By Jeff Moss
October 28, 2011
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com 

As many of you may already know, I am a HUGE fan of the four Detroit professional sports franchises.

I live and die with the Tigers, Red Wings, Lions and Pistons (in that order) and as we speak, the period of my personal shiva just ended over Detroit’s baseball team’s failure to win the 2011 World Series.

Because I am irrationally obsessed with the Motor City’s PROFESSIONAL franchises, I decided to start this piss-poor website so I could have an avenue to express my feelings on the management, players and media that cover THOSE four teams.

Collegiate sports have never been my obsession mainly because I barely paid attention to my high school classes until my senior year so instead of attending a school with an actual athletic program (like U of M, MSU or Butler), I “attended” Eastern Michigan University.

U of M has always been my default favorite for college sports, but I’ve never had very much passion for the Wolverines. And quite frankly, I have always found it a little creepy when a non-alumnus obsesses over a university’s athletic program.

I enjoyed the Fab Five era from afar and that Mythical Football Championship they shared with some other school was kind of cool, but I really have never been pot committed to the Wolverines.

Part of the reason I really can’t get worked up about college football is that I am a degenerate horse player and I spend 52 Saturdays of the year gambling on the ponies. It is difficult being a diehard fan of U of M football when you are half paying attention to their games on a distant TV while concentrating on the Pick-4 at Belmont.

In fact, during the almost nine years that this site has existed, I can’t remember authoring ONE blog post about U of M athletics.

I didn’t pen a column when the Maize and Blue got upset by Appalachian State, when they hired Rich Rodriguez or when they fired Rich Rodriguez. I have always left those articles for fellow DSR founder Gregg Schultz to write. (And I am pretty sure in the last five years those are the ONLY columns he has posted.)

Because we didn’t have anyone to cover MSU sports, I decided to bring in a hired gun a few years ago. At the suggestion of Terrence Reginald Foster, the DSR employed Jemele Hill to be our “MSU Insider.”

That experiment lasted for one column. When the Detroit Free Press caught wind of Hill’s moonlighting, they told her she had to cease and desist of it immediately. Not only could she not write for this site any longer, we were ordered to take down the one article she DID WRITE.

That didn’t stop her from demanding payment which we obviously refused. The last I heard from Jemele Hill, she was working for some small website called ESPN.com and comparing sports figures to Adolf Hitler.

What does that have to do with today’s subject? Absolutely nothing, but I always love mentioning Hill’s request to get her fee even though she forbade us from using her work. Thanks for that recommendation, TERRY.

Anyway, the reason I am giving you this detailed history is because I am about to write about a column regarding Michigan Football that has very little to do with Michigan Football.

If you want a full accounting on John U. Bacon’s recent book, “Three and Out”, I would suggest you peruse the recent posts over at MGoBrian. Any breakdown of Lloyd Carr’s treasonous behavior or Rich Rod’s naivety or Bill Martin’s incompetence can be easily found on a variety of different U of M-centric websites.

And to tell you the truth, I haven’t even read the thing yet. All I have done is purchase the book on my iPad2, searched for “Michael Rosenberg” and immediately read all 57 matches.

While I am curious about Carr’s duplicitous actions and the anal rape that Rich Rod received from the U of M “traditionalists”, I am more fascinated with the behavior of this nebbish columnist.

Look, I have never been a fan of the Freep’s version of Henny Youngman. I don’t think he is a very good writer and most of his columns follow the same nauseating formula. His sense of humor is atrocious and to make matters worse, the guy actually thinks he is funny. (THANKS, Bob Seger.)

But until the Practice Gate scandal, I never thought the guy was evil. An untalented hack who probably laughs at the joke, “Take my wife ……please?” Yes. A conniving scoundrel? Not so much.

But every suspicion that I had since the Free Press decided to go all Kwame Kilpatrick on the amount of time Michigan’s football team had practiced in 2008 and 2009 was confirmed in Bacon’s book.

And the question I would ask is, can you believe ANYTHING you read from the Freep’s three sports columnists? It would appear there is a systematic disregard for any sort of journalistic ethics at the city’s most influential paper.

First, we had Mitch Albom and his Mateen Cleaves-Jason Richardson debacle.

Then over the summer, Drew Sharp wrote a column about a game that he clearly did not watch (Justin Verlander’s no-hitter in Toronto.)

And now we have confirmation from Bacon’s book that RosenNerd was utilizing the sports page of the Detroit Free Press to exact revenge on U of M’s athletic director and the poor sap he hired to replace Lloyd Carr.

So what do we learn about the Uncombed Wonder in “Three and Out” that we might not have known otherwise:

According to Bacon, Rosenberg told him that the reason the Freep had a COLUMNIST working a story like the practice ‘scandal’ was, “due to budget and staff cuts, the Free Press no longer has an investigative reporter dedicated to the sports department. So, in the current era, such double duty is harder to avoid.”

