By DSR Staff
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
January 7, 2014

[Editor’s Note: After a one-year hiatus, the DSR has revived our year-end awards given out to the Detroit Media. Instead of one long article presenting all of the recipients at once, we will be rolling these out over the next few days. And yes, the Raggie Trophy is a Detroit snow globe, a “Made in Detroit” coffee cozy and one of Moss’s wife’s unused tampons.]

Worst Detroit Sports Columnist

Jeff Seidel — Detroit Free Press

There were four candidates for this category and like almost all of the “Worst” Raggies in 2013, this was another slobberknocker.

The four possibilities all had their cons upon cons, but at some point the committee had to make a decision. Here was the thought process of the DSR Elite when contemplating this year-end honor.

Let’s start with Drew Sharp, who would probably relish winning an award like this. Yes, Sharp is an imbecile. And yes, Not the Sharpest Drew has horrible takes (nobody is better suited to manage the Tigers than Jim Leyland). And yes, Sharp is a monorail salesman™ (Richard Deitsch) in the Skip Bayless vein.

But giving this balding dope a Raggie is no different than booing Triple H for screwing Daniel Bryan out of another title shot against the Apex Predator, Randy Orton.

So, in the end, the committee had to say “No! No! No!” to Sharp receiving ‘Worst Columnist” recognition.

Then you have the curious case of Bob Wojnowski, who in 2011 was an “Honorable Mention” for BEST Print Journalist.

Now, placing Wojo in the same group as Albom, Seidel and Sharp is almost cruel and unusual punishment, but we do have our reasoning. There isn’t anyone in the Detroit media market who is more intelligent than Wojo,which is why his continual mail-it-in approach warrants his inclusion.

Instead of utilizing his column to critique the Detroit sports teams and their mostly lousy management, Wojo decided long ago to make ZERO waves and instead write lame and tame pieces that NEVER move the needle.

The worst part about Wojnowski’s approach is that it is cowardly. Wojo isn’t some young reporter trying to scratch out a living. Dude has made a boatload of money between his News gig, all of the cash he earned at WDFN over the years and the money he is paid by CBS Radio just so he can’t move to 105.1.

Seriously, the guy is receiving a substantial check from 97.1 to work approximately 5.5 hours a week just in case Greater Media was going to launch an FM sports station.

Wojo never got married. He doesn’t have 74 kids to feed like John Niyo and he probably has made enough dough to live off of until he is Yoda’s age.

THAT’S the guy who has decided to play it safe and just skate through his career with as little controversy as possible. All we get from Bob these days is an endless stream of bland opinion pieces along withTwitter “flirting” with News cohort Angelique Chengelis.

And while Wojo is easily the most disappointing columnist in town due to his refusal to call a spade a spade, we still couldn’t pull the trigger and give him this Raggie.

So, we were then down to the other two Freep columnists — who are atrocious in their own unique ways.

Frodo Albom is awful in so many ways that they are hard to quantify at this point. For a douche bag who thinks he is superior to, and more of an intellectual than his mouth-breathing colleagues who ONLY cover dumb jocks for a living — and who don’t write death-inspired novellas and save the Haitians with Sean Penn — Condescending Baggins spends a lot of time being anti-logic.

Forget for a moment his absolute obsession with God and heaven and other fairy tales that most people with his supposed intellect and education reject as hocus pocus. Let’s give the Keebler Elf the benefit of the doubt that he is merely exploiting the naive and foolish with his best-selling books for financial gain and he doesn’t ACTUALLY believe in all of that voodoo.

How about Albom’s total rejection of math when it comes to advanced metrics in sports? This supposed scholar sounds like the average white-trash dummy bellied up to a bar drinking Miller Lites whenever he writes about sabermetrics.

And when this moron — who has an MBA from COLUMBIA’S BUSINESS SCHOOL — isn’t downplaying MATH, he is ripping on baristas and raging against technology in his columns.

Unfortunately, the committee decided that Condescending Baggins’ new book about phone calls from …. wait for it …… HEAVEN and his Freepcolumns warning about the evils of Apple products and twerking weren’t to be considered when deliberating this Raggie.

So, even though Albom’s sports columns were horrible in 2013, and he might have plagiarized, there weren’t enough of them for Frodo to get the nod over Seidel.

