Barry Sanders and Sergei Fedorov or pens a piece calling William Clay Ford, Sr. one of the best owners in professional sports history.

I’ve said it before and I will say it again …….

(You can follow Jeff Moss on Twitter at @JeffMossDSR.  Join the discussion on Facebook at here.)  

By DSR Staff
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
June 7, 2013

In our continued celebration of the 10th anniversary of the DetroitSportsRag.com, we have decided to release some emails from media members who have become the site’s sworn enemies in the past decade.

And one of our favorite targets is the buffoonish Detroit News writer and 97.1 radio host Terry Foster.

Back when the DSR first came into existence, Foster attempted to ingratiate himself with DSR co-founders Gregg Schultz and Jeff Moss.

As we pointed out last week, Foster was on the outs at the News and his radio career was in the toilet.  So, the future failed candyman and Homeless Man’s Bobby Flay attempted to join forces with the DSR.   Going as far as trying to coerce Schultz and Moss into creating a sports version of the Metro Times for Detroit.

Here are some of the emails Foster sent to the DSR with a few of our comments sprinkled in.

We didn’t know it at the time, but it would turn out that the only reason Foster wanted to do a story on the DSR was so he could make some money of the venture.

I am quitting WXYT today and going back to The Fan. The bottom line is Gregg Henson quit using me on the air and I want to do radio, not sit on the bench. He believes Mark Spindler is better on the air and can serve the station better. So I was odd man out.

Notice that when Moss forwarded this particular email to Schultz, he gave it the subject, “come on, why is he telling me all of this?”

The information was totally unsolicited.  And while the DSR hasn’t agreed with Gregg Henson on much, 3-G had Foster’s radio talents pegged.   Like, if someone told you that Marc Spindler was more valuable than you at radio, wouldn’t you have killed yourself?

But I still love your web sight and want to ask a few questions why you started it and all that jazz.

Web sight? This guy is a journalist? Makes money with the written word.  Web sight.  Unreal.  Terry do ya still love the “web sight?”

No problem. I hope it helps people find your sight.

There he goes again with “sight.”  What a fucking dummy.

This was also the first email from Foster where his insidious plan to get $100 to $150 an article out of the DSR fermented.

Keep in mind that Foster did write one article for the DSR, took the money and then never gave it back when the News predictably told him he couldn’t moonlight for us and the column had to be taken down posthaste.

You have to give it to the guy, he is quite a hustler.  I am sure his Smokehouse investors will soon discover that going into business with Terry Foster is about as smart as investing money with Bernie Madoff.

I did receive some feed back. Some guy emailed me and said you have a bad reputation on some Lions web sight. He said he did not like you. But none of the other journalists said anything negative. I think they like the fact you rip on Parker. He and Sharp are not well respected in our community.

This passage was great.  Rob Parker and Drew Sharp aren’t well respected in the journalistic community.  While Terry Foster is considered a regular Grantland Rice?

Now, keep in mind that the above email was sent to us in 2003.  In 2006, Sharp and Foster teamed up to write a book called “The Great Detroit Sports Debates.”

Like, Foster decided to co-author a book just THREE YEARS later with a guy he didn’t respect?!?!?!?!  This continued a long history of Foster trying to make a buck in any possible fashion.   Absolutely incredible.

Anyway, those are all of the emails we have for you today.

Continue to monitor the DSR for future drives down memory lane.

Boombaye!!!!

Take a look at the above video and ask yourself why everyone is congratulating Jose Valverde except for Jhonny Peralta?

And this isn’t the first time they have completely ignored each other after a victory. It has occurred multiple times this year already.  So why the hell are these dudes acting like Ricky Vaughn and Roger Dorn in the first Major League movie?

Is Valverde working with MLB on the Biogenesis case?

Does Peralta have a weak stomach and can’t handle the rollercoaster ride that is Jose Valverde?

Did Valverde dip his two-tone goatee in Molly Peralta’s nether regions?

Inquiring minds want to know. Which is why none of the eunuchs who cover the Tigers will ask these two dudes why they hate each other.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
June 12, 2013

We have known for years that Detroit News columnist Lynn Henning is missing a few screws.

The lunatic has demonstrated for decades that his memory makes some Alzheimer’s patients look like Marilu Henner’s.

