By Jeff Moss
February 12, 2012
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
What do intoxicating hotel fragrances, Sidney Crosby, Jim or Jem Coughlin, tsunami jokes, Lindsay Bluth Funke, Dan Wetzel and the Sony ProMavica MVC-7000 all have in common?
Yep, they are all part of Monday Morning Mossisms™.
Why Do We Care More Than Athletes?
One of the upsetting parts of living the life of a sports fan is that when you get older and death creeps closer to your front door, there is a realization that certain professional athletes just don’t care about winning championships as much as we do.
This fact has hit home many times in the last few years, but never so clearly as when the Red Wings lost the 2009 Stanley Cup to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
You see, I was scheduled to get married right in the middle of that Finals series and unfortunately I was going to be 30,000 feet above the ground in an airplane during the entirety of the crucial Game 4 in Pittsburgh. (The banged up Wings were holding a tenuous 2-1 series lead at the time.)
So being an obsessed, diehard fan of the team, I did the only thing that I could think of ….
I spent $250 to change my tickets from DTW to McCarran International (as Spirit was gracious enough to amend my plans for such a NOMINAL fee) and we landed in Sin City in plenty of time to watch the game.
When I arrived at the Venetian Hotel, I soon discovered that their hotel room televisions didn’t carry the Versus network so I had to make alternate plans to watch the game among the masses at the Palazzo sportsbook.
Which wouldn’t have been a huge deal if I wasn’t LOATHE to watch crucial sporting events in the company of strangers (a majority of whom were Sidney Crosby lovers) in a drunken atmosphere.
But I sucked it up and viewed Game 4 in a private room that the Palazzo staff set up at MY REQUEST only to find out that Wings fans were outnumbered by about a 9 to 1 margin in this exclusive area. (My appeal for the isolated room was granted because most of the TVs in the joint were set to broadcast a freaking UFC brawl. Surprisingly, the NHL isn’t big in the desert and two grown men rolling around the ground in short-shorts is.)
Anyway, as easily could be predicted, I soon got into a war of words with some [mentally challenged] Pittsburgh jagoff™ (Loser Pittsburgh Jagoffs) which almost culminated in a FISTFIGHT just 36 hours before I was supposed to have wedding pictures taken.
I was minding my own business for the most part when this douche bag in a Malkin jersey starting giving me shit. Now, keep in mind that the Wings were up in the series 2-1, they were the reigning Cup champs (beating this asshole’s team in the process) and WERE WINNING GAME 4 at the damn time.
But he wanted to start with me and I was more than happy to return the banter which included my regurgitation of that previous paragraph over and over again.
Finally, as my wedding photos were just about to look something like Stu in “The Hangover”, Palazzo security stepped in and threw this dipshit out of the private area.
Of course, as soon as this bastard got booted, Jordan Staal netted a shorthanded goal irrevocably changing that series and a few days later I found myself at Joe Louis Arena watching the dream of a repeat getting crushed.
Before the final faceoff of Game 7 with the Wings down by a goal, I had to run up to the concourse of my section. If Nick Lidstrom would have put the puck past Marc-Andre Fleury at the buzzer to tie the game, it would have been a rumor to me. But I couldn’t watch the Penguins and their fans celebrate in my presence. It would have been way too painful.
So I drove home that Friday night and spent the entire weekend doing everything in my power to avoid any mention of the Game 7 result. I was mostly successful in that endeavor except for a thoroughbred named “Hudler” winning a race at Santa Anita Park on Saturday.
The memories of that miserable weekend came rushing back to me this past Thursday when I read a Deadspin account of New England tight end Rob Gronkowski and offensive lineman Matt Light’s post Super Bowl partying in which they got drunk, took off their shirts and danced around a club like a couple of white trash idiots.
You see, that Friday night of the Wings Cup loss, while I was sitting in a dark room at my house staring into space like a concussion patient in a “Quiet Room”, Marian Hossa and Tomas Kopecky among other Wings players were partying at a bar in Royal Oak.
When I found out that I was sitting shiva over the defeat while certain PLAYERS across town were partying like they were at a Lavagance concert, I was incensed.
And it was even worse when I discovered that Hossa was among the group. A guy who left Pittsburgh the previous offseason as a free-agent because he felt the Wings had a better shot of winning a title. A dude who JUST got finished on the wrong end of the celebratory handshake for the second straight year!!! THIS jackass had the fucking nerve to show up at a PARTY in a Detroit suburb just hours after the crushing loss?!?!!?!?
Look, I learned a long time ago that we care more about winning than a large percentage of the athletes we follow. I get it. But do the Kopecky’s and Gronkowski’s of the world have to fucking rub our NOSE IN IT like we’re a Shih Tzu being housebroken?
Which leads me to the Deadspin column regarding the party which was written by Drew Magary. I am a fan of that site even though I am not sure what they are attempting to do over there.
