By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
March 25, 2014
It might not be as bad as Mitch Albom’s fictitious Michigan State basketball column from years back in the Freep, but Lynn Henning came perilously close to that transgression earlier today in the Detroit News.
In an article about the Tigers’ Monday acquisition of Alex Gonzalez in exchange for Steve Lombardozzi, Henning repeatedly mentioned that Gonzalez was picked up from St. Louis.
The only problem is that the Gonzalez trade was consummated with the BALTIMORE ORIOLES.
I guess that could be considered a simple mistake if Henning only mentioned in PASSING that Gonzalez was formerly on the Orioles …… but that’s not the case.
Henning wrote the following:
You are 37 years old and the general manager wants to speak with you. This can imply various scenarios, including sports’ most dreaded word — cut — which might have run through Alex Gonzalez’s brain as he prepared Monday morning to talk with John Mozeliak, the Cardinals general manager.
This conversation could never have occurred because the GM of the Orioles is a fellow named Dan Duquette. It would really be weird if Mozeliak told A-Gon that he’d been traded since … ya know ….. he has ZERO association with the washed-up infielder.
It gets worse though. Henning continued with this St. Louis narrative again a couple of paragraphs later:
Jose Iglesias last week was officially shelved for months because of stress fractures in both legs. Gonzalez, working at Cardinals camp in Sarasota, Fla., 90 minutes from Lakeland, was aware of a Tigers injury bombshell.
Ummm, the Orioles Spring Training home is in Sarasota. He actually did get that right. But the Cardinals play their exhibition games in Jupiter. Ok, now Lynn has me totally confused. Does Jhonny Peralta now play for the Cards or the Orioles. All of these birds are really complicating things.
Usually I bag on Henning for his awful opinions (the Tigers were 5-to-10 years away from competing for the AL Central in 2005) or his fawning over Dave Dombrowski (the GM has the movie star looks of Cary Grant) but I don’t think this site has ever caught him making shit up.
Until now. Lynn Henning actually wrote an article stating Alex Gonzalez was advised of the Tigers trade by the GM of the Cardinals when that obviously did not occur. This article makes Lynn’s proclamation that the Minnesota Twins signing Joel Zumaya was the steal of the 2012 offseason look sane.
The only thing this story didn’t have was Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson helping Gonzalez pack up his belongings and moving them to Lakeland.
Does anybody EDIT this stuff???
Here are the screen grabs since the News will eventually fix this egregious error. You would think.