It is almost like the guy forgets what he posted the minute it gets published in the paper.  The most famous incident occurred when he wrote in 2005 that the Tigers were five-to-ten years away from competing in the AMERICAN LEAGUE CENTRAL.

And then a year later when the team was playing in the WORLD SERIES acted like he never said such a thing.

But this latest 180 takes the cake.  In less than two weeks, Henning has gone from the extreme that Jose Valverde is the elixir for the Tigers bullpen woes to the closer being completely unusable.

I can’t do Henning’s rapid about-face justice, so I will let Lynn tell you in his own words.

Lynn Henning: May 29, 2013

Because of Valverde’s knack for handling the toughest inning in baseball, the ninth, Tigers manager Jim Leyland now has a bullpen that is more functional, more efficient, more trustworthy. He can use his relievers in situations for which they are better suited when Valverde owns the ninth.

Lynn Henning: June 12, 2013

The Tigers have a certified bullpen crisis that is hardly confined to Valverde. They have had back-end issues since Octavio Dotel went down with a bad elbow, which was compounded when Brayan Villarreal and Al Alburquerque could no longer find the strike zone.

Lynn Henning: May 29, 2013

The skipper appreciated something else about Valverde. That he, in the tradition of baseball’s best closers, could forget about a bad game. A closer must have this ability to blank out yesterday’s events and to begin anew.

Valverde still has it.

Lynn Henning: June 12, 2013

The Tigers are low on options, which is why Valverde was allowed to continue even as he began to resemble last October’s arsonist, a beleaguered pitcher who finally was relieved of his closer duties following conflagrations in playoff games against the A’s and Yankees.

Lynn Henning: May 29, 2013

Slumber comes easily these days for Valverde. Peace of mind more regularly visits the Tigers, as well. Each party, as it turned out, needed the other. And both, for now, are prospering.

It is why he (Valverde) can close games with such flair and with such amazing consistency.

Lynn Henning: June 12, 2013

Valverde likely has vanished, for now, as a pitcher the Tigers can deploy.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 3, 2013

Whenever I return from a hiatus after not writing main page columns for a long period of time my biggest worry is that I won’t have enough material to maintain regular article updates.

But my most recent triumphant reemergence has been met with such an avalanche of topic ideas for columns that the Tigers have blown a five-game AL Central lead in about ten days and I haven’t even had time to write about it because all of the other crap going down.

Not that I have any earth shattering ideas to add about our constantly underachieving baseball franchise.

I believe Jim Leyland should be fired.  Of course, I always believe Jim Leyland should be axed.  During a winning streak? Yes.  During a losing streak? Yes.  On Christmas Eve? Yes.

I could write a 1,500 word article explaining how Dave Dombrowski miscalculated his bullpen needs during the offseason and even worse made the asinine decision to let Old Relic Jim “gut” his way through a bullpen-by-committee.   Which has gone about as well as a Rod Allen appearance on “Jeopardy.”

I could wrap up any Tigers related column with the suggestion that Dombrowski either attempt something radical like packaging Nick Castellanos, Avisail Garcia, Bruce Rondon and this year’s first round pick Jonathon Crawford (as a Player to be Named Later) in a Giancarlo Stanton blockbuster or call up the Cuban/Greek from Toledo immediately to bat behind Prince Fielder in this dysfunctional lineup.

But I don’t feel like writing that article so instead here is a rambling Red Wings piece that goes off the rails at some point and becomes about Patrick Leyland.

Hey, Ken Holland …. Fuck Off

I am not sure if the Chicago Blackhawks have decided to give Ken Holland a playoff share or not as the Wings GM’s inactivity at the trade deadline and during last summer’s free-agency period helped propel the Hawks to their second Stanley Cup this decade, but Doctor Doolittle was back at it over the weekend.

The NHL Draft was held on Sunday and there were rampant rumors that defenseman like Alex Edler of the Canucks and Keith Yandle of the Seattle Grande Caffe Mochas were available, but of course Holland only did his due diligence and kicked some more tires.

For a moment Sunday afternoon it appeared that the Wings GM actually made a sweetheart of a deal for himself as he sent the Wings 18th overall pick to San Jose for the Sharks 20th overall section and their 58th pick.