On one hand they employ the best sports writer alive today (Tommy Craggs) and on the other hand they post pictures of Brett Favre and Greg Oden’s cocks. The dichotomy between Craggs and some of the content is so bizarre that I can only equate it to TMZ replacing Harvey Levin with Thomas Friedman.
Anyway, Magary wrote this piece DEFENDING the behavior of Light and Gronkowski and chastising former Patriots safety Rodney Harrison for taking umbrage with their Chippendale-esque striptease.
http://deadspin.com/5883740/
Here is an excerpt from Magary’s article:
“This whole dispute is everything that is stupid and pointless about the football culture. Macho assholes like Harrison, who apparently lost his sense of humor at the bottom of an HGH bottle, think that all football players have to behave the EXACT same way, and that any deviation from that means YOU JUST DON’T LIKE WINNING ENOUGH. Fuck that. And fuck Rodney Harrison. Gronkowski played that game on half a leg. If he parties after the game is over, does that somehow mean that he played less hard? No. Only a complete shithead would think that. And only a complete shithead would play Mr. Tough Guy and brag about all the things he WOULD have done if he had seen Gronk out partying that night. DURRRRR I WOULDA CLOCKED HIM GOOD. Get the fuck out of here. No, you wouldn’t have. You wouldn’t have done jack SHIT, because there’s no good argument to be made against going out and partying your sorrows away.”
No, Drew, not everyone has to drown away their sorrows the same way. Although, by looking at the videos of Light and Gronk, I am not sure they were broken up about the Super Bowl loss at all.
But to show up at an LMFAO concert and dance the night away like you just didn’t lose the BIGGEST GAME OF YOUR LIFE is disrespectful to your teammates who were devastated by the defeat (Tom Brady appeared in an almost catatonic state after the game according to a great piece by Dan Wetzel) and the Pat’s fans who live and die with the team you suit up for.
Sorry, Gronk, most Patriots fans had to wake up the next morning and either lay cement or put up drywall and didn’t have a Bibi Jones fuckfest to look forward to so I am guessing it was going to take them more than 90 minutes to get over the bitter loss.
The very LEAST these athletes can do is placate us by ACTING like they give two fucks about winning or losing. Is that seriously too much to ask for for all of the time and money we spend on them while making them multi-millionaires?
And maybe Rodney Harrison wouldn’t have done anything to a pair of teammates who were getting down to “I’m Sexy and I Know It” just HOURS after losing a SUPER BOWL IN THE FINAL MINUTE OF THE GAME.
But I’ve seen “The Town”, “The Departed”, “Good Will Hunting” and “Gone Baby Gone” and I am going to guess that some of those Southies weren’t too thrilled with Gronkowski and Light’s antics after the loss.
Doubt there are many big LMFAO fans in South Boston, for that matter.
“Two inches is fine”
Speaking of Deadspin, I can’t believe the Internet uproar over Jason Whitlock’s Friday evening Tweet regarding New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin.
In case you missed it, on the heels of Lin scoring 38 points against the Lakers and with Twitter on the verge of imploding from the attention, the obese Fox Sports columnist posted the following Twat:
“Some lucky lady in NYC is gonna feel a couple inches of pain tonight.”
I actually read the post alluding to the stereotype of Asian men having small genitalia in real time, chuckled and didn’t give it much thought.
I was totally flabbergasted by the onslaught of negative publicity this “joke” received. Many sports bloggers starting calling for Fox to immediately fire the controversial columnist because of his perceived racial insensitivity.
Deadspin was righteously indignant about the humor at Lin’s expense as well. The same site that shares photos of Albert Pujols’ agent giving cunnilingus to women when they aren’t posting pics of athlete’s junk was offended at this tame joke?
And CNNSI’s media columnist, Richard Deitsch, couldn’t even bring himself to write about the Tweet because he was so upset that Whitlock had taken anything away from Lin’s career evening at MSG.
The same Richard Deitsch who is an unabashed fan of Howard Stern. The same Howard Stern who was making small Asian dick jokes with Korean artist, David Choe, EARLIER THIS WEEK ON HIS SHOW!!!!!!
When did this country completely collapse under the pressure of Political Correctness? We now live in a world where people can’t even attempt humor without the concern of getting fired? Could Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy or Chris Rock even have become comedy legends in this day and age with all of the PC bullshit out there?
Of course, some group (the Asian American Journalists Association) decided to piggyback on this furor and pulled a page from the Al Sharpton playbook and came forward to demand an apology from Whitlock and Fox Sports.
I was hoping that Whitlock (a former DSR poster for a day) wouldn’t buckle to this ridiculous pressure, but he instead issued some sort of half-ass apology to make the whole damn thing go away.
I have to believe this tempest in a teapot started because so many sports bloggers despise Whitlock and are jealous of his success (his Fox salary is rumored to be in the neighborhood of $2 million a year) so they took this opportunity to try and Gilbert Gottfried him.
Whether you like Whitlock or not, the last thing we need is a further homogenized society where any attempt at humor can lead to someone losing their gig.