So sports editor Gene Myers decided to allow Rosenberg to tag along with Mark Snyder on this flawed-from-the-get-go investigation even though the schmuck obviously had it in for Rodriguez?

Now, keep in mind that this is the same paper that has a rigid division of labor when it comes to beat writers penning columns.

For example, why didn’t staff writer Shawn Windsor author a COLUMN about Verlander’s no-hitter this past May? He was, you know, actually in the press box during that game and could have easily filed a column along with his straight news story on JV’s second career no-no.

Wouldn’t that have been a better option than calling Sharp (on his day off) to write that column even though HE ADMITTEDLY HAD MISSED AT LEAST THE FIRST FIVE INNINGS OF THE GAME?!?!?

Nope, columnists write columns and beat writers play it straight at the Freep. Except when the paper decides to do an investigation into potential NCAA violations. In that case, Myers allowed his opinion writer the opportunity to go all Woodward and Bernstein on a guy he obviously despised.

In Bacon’s book, U of M radio color man and the host of Michigan Replay, Jim Brandstatter went on the record as saying that Rosenberg had told him that RichRod didn’t belong at U of M and that he didn’t like the guy.”

Now, why in the hell would a Bo Schembechler apostle make this shit up regarding a conversation he had with RosenNerd? I mean, the guy is married to the First Woman in Detroit broadcast news, Robbie Timmons.

If you are calling Brandy a liar then you are also calling Miss Timmons a liar by proxy and THAT my friend, I will not stand for.

Because Brandstatter apparently had no axe to grind here™ (Michael Rosenberg), I gotta believe the big lug.

So Myers thought it was a capital idea to let Rosenberg work an investigation when he was already on the record with Michigan royalty stating that “I don’t like the guy” and “I don’t think he belongs here.”

Look, I am guessing if the US government hired Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to handle the investigation of Barack Obama’s birth certificate, our President would currently be living in a hut in Nairobi wearing a dashiki.

What happened here was totally irresponsible and it is why you ended up with every publication in America realizing the entire practice scandal was much ado about nothing. Except the paper that employs three columnists who all have at least one skeleton in their closet when it comes to credibility.

If David Simon shoots a sixth season of “The Wire”, I hope one of the story arcs is on the sports department at the Free Press.

According to several U of M employers, Rosenberg had advised them that he HATED Bill Martin and swore a blood vengeance against the AD which he hoped would culminate in Martin losing his job.

Why do I believe this portion of the book? Because if it wasn’t true, Bacon SURELY would be subjecting himself to a lawsuit. In fact, according to my sources, Bacon (an academic) had several attorneys review the book to make sure he was impregnable to potential litigation

I mean, this is just amazing. This little piece of shit was blabbering to anyone that would listen that he “hated” Michigan’s AD and his head coach “didn’t belong” in Ann Arbor. Yet, he had the audacity to participate in this investigative report.

Did he think that nobody would remember these comments? Did he just figure that nobody would put in the time like Bacon to uncover his biases? Or was his distaste for Martin and Rodriguez so strong that he didn’t give a fuck about anything other than destroying them?

Based on the Rosenberg mentions in “Three and Out”, I am guessing the latter.

Then there was the precious little story about the Justin Boren betrayal. A few months after Boren’s transfer to Ohio State (nursed along by Benedict Carr), Rosenberg wrote the following:

“Rodriguez’s staff uses some of the foulest, most degrading language imaginable. I know coaches curse, and I’m no prude, but this goes way beyond a few dirty words. He belittles the players. This is a big part of why offensive lineman Justin Boren left the team. He felt his dignity was at stake.”

Hey, Rosenberg, do ya like RichRod? I can’t tell.

According to Bacon, Nebbishberg never attended any of the fifteen practices that spring where Boren’s manhood was supposedly being questioned by the new staff.

If Rodriguez was going all Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross on Boren, Rosenberg clearly didn’t witness it based on the account in Bacon’s book.

This is what RR had to say about Rosie’s column: “He (Boren) never wanted to be here. We never said anything to him. And Rosenberg had never been to a single practice – and our practices are OPEN. I’d never met him, and he writes all that?”

I am currently experimenting with Rosenberg’s line of thinking. I am badgering him on Twitter daily. I have even called him a cunt.

Hopefully, this will lead to Lloyd Carr whispering in Rosie’s ear that maybe a transfer to the Columbus Dispatch is in order.

But maybe the best Rosenberg mention in the book is the following discussion that the geek had with former U of M standout and Detroit Lions linebacker Larry Foote. In the midst of all the aggravation Rosenberg had needlessly caused RichRod and his family, this fuckstick actually had the audacity to whine to Foote about HIS troubles:

The following is directly lifted from Bacon’s book and obviously was based on Foote’s recollection of his conversation with Rosenberg:

“I poured my heart and soul into that (Rosenberg’s book, “War as they Knew It” about Bo and Woody Hayes) for three years. The shots at me on Amazon.com bothered me. There’s nothing I’ve ever been prouder of than that book – so for them to trash the book really hurt.”