To move back just two slots Holland received a highly valuable second round selection in a deep draft.  Hell, Bill Belichick popped half a chubber when he heard of this deal.

And then …. Holland went Kenny Holland on us.

With the 20th pick in the first round the Wings selected Anthony Mantha out of Val d’Or of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League.   Here is the USA Today’s synopsis of the big left-wingers:

Absolutely lethal on the PP and has excellent instincts in the offensive zone. Uses his wide body to gain and hold position around the slot and angle defenders away from the puck. Quite agile and light on his feet for a big man. Outstanding shooter with super soft hands. But honestly, does this guy even have a pulse? Plays with absolutely zero fire or passion.

Wow.  I don’t want to say the similarities to a current Red Wings player are striking, but do Mantha’s Foreurs teammates call him “The Mule?”

Does this guy even have a pulse? Plays with absolutely zero fire or passion.   

That isn’t exactly the type of scouting report redneck, Downriver Red Wing fan wants to read regarding a guy who probably won’t make it to Detroit until the third year that Motor City Casino Arena located at I-75 and Woodward Avenue is the team’s new home venue.

You do have to love Mantha’s sense of humor though.  He suggested at the draft that he planned on making the Wings roster THIS SEASON.  Hahahahahhaa.  Oh boy.  That’s precious.  I mean, does this guy know WHO drafted him?

There is a better chance of Carly Simon telling Edward Snowden and Julian Assange who “You’re So Vain” was written about than this 18-year old kid cracking Detroit’s roster in three months.

The one good thing going for this dude is he has about seven years to find his pulse, fire and passion because he can ask Tomas Tatar’s options about Mantha’s ETA in the Motor City.

And while I didn’t absolutely hate the Mantha Fodder selection since he actually was predicted to go at least five picks higher than when he did, the team’s #58 selection was outright baffling and infuriating.

In Olympia Entertainment’s continued plan to corner the market on every single family member of the Tigers and Wings organization from Brett Impemba to Ben Verlander, Holland and Company selected Tyler Bertuzzi with the other pick they acquired from the Sharks.

Yep.  Todd’s nephew.  With the #58 pick in the ENTIRE draft.  Not the 58th round.  The 58th pick.  Now, why is that shocking?

Because the NHL’s Central Scouting Bureau had ranked Tyler #207 among ONLY North American prospects.  2-0-7.  And that doesn’t include all of the Europeans who were draft eligible.  Two.  Hundred.  And.  Seven.

If you aren’t familiar with the NHL’s Central Scouting program, here is the description of it from Wikipedia:

The NHL Central Scouting Bureau or NHL Central Scouting Services (CSS) is a department within the National Hockey League that ranks prospects for the NHL Entry Draft at specific times during the hockey season. Players are ranked based on how well they will translate to the professional game in theNational Hockey League.

I mean, if Holland was so fucking desperate to select Tyler Bertuzzi, he most likely could have acquired him in the fifth or sixth round.  At the earliest.  Instead, he threw away a second round pick in a draft knee-deep in talent.

This pick made Kory Kocur throw up in his mouth.  Oh.  You don’t remember Kory Kocur? He was the Wings first round selection in 1988 and the cousin of Joey Kocur.

Here are the career stats for Kory Kocur:

Notice anything funny about those numbers? Oh yeah. Kory Kocur never played one god damn minute in the NHL.  And he was picked 18th overall.

When will the Ilitch owned teams learn their lesson? Couldn’t Dave Dombrowski have called Holland Sunday morning and shared Patrick Leyland’s career minor league numbers as a cautionary tale.

And it’s not like Son of Cancer Stick was some gimmick selection like Rod Allen’s kid (Andrew) or Al Kaline’s grandson (Colin.)

They thought he could actually play.

I mean, have you seen the Tigers manager’s son’s Single-A stats? Oh, you haven’t …..

Those aren’t just epically awful stats.  They are “I need to retire and open up a Magic Underwear Store with Cale Iorg horrid numbers.”

Let me put this in perspective for you.  Patrick Leyland is in his FOURTH season in professional baseball.  And he was so awful in Lakeland (high Single-A) that he got DEMOTED to the New York-Penn League.  A level he was supposed to graduate from in 2011!!!!!