Which brings us to the “Poor Man’s Michael Rosenberg” and the recipient of this Raggie.

When RosenNebbish decided to take his lack of talent to Sports Illustrated in 2012, we figured that his replacement couldn’t be any worse. Like, RosenDork was sooooo bad that he won the inaugural “DSR Worst Detroit Sports Media Personality” tournament.

Yet, if you take away RosenDweeb’s horrifically biased and meaningless expose on Rich Rodriguez’s practices, Seidel is every bit as awful as RosenGeek.

Hell, RosenTool might actually be funnier than Seidel. Can you imagine? Rosenberg is probably the unfunniest person on the planet, yet the Freep managed to replace him with someone possessing a worse sense of humor. It would be like Duck Dynasty replacing Phil Robertson with a filthier, homophobic religious wacko.

We could spend the rest of 2014 recounting all of the idiotic things Seidel said in print in 2013. From writing that the Tigers needed to hire a clone of Leyland, to his bashing of Michigan State basketball fans for not showing up for a meaningless game, to his asinine and naive opinion that FIRST time PED users should be kicked out of sports for good, it’s a never-ending cascade of horrible takes mixed with jokes that would make Carrot Top rip out his orange hair.

But there was one column that completely illustrates both Seidel’s awful “humor” and his complete lack of sports knowledge. It was this garbage, lazy piece previewing the Red Wings’ playoff series with the Chicago Blackhawks.

This “column” was such an abortion that DSR contributor “Jum Pete” decimated it line by line when it was first published. Here is that takedown in its entirety ……

1. Quick note to the Chicago Blackhawks: No reason to be concerned about this pesky little team from the Motor City. PESKY IMPLIES THAT CHICAGO SHOULD HAVE SOME CONCERN.

3. So let’s say Chicago is rusty. Let’s say the Wings steal a game in Chicago. Then, the Wings will come home to Joe Louis Arena, which was electric last week during the first round of the playoffs. THE WINGS LOST THE FIRST GAME AT HOME, SO…

4. The Blackhawks were featured on a Sports Illustrated cover this year, and they were given credit for saving hockey! Maybe you should be feeling nervous. SEIDEL KEEPS SHIFTING WHO HE IS ADDRESSING. IT’S UNCLEAR IF HE IS USING “YOU” TO ADDRESS THE READER OR THE BLACKHAWKS DIRECTLY AGAIN? THE ANSWER IS OBVIOUS, BUT A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF POOR WRITING.

6. Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews didn’t score against Minnesota. Quick note to Kane and Toews: Not to put any pressure on you boys, but don’t blow it! Maybe you should be feeling nervous. THEIR STARS ARE IN A RUT AND THEY MIGHT NOT GET OUT OF IT.

7. Patrick Sharp is bound to slow down. He scored five goals against the Wild. But he is just one of several guys who can score for Chicago. “They have four lines who are rolling and can score,” Niklas Kronwall said. AAAND, HE COMPLETELY CONTRADICTS HIS PREVIOUS POINT.

10. Chicago swept the Wings during the regular season, but they were (almost) all close games (I will, at this point, conveniently dismiss the 7-1 blowout loss in Detroit as an aberration). All of those close, tight games will give the young Wings confidence. WE’LL JUST TAKE HIS WORD FOR IT.

11. OK, so maybe Wings goalie Jimmy Howard doesn’t have the best save percentage, but every player on the roster says the same thing: He is the MVP of this team. “We know we can skate with them,” Howard said. THIS QUOTE HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE SENTENCES PRECEDING IT.

12. The Wings’ Henrik Zetterberg is playing like Captain Incredible. He strapped this team to his back and is evolving into a great leader. WHO IS CAPTAIN INCREDIBLE? THERE IS NOT A FICTIONAL CHARACTER WITH THAT NAME.

13. If Howard plays even better, and if Zetterberg and Pavel Datsyuk are just as amazing, and if they can play well on special teams, and if the young kids continue to improve, and if Wings play four near-perfect games, and if the defense is solid, they will win this series. PLAGARIZING FROM ROSENBERG.

15. Remember, hatin’ is bad. Unless you’re hatin’ a team from Chicago. REPEAT JOKE. AND ‘HATIN’” HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH WHY EITHER TEAM WILL WIN.