While Rosenheeb told this story to the NFL linebacker, he supposedly STARTED TO TEAR UP. I mean, how fucking great is that?

You see, Amazon.com has a rating system for the site’s users. Patrons can rate any product on a 1 to 5 star basis.

As of this writing, Rosenberg’s book has 261 reviews. Of those critiques, 212 of them are of the ONE STAR variety!!!!! Hahahahahaa. LOL. LMFAO. Dehd.

The RichRod supporters initiated their own OccupyAmazon and sabotaged the Dweeb’s labor of love.

Here are a sampling of those Web reviews:

“In my opinion, poor journalism at its best. The book seems contrived and he comes off to me as a blow hard who did not really understand the rivalry of two great coaches. Rosenberg and Schembechler should not be used in the same sentence.”

“Retread. Trite. Had high hopes this book would shed new light on a dynamic and enduring period for our country and our (Wolverine) Nation. But it merely repackages the same old. Serviceable if you want an uninspired repository of stories everyone knows, I guess. Bottom line: there are some good to very good era-pieces about the Bo/Woody turf war. This is not one.”

“The author is also a writer for the Detroit Free Press. He has a not so hidden agenda against the current University of Michigan football coaching staff. In one of his recent articles, he took freshmen team members’ quotes out of context in order to “conduct his research” on hours spent working out by team members. In my opinion this is unethical, and I urge anyone thinking about buying his books to reconsider. If you care about the University of Michigan and its football program, I urge you to not support an author who will seem to stop at nothing to tear it down.”

And there are 209 others just like those three examples. I don’t want to say that “War as They Knew It” is the worst reviewed product that Amazon sells, but the movie “Battlefield Earth” and “The Bluth Cornballer” both received a higher grade.

This sniveling, little backstabbing bastard got exactly what he deserved with this Internet retail Jihad.

And for him to complain about Michigan fans making this PERSONAL and attacking his book when he did the exact same thing to RR and Martin is just too fucking precious.

Bitching about wasting three years of his life on the book for this Amazon sabotage to occur when he did the exact same thing with three years of Rodriguez’s life is so ironic that it has a Shakespearean feel to it.

Which leads me back to the Free Press’s sports section. There is obviously a culture in that department which leads to this type of crap occurring.

Albom never should have written that Cleaves and Richardson were in attendance at that NCAA tournament game, but he was compelled to do so because of moronic deadlines.

I am sure Sharp didn’t want to write that Verlander column on his day off when he had missed HALF THE GAME, but god forbid a lowly beat writer pen a column about a potentially historical event.

And what did Myers expect when he decided to assign a vigilante COLUMNIST with a Paul Bunyan-sized axe to grind against Martin and Rodriguez to an INVESTIGATIVE REPORT??!!?

I’d call Rosenberg the Bernard Goetz of columnists, but he isn’t handsome enough for that comparison.

Who can believe anything that is written in that paper anymore? When Jamie Samuelsen is your most trustworthy opinion writer in the sports section, ya gotta problem.

Shit, if Kwame wasn’t such a monumental scumbag, I’d wonder how much of the ML Elrick and Jim Schaefer Pulitzer Prize winning expose was total bullshit.

The one positive out of all of this is Rosenberg’s career will probably never be the same after this book.

The dude has been exposed for the petty and vindictive little twerp that he is. On Thursday he had to spend a part of his day reading angry Tweets from Rodriguez’s remaining supporters when he wasn’t deleting bombs on his personal Facebook page.

This isn’t going away anytime soon and will forever tarnish his reputation.

As I continued my own personal Twitter assault on the moron yesterday, I received feedback from a few of his fellow Detroit media brethren.

One told me that Rosenberg, “has never been well liked or trusted by his peers.”

And Bacon’s book paints a picture of Rosenberg and Snyder basking in the glory of their “exclusive investigation” shortly after it went to print, only to be rebuffed by colleagues who thought the whole thing stunk like a 1979 version of Steve Jobs.

Of course, in this city you would never get fired for carrying an obvious personal vendetta into an investigation and lowering your paper’s reputation to the gutter.

It would appear the only way you can lose your gig in this JOA town is to make an ill-timed joke about a head coach’s son-in-law.

And while the Detroit News and MLive.com run excerpts daily from “Three and Out”, the Freep completely ignores the book even exists.

You’ve got a better chance of seeing a negative review of Condescending Baggins latest movie, “Have a Little Faith”, in the pages of the Free Press than any mention of Bacon’s book.

Poor Rosenberg. The guy must be a mess with all of this negative attention.

Maybe the Talmud is right, Jews and Bacon aren’t a good mix.