Do you know who plays in the New York-Penn League? The prospects who were drafted just THREE WEEKS AGO!!!!!!!! It is the equivalent of flunking 11th grade and doing so poorly that they send ya all the way back to 9th grade.

This humungous bust has an OPS of .349 playing with guys just out of high school.  Two extra base hits in 134 at-bats? Patrick Leyland makes Neifi Perez look like Roy Hobbs.

Like, if you aren’t the son of your organization’s big league manager, when you have a .349 OPS in the NEW YORK-PENN LEAGUE they tell you to start pondering the used car business.

On the bright side, maybe Patrick will run into Freddie Prinze, Jr. and Jessica Biel and have some fun times in Norwich, Connecticut.   I just hope if he does, Freddie doesn’t mention how his old man went out.  Wouldn’t want to give a guy with a sub .400 OPS any ideas.

Anyway, back to the Wings draft for a moment.  The Wings went another season under Holland’s management without taking a Russian born player.

Since 2002, Detroit has selected a grand total of TWO Russians in the draft.  One in the seventh round and one in the eighth.   A franchise that if it weren’t for Russian born talent would be going on a Stanley Cup drought of 58 years has made no effort at all to find the next Fedorov, Kozlov or Konstantinov.

Why? Because Ken Holland is more terrified that the NHL and KHL do not have a player transfer agreement than Jimmy Devellano was about the Iron Curtain.

Did you see how long it took former Assistant GM Jim Nill to select a Russian after becoming the head man in Dallas? About as quick as you can say Valeri Nichushkin.  Obviously Nill has a pair of testicles unlike his former boss and selected the left winger with the tenth pick overall.

Holland refuses to draft Russians, hasn’t made a blockbuster trade in 4,384 days (Slava Kozlov for Dominik Hasek) and as I am typing this he plans only to use a compliance buyout on Carlo Colaiacovo and not the corpses of Todd Bertuzzi or Mikael Samuelsson.

They are keeping Bertuzzi I can only imagine to make Tyler feel at home and they are terrified that if they attempt to buy Samuelsson out that he will claim he is injured and will fight it.

And honestly, if an arbitrator has to decide whether or not Samuelsson is injured and therefore can’t be bought-out, well, I wouldn’t want to be the Red Wings lawyer arguing that the guy is healthy since HE NEVER IS FUCKING HEALTHY!!!

Can you imagine the NHLPA representative fighting that battle? Your Honor, here is a list of my client’s injury history.  Please don’t hurt your back lifting that brief.

YOUR WITNESS.

So, here we are on the verge of NHL free-agency again and I can’t wait for the 2013 version of Tootoo, Samuelsson, Colaiacovo and Gustavsson.

Ohhhh, I am sure that Ken Holland will be kicking a lot of tires before doing absolutely nothing impactful.

Hey, Ken …. here is a tire that you can kick ……..

Hopefully it will fall on you in the process.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 4, 2013

I have long maintained that there isn’t a dumber guy in the Detroit Sports Media world than Terry Foster.   If you need any proof of that you can peruse his Twitter account or notice the misspelling on his grammatically challenged blogposts when he doesn’t have an editor to modify phrases like “gorilla warfare.”

Not only is Foster a complete dullard he isn’t bright enough to remember the statements he has made in the past.  I am not sure if this is due to early onset dementia or if he just doesn’t have the brain functionality to keep up with his own stupidity.  Or maybe, just maybe he is both dense and a complete hypocrite.

Thanks to the contributions of DSR correspondent Jum Pete (@JFunk2800) we have unearthed some shocking contradictions on the T-Fos’s blogsite regarding the 97.1 personality’s new restaurant.

Here are some quotes from Foster’s blog dated September 25, 2011.

If I get bad service or bad food I place a restaurant on my banned list. I never go there again.

Hogans in Birmingham is on my banned list because they served me chicken with gravy and said it was chicken marsala and would only give me a second entree if I paid for it. Jim Brady’s on Southfield is on my banned list because I ordered a steak medium well and it came medium rare. I asked for it to be cooked more and they stuck it in the microwave.

Banned.

It would appear from those quotes that Kim Jong Foster doesn’t have a lot of tolerance for poor food service.  Well, at least that was his point of view until some businessmen tricked him into thinking he had a financial interest in a dining establishment in an effort to bypass WXYT-FM’s advertising rates.

