By Jeff Moss
June 16, 2011
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
A few weeks ago Detroit Lions WR Nate Burleson made a completely innocuous statement about the city of Detroit while visiting town for an optional player led workout during the NFL lockout.
Here is the Burleson quote that got some of the area’s provincial blowhards all in a tither:
“Seeing about 35 guys there working out – this time of year, in Detroit is not the most desirable place, so you got guys flying in, paying for their own hotel, paying for rental cars – so that just kind of shows the dedication and really the direction of our team right now.
The Internet reaction got so loud that Burleson felt the need to clarify his comments by stating that he was only referring to Detroit’s weather and the fact that the players voluntarily came to town on their own dime when they could have been somewhere else.
Now, I kind of think Burleson was a little full of shit when he Tweeted his clarification. I think he meant what he originally said. “Detroit is not the most desirable place.”
Detroit is not the most desirable place. Let that quote sink in for a little while. Detroit is not the most desirable place.
I mean, this is considered a controversial statement these days? Detroit is NOT a desirable place. If you think otherwise, you are fucking kidding yourself.
Ever talked to a friend from out of state who was considering going on vacation in Miami or maybe Las Vegas or potentially Los Angeles, but decided to come to DETROIT instead?
Of course not. Because, you know, Detroit is about as desirable as giving cunnilingus to Chaz Bono while being audited by the IRS.
Seriously, who would live in this area if it weren’t for their ancestors moving to Michigan years ago?
It never ceases to amaze me that Detroiters actually get offended when an outsider tells the truth about the city.
We live here because we don’t want to move away from our friends and family. Or maybe because we have a good job and we don’t want to move to another city and start from scratch.
THAT is what keeps us in the Detroit suburbs. It sure as shit isn’t the weather or the economy.
For Christ’s sake, we don’t even have a Cheesecake Factory in this area. AND THE FOUNDER OF THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY WAS BORN IN DETROIT AND WENT TO WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY!!!!!!
But every time I get depressed about being STUCK in the Detroit area as opposed to a place where the weather is nice for more than three months a year or a city that actually has a first class thoroughbred racetrack or a town with a good Chinese restaurant, I remember that I should be grateful for one thing:
My great-grandparents didn’t decide to migrate from Mother Russia to Cleveland, Ohio.
Cleveland: All the worst parts of Detroit WITHOUT any of the recent sports championships.
If you are like me and get seasick just watching The Love Boat or Speed 2 and couldn’t give two shits about being on the water, the only great thing about Metro Detroit is having our four professional sports teams.
And since I was born in 1972 I have been able to enjoy nine championships (I am including the Michigan Panthers title which might have been as fun as any of them) while living in this area.
That is a pretty damn good haul and it doesn’t even mention having the privilege to watch the greatest running back to ever live play for a decade.
Anyway, I decided to write this column last week when I was absolutely appalled at the behavior of Clevelanders and how they reacted to the Dallas Mavericks title over LeBron James. Conveniently it just happened to coincide with the Indians visit to Motown for control of the American League Central.
And maybe appalled is a strong term. Embarrassed might be a better way to put it.
Look, if the sports teams in my city had put up a cumulative goose egg since EIGHT YEARS BEFORE I WAS BORN, I sure as hell wouldn’t be throwing a parade because a team that plays 1,183 miles away defeated the Miami Heat.
And I get the fact that LeBron is a douche bag. I understand that “The Decision” was the ugliest thing on ESPN this side of a “Pardon the Interruption” co-hosted by Tony Kornheiser and Jackie MacMullan.
But if none of my pro teams that I live and die with had ever won a single championship while I was breathing, I would take little to no solace whatsoever from the prodigal son temporarily being deprived of his eventual championship ring(s).
Shit, I am not even sure I wouldn’t have been rooting for the Heat if I were a Cleveland Cavaliers fan.
When Jack Morris, Lance Parrish and Kirk Gibson left the Tigers I didn’t turn against them. I can vividly remember rooting for Morris during that 10-inning shutout during Game 7 of the 1991 World Series. And guess what? Morris was as big a cockbag as “King James.”
When Sergei Fedorov inexplicably left MONEY ON THE TABLE to ditch the Wings for a Disney movie of an NHL team, I purchased the NHL Center Ice package solely to watch every one of #91’s games.
(I even bought a $300 Fedorov Ducks jersey and risked a severe beating by wearing it to Sergei’s first game back in Detroit. I am still not sure how I didn’t get Brian Stow’d that night.)
And I would have been the biggest Dolphins fan in the world if William Clay Ford, Sr. would have granted Barry Sanders wish and let him sign with Miami after the Hall of Famer quit on the Lions.
But I have been told I just don’t get it. Cleveland native Matt Dery informed me that if you aren’t from C-Town you just couldn’t understand the situation.
Well, I think I understand what it would be like to be a fan of the Cleveland sports teams.
Let’s just say that the Pistons lost the “Now there’s a steal by Bird! Underneath to DJ who lays it in!!” game and then the Bill Laimbeer phantom foul on Kareem Abdul-Jabbar occurred and SUBSEQUENTLY THE PISTONS NEVER WON A CHAMPIONSHIP.
Or maybe the Tigers never captured the 1984 World Series and the only playoff memories we had in recent years were the collapse in ’87 versus the Twins and the debacle in 2006 against the worst baseball champion EVER.
Or the Claude Lemieux hit on Kris Draper happened during the 1996 playoffs and the Wings never rebounded to win a single Stanley Cup.
And then after all of THAT misery, the Lions decided to move out of town.
That must be what it is like to live in Cleveland and support their tortured sports franchises.
I think I get it. But it still doesn’t mean I’d adopt the Dallas Mavericks as my own. And I am 100% positive that I would resent all of the patronizing “support” the rest of America was providing.
Or maybe I really can’t comprehend the suffering of Clevelanders and I am missing something here because I wasn’t born there.
Like I told Dery the other night, thank [Verlander] for that.
You can have your Cheesecake Factory at Crocker Park Mall. I’ll take our championship memories.