16. Can the Wings pull off the upset? Even if Chicago is better, deeper and stronger? Logic points to Chicago winning this series. But here’s the fun part: The Wings have a chance. Sure, it might take a little luck or a strange bounce. It’s not probable but it’s possible. ZERO ANALYSIS WITH ZERO INSIGHT.

So here you go, based on the growth over the past two weeks, Wings in six. PANDERING TO WINGS FANS.

TO SUMMARIZE, THE TEAM IS “RIDING HIGH,” “IMPROVING EVERY GAME,” “GROWN UNDER THE PRESSURE,” AND “BASED ON (THAT) GROWTH” CAN WIN THE SERIES.

At this point you may be asking yourself how the FUCK Seidel got this job in the first place. Even for a paper as lousy as the Freep has become. Well, from what the DSR has learned, it wasn’t Sports Editor Gene Myers’ decision to give Seidel this gig.

When Shecky Rosenberg quit, the higher-ups at the paper decided to force Seidel on Myers. You see, before making the move to the sports section, Seidel was writing columns about his daughter’s underwear and illegal fireworks for the Freep.

Even before Seidel posted his first “sports” column, Moss wrote that this hire would be an utter disaster, and the 2013 Raggie for Worst Detroit Sports Columnist only verifies that prediction.

We would be remiss if we didn’t make one more comment about the columnists and the opinion pieces in general in this city.

During his five years in Detroit, ex-Lions coach Jim Schwartz had a putrid record of 29-51. Schwartz’s teams were incredibly undisciplined, both on the field and off of it, during most of his tenure. Schwartz displayed pathological behavior at times and in 80 games at the helm, he had an anemic record against winning teams.

Yet, not ONE columnist in Detroit called for Jim Schwartz’s head until his team’s loss against the Giants a few weeks ago, which knocked the Lions out of playoff contention.

Not ONE writer had the foresight to see that Schwartz was a lousy head coach based on the previous 78 games, even though there was a mountain of evidence suggesting it.

Nope. None of these pantywaists had the gumption to take a stand and write the obvious — that Schwartz was an enabler of his star players and was too arrogant and cocksure of himself to be in a position of power. And we haven’t even mentioned his awful clock management..

In fact, if Justin Tucker’s field goal drifts a little more to the right, or if Matthew Stafford doesn’t throw that awful fourth quarter interception against the G-Men, you probably still wouldn’t have one Detroit journalist writing that Schwartz had to go.

Of course, when it became inevitable that the Lions were going to replace their head coach, they all came out of the woodwork calling for Schwartz’s scalp. You couldn’t click on a Detroit media website without another scribe saying Schwartz had to go.

Not because he was an awful coach over a 60-month period, but because of a few plays that could have gone either way at the end of a disappointing season.

The truth is, almost all of the opinion writers in Detroit are spineless, feckless cowards who embarrass themselves on a weekly basis.

So, congratulations to Jeff Seidel for rising to the top of that smelly landfill.

Honorable Mention: Mitch Albom, Bob Wojnowski and Drew Sharp.

Best Sports Talk Radio Show — “The Discussion” with Matt Dery
Worst Sports Talk Radio Show — “The Drew Lane Show” 
Best Local TV Anchor — Lindsey Hayes — Fox Sports Detroit
Best Media Twitter Account — Tony Paul — @TonyPaul1984
Worst Media Twitter Account — TIE (@TerryFoster971 and @VGoodwill)
Worst Article/Column of the Year — Pat Caputo — Oakland Press
Best Article/Column of the Year — John Niyo — Detroit News
Best TV Broadcast Team – George Blaha and Greg Kelser — Fox Sports Detroit
Worst TV Broadcast Team – Mario Impemba and Rod Allen — Fox Sports Detroit
Best Radio Broadcast Team – Dan Miller and Jim Brandstatter — 97.1
Worst Radio Broadcast Team – Dan Dickerson and Jim Price — 97.1 Best Beat Writer – David Mayo — MLive.com
Worst Beat Writer – John Lowe — Detroit Free Press
Worst Columnist – Jeff Seidel — Detroit Free Press
Worst Media-Related Restaurant Disaster – Coming Soon
The Jamie Samuelsen Award – Jamie Samuelsen — 97.1 and Detroit Free Press
Craig Monroe Memorial Award —  Bill Shea — Crain’s Detroit
Best Columnist – John Niyo — Detroit News