(By the way, did you notice that this imbecile spelled nachos, “natchos?” I mean ….)

Here is a quote from “The Truth” after the News writer visited Foster’s Smokehouse for the first time over the weekend.

We must improve on the speed of the food. This is part of the growing process and the managers are working on (it)…Some orders have come out cold and I apologize for that…We are a work in progress but I love the start we have had.  We lost business because the pizza oven broke down. It is back up and running churning out pizzas.

The dude(s) bankrolling this joint can only hope their patrons are a little more understanding than Emperor Foster.

Seriously though, can you imagine writing on your blog that you have no tolerance for poor food service and that you will ban any establishment that doesn’t meet your diva standards and THEN later admit the place with your NAME ON IT is a work in progress that features cold meal, slow waitstaff and a broken pizza oven?

But there is more to Foster’s incredible hypocrisy.

The following few paragraphs are from Foster’s blog of June 9, 2011:

I’ve seen tables of parents drinking beer while their kids roam the bar playing video games and begging for coins to put in a juke box. I’ve seen children sit at the bar playing video games which I thought was against the rules.

It just does not seem right.

I know I would not do that with my kids. Little B and I have had dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings, Harry’s downtown and at Rosie O’Grady’s. But it is usually in the day and we clear out by 8 or 9 to go home. I cannot imagine going to a bar, getting plastered while my kid is at the table or horsing around, and then driving home at 11 to sleep it off.

There are certain places kids do not belong. I was shocked about six months ago to not only see a five year old walking around a bar but she went behind the bar to see what was going on. The parents did not move. They were too busy getting hammered.

So, I’d say that Foster is pretty adamant that kids and sports bars aren’t a good mix, right? And someone who wrote a blogpost about the importance of keeping children out of these sorts of establishments would NEVER flipflop on this issue, right?

Well, this is Foster’s post from June 26th of this year:

(Foster’s Smokehouse) is also a sports bar. If you want to grab a burger and brew you can also do that too. It is a family restaurant and it is also a place where you can hang and chill or get loud during games.

And then this from July 1st:

What people have not discovered is that we are also a sports bar. We plan on some drink specials once all of our beers are pouring and all our alcohol is in place. How about $2 shots every time the Tigers hit a home run?

I mean, is this guy for real? Yeah, we’re a FAMILY establishment, but if Cabrera, Fielder and V-Mart go back-to-back-to-back, let’s all get fucked up on cheap shots while the kids play Donkey Kong in the game room!!!!!

The Joe Camel cartoon is embarrassed about this complete 180 from a man who has no moral boundaries whatsoever once the smell of fresh money is in the air.

There is no bigger opportunist in the city than this fuckstick.  It is why he attempted to latch on to the DSR years ago.  Why he left people in the lurch when his candy shop went under.  And why his fellow media brethren are mocking him about his latest get-rich-quick scheme behind his back.

Anyway, we should have some fun with Foster’s Smokehouse while we still can so I am going to run a contest on here.

We are going to try to guess the exact date that Foster’s Smokehouse will go out of business.  The closest entry will win two excellent seats to a Tigers or Lions game depending on the season this joint goes belly up.

All you have to do is email me at DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com with the subject heading of “Foster Smokehouse Contest.”  Give me a date (make sure you include a year) that you think this place will follow Foster’s candy store into oblivion.

If there is a change in name and “Foster’s” is removed from the entity, we will consider that the same as the place folding for the purpose of the contest.

There is no fee for entering, but each person is limited to just one entry.  All you have to do is give me the date you think the place will close and your full name.

The contest will close on Friday July 5th at 11:59pm EST.

Good luck!

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 6, 2013

All of the entries for the Foster’s Smokehouse Contest are now in and I have compiled a spreadsheet to follow all of the action.

In case you missed it, the DSR is sponsoring a free-roll for either Tigers or Lions tickets.  All you had to do was predict the date Terry Foster’s new restaurant venture (which he has absolutely none of his own money invested) will either go out of business or take “Foster’s” out of the name.

So we received a nice amount of feedback and I have compiled the entrants with their prediction date.  I have purposely left out last names to protect you people from spittle in your food if you happen to attend the Smokehouse.