And based on this picture, I don’t believe that Jason holds any animus towards Asian people anyway …..
At This Point My Mom and Sister Can Stop Reading (You’ve Been Warned)
Because of the critical content found on this website, I get variations of the following query approximately five times a week, “Serious Q (question) ….do you like ANYONE in this town? I mean…”
What was odd about that EXACT inquiry was that it came from 97.1 host, Mike Valenti, in the middle of my recent Twitter war with his broadcast partner, Terry Foster.
What I thought was strange about Valenti’s question was that just a MONTH prior to him asking it, I wrote a piece (that he read) stating that I thought HIS show when Foster WAS NOT around currently was the best thing on Detroit sports talk radio.
Kind of a compliment, if you ask me, but what do I know? Anyway, it got me to thinking about the current arrangement of “The Ticket” programming and how the station has basically cancelled out any potential for me to tune in.
There are three hosts who I wouldn’t mind listening to on 97.1 and they are Michael Stone, Bob Wojnowski and the Human Amphibian.
Unfortunately, the station’s program director, Jimmy Powers, has decided to checkmate my ability to listen by pairing the three with Bill McAllister, Foster and Jamie Samuelsen and the whole ordeal reminded me of a story from my mid-20s.
You see, in the mid to late 90s, I was obsessed with meeting girls on America Online. (To this day whenever I hear, “You’ve got mail”, I have a Pavlov’s dog reaction and develop half a chubber.)
Now, you’ve got to remember back in the good old days there was no such thing as camera phones and digital cameras cost around 500 bucks. So not every chick online had a photo she could send you.
The basis of whether or not I was going to meet a new AOL girl usually came down to the height and weight description that she provided and then the formula I patented to arrive at my final decision.
My system included deducting one inch from the girl’s height and the addition of 15 pounds. So if a potential AOL slut told me she was 5’6 and 130 pounds I just assumed she was really 5’5/145.
And for the most part my methodology worked well with the over 100 girls I met in person.
(In the rare case that a chick COMPLETELY lied about her looks, there was this late 20th century device called the pager that I would utilize in which I would act like I had to suddenly leave for a family emergency.)
Anyway, there was this one rare instance which occurred where I didn’t know what to do. Through the “Member Search”, I found this girl in her early 20s from Rochester who ran a dance studio.
After chatting for a few minutes on my old Monorail, I asked her to describe herself.
(By the way, don’t even get me started on AOL’s decision to get rid of the “Member Search” or we will be here all day. That rant would make Valenti’s “John L. Smith” tirade look meek in comparison.)
She informed me that she was 5’3 and 130 pounds which really meant by my system that she most likely fell into the 5’2/145 range. Normally, I would just have fired up the old “Member Search” again and continue my stalkerish ways for someone more height/weight proportionate.
But something about her being a dancer convinced me to continue the conversation. One thing led to another and we ended up chatting on the phone and I soon learned that she was bisexual and that one of her 19-year old pupils was her lover.
And not only that, but the student STILL allowed her to screw around with guys. But it gets better. I then asked my new AOL Buddy to describe this girl she was fucking and I was told the friend looked like a model and was 5’8 and 115 pounds!!!
Now, there is no calculation known to mankind that can denigrate a girl who supposedly looks like a model, is 5-foot-8/115# and LIKES OTHER FEMALES!!!!!!!!
So after some phone sex, we decided to meet in person. Of course, being a total pig, I insisted that the 19-year old be in attendance for our first meeting as well. So one night, I went to a party at the girl’s house and met the two of them.
Now, the girlfriend was as advertised. She was fucking hot as all hell. The girl I was talking to online? Let’s just say my AOL Calculator was off by a solid 50 POUNDS!!!!! The two of them together made Ellen Degeneres and Portia de Rossi look normal.
So nothing happened the night of the party and I left the house thinking I would never see any of these people ever again.
Of course, a couple of days later I received a phone call from the dance instructor seeing when she could come over to my place. Now, in the days that had passed from attending her little get together, I figured if she ever called me again I would try to set up a threesome in some sort of Faustian bargain to get with the 19-year old piece of ass.
So I tried to perform this sexual tightrope negotiation over the phone to see what would happen. Much to my chagrin, I was advised by the Degeneres of the relationship that her carpet eating partner was 100 percent lesbo.
That the BEST I could hope for was a private viewing of the two of them going at it (which I could only imagine would have looked like some sort of National Geographic special where an elephant rolls over on a pink flamingo) and MAYBE an old-fashioned from the student. But even THAT was a longshot.
Of course it goes without saying, the hippopotamus would have let me put it any orifice that I desired.
So as a gambler who can calculate the odds of any situation, I figured the most likely scenario was that I would show up for some action and the 19-year old would be nowhere to be found and the teacher would eat my pager before I could protract a fake “#9119191919119111” message from a friend.
AND THAT SCENARIO is basically how I feel every single time I decide whether or not to listen to a 97.1 show.
Yep, this is your blogger.