There were plenty of duplicate prediction dates from the DSR readers.  As a matter of fact, if this joint goes kaplooey on November 15, 2013, I am going to take a bath on Lions tickets.  I wouldn’t be shocked if Foster’s business partners purposely close it on that date just to fuck me.

Approximately half of the entrants do not believe the BBQ joint will make it until the Winter Classic game between the Wings and Leafs.  The most popular  guess for which month Foster’s will go belly-up is November of this year.

Chad M. predicted the Smokehouse will close in the year 2078 when I will be 106 years old.  Good luck on collecting your tickets if you are right, Chad.

The winner(s) will be determined by the closest date to the actual shutdown of the bar in Fraser.  We aren’t playing by “Price is Right” rules even though you should get your pet spayed or neutered.

Good luck everyone and let’s just hope that this doesn’t occur on November 15th.  I would be physically ill if I had to give that kind of cash to Fredo Ford, Sr.

Stay tuned to the DSR for all of your Foster’s Smokehouse info ……..

By DSR Staff
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 11, 2013

We are going to post this Yelp! review from a supposed contractor who did work on Foster’s Smokehouse without comment.

Don’t waste your hard earned money at this place!!!

I am a contractor who worked on the on the remodel of this place ( if you can even call it that) Both owners refuse to pay their bill for the work that was completed.

The owner was all over the place, Not prepared and couldn’t make up his mind on any decisions. The work I was to complete should have been done in 1 day, The owner Ryan dragged it out over a 3 month period then called me the day before their opening and expected me to jump for him. Well I did jump, Completed the work and still have not been paid. The day i went to the restaurant for final payment the owner Ryan threatened to take me out back and “Beat my ASS” then grabbed me by the neck and pushed me out the front door.  This guy is very unstable, Seemed to me like he was on Drugs or something.

For the 3 months I was involved with the place I never saw Terry Foster onsite, From what I could tell he didn’t have much to do with getting this place going. Seemed to me that he was just lending his name. I also contacted Mr. Foster to try to get this cleared up and he was unwilling to do anything.

-An Unpaid Contracor

It would appear the contractor works for Metro Cinematics in Warren, Michigan.  We are currently attempting to get in contact with this person for more information.

[UPDATED at 6:45 pm on July 11, 2013]

The DSR has been in contact with Jeremy of Metro Cinematics for his side of the story.  Jeremy is the owner of the company that Foster’s Smokehouse brought in to mount the televisions at the new establishment.

This is what we have been told by Jeremy.  The DSR would contact Foster’s Smokehouse for comment, but their phone is disconnected.

@TerryFoster971 I called your restaurant the other day and it said it was disconnected. ????

— Vincent Ellis (@Vincent_Ellis56) July 8, 2013

• Jeremy took this job because he is a fan of 97.1 “The Ticket.”  He enjoys Terry Foster’s radio program so he figured he would assist the new bar/restaurant by doing this work for basically his cost.
• According to Jeremy, he had a deal to install 10 HDTV’s for a cost of $1,800.  He was given a $1,000 deposit.  At some point the final invoice for the 10 TVs was reduced to $1,678.  At this time, Jeremy is owed $678 by Foster’s Smokehouse.
• Jeremy claims that he actually installed 11 TVs.
• At some point, “Ryan” asked for more TVs to be installed.  Jeremy said he needed his $678 that he was already owed before he could do any other work at Foster’s.
• Jeremy states that this should have been a one day job, but it took much longer than that because of the incompetence of the management at Foster’s.  According to Jeremy, all the delays were on the Smokehouse’s end.  Jeremy insinuated that the management at the restaurant was clueless.  This story is consistent with what we are being told by patrons of the restaurant including one gentleman who has 20 years in the food service business who actually is friendly with Foster.
• On June 21, 2013, Jeremy went to the bar to get the money he was owed.  According to his version of the story, he was told by Ryan that if he didn’t leave immediately that he was going to go outside with Jeremy and ‘beat his ass.’  According to Jeremy, Ryan then grabbed him by his neck and threw him out of the bar.  There is a Police Report floating around out there which we intend to obtain on Friday July 12th.  We will immediately post this Police Report upon receipt.
• According to Jeremy, this SMOKEhouse doesn’t have an actual SMOKER.  At least not the day before they opened.

Anyway, here are the text messages between Jeremy and Ryan.

And here is how things went for Jeremy when he attempted to contact Terry Foster about this mess …..

Man, what we wouldn’t pay for Judge Judy to get this case in front of her.

[UPDATED at 10:45 am on July 12, 2013]

Moss spoke to Jeremy this morning and Jeremy wanted to make one thing perfectly clear.  It was not Jeremy’s idea to leave the HDMI cables exposed.  That was the brilliant idea of Foster’s Smokehouse management who planned on hiding the ugly looking wires with hockey sticks and other sports memorabilia.

Jeremy attempted to talk the restaurant idiots out of this horrible plan to no avail.

Moss also states that he would highly recommend Jeremy’s work based on other jobs that Moss has seen Jeremy do firsthand.  The guy knows what he is doing and is a professional with years of experience in starting restaurants and bars.

You can contact Jeremy with this sort of AV work at (586) 201-2522.  This is the link for his website.   

Stay tuned for further details ……

DSR Staff
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 12, 2013

Based on a request from exiled DetroitSportsRag Elite member Michael “That HeathBlizzGuy” Bochenek, we have filmed a “commercial” for Terry Foster’s new restaurant in Fraser.

Luckily (or unluckily) Moss didn’t get choked out by the huge pig owner of this joint when filming this promo.

Profits, Foster? If there were any, I am guessing that Ryan guy is going to put them in his belly.

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 12, 2013

The DSR has learned (through Gregg Henson of GreggHenson.com) that Matt Dery has left 97.1.  Dery served as executive producer of the Valenti & Foster program and Detroit Pistons studio host.

Dery joined WXYT-FM in 2009 after 12 years at WDFN-1130.  In addition to Pistons pre and post game show work and his update duties at 97.1, Dery also worked the 2012 Lions season as the station’s pregame anchor.

Speculation is rampant that Dery already has another gig in town.  The most likely rumor has Dery replacing Ryan Field at Fox Sports Detroit.  Field recently left FSD for Los Angeles where he will work at the new Rupert Murdoch rival to ESPN, Fox Sports 1.

Another possibility is a gig at whatever FM station turns sports and brings Drew Lane along board.

An iMessage to Matt Dery inquiring about his status was still unanswered as of this writing.

To be continued ……

By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
July 13, 2013

When news broke on Friday afternoon that Matt Dery and 97.1 “The Ticket” had parted ways, it was widely assumed that it was Dery who was exiting 1270-FM for greener pastures and an already in place new gig.

Based on information the DSR has learned this afternoon that does not appear to be the case.  According to sources at “The Ticket”, Dery was basically forced out by management as they questioned what “The Diesel” brought to the table.

It appears that WXYT program director Jimmy Powers only offered Dery a one-year contract in the hope that the executive producer of  ”Valenti and Foster” would turn it down.

According to one source, Powers felt that Dery was undermining him behind his back and was happy to see the Pistons pre and post game host walk.   The source commented that Powers felt that Dery was very negative and duplicitous.   (I wonder what Dery said behind Powers’ back? I hope it was something like, what kind of grown man goes by the name “Jimmy.”)

The source went onto say that people inside the CBS Radio building didn’t feel Dery was pulling his weight and often had other people doing his work for him.  Because of this alleged behavior, his derisive nickname around the compound was “Tom Sawyer.”

(I haven’t read “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” since about the third grade and have pretty much forgotten the entire story, but I am guessing that isn’t a flattering reset.)

So it appears that Dery’s agent Mort Meisner has some work to do.  With Ryan Field leaving Fox Sports Detroit for Fox Sports 1 in Los Angeles you would think there would be a fit for Dery to do some Pistons work for the team’s television broadcast partner.

And we are just weeks away from Greater Media launching an FM sports talk station and Dery has 16 years experience in the business.

(Although if Drew Lane knew how Dery felt about his good friend Tom Kowalski, I doubt that the cornerstone of that new endeavor would welcome Dery with open arms.)

At this time it would appear the only job Dery currently has is hosting the rebooted version of “Bowling for Dollars” on WADL (Channel 38.)

And that isn’t going to pay the bills.