By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
November 22, 2015
I usually don’t write new articles on the weekend because, based on my web stats, it seems most of you derelicts only read this crap while you are at work. I guess the old Van Earl Wright axiom of “the weekends are mine” has really taken Detroit by storm.
Not to mention that I am usually gambling on thoroughbreds on Saturday and Sunday and, as Krusty the Clown once said in response to the question of if he ever thought about his rabbi father who disowned him …..
“All the time. Except when I am at the track. Then it’s all business.”
Anyway, there was so much news on Friday that I really couldn’t ignore it until Monday. In light of that, I am bringing back an old school DSR staple…
What do Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver, Jack Klugman, Vanity Smurf, Gregg Schultz’s stepsister and Jesse Barfield all have in common?
They are all part of Sunday Afternoon Mossisms™ ….
Mike Valenti vs. The Detroit Lions
While some folks were shocked when the Lions announced on Friday that they were leaving 97.1FM for WJR, readers of the DSR should not have been because I had the story nine days before it was officially announced.
November 11th. So maybe that will lend some credibility to my thoughts on the matter. I am not going to recite the entire story, so do some homework and read this tremendous Tony Paul article on the divorce before proceeding.
Done? Good. Here is my take ….
1) While 97.1 wants you to believe that this was all about the Lions’ censorship and the team completely denies that charge, the truth is somewhere in the middle — but closer to the CBS Radio narrative.
The employees at WXYT have taken this opportunity to act like they are some rogue radio warriors spitting out the truth no matter the consequences. That is total bullshit. Hell, even Valenti HIMSELF admitted on the air Friday that he was only allowed to unleash about 80 to 90 percent of his vitriol.
And let’s be clear: The Lions complaints were extremely Valenti-centric. Bill McAllister spends more time talking about metrosexual behavior than he does about sports. Michael Stone is respected by almost everyone in town and isn’t looked upon as some sort of monster.
Doug Karsch and Scott “The Virginal Manatee” Anderson are two unabashed homer slapdicks who give a weekly hand-job to Jim Caldwell brought to you by Jergens lotion.
Nobody takes Terry Foster (we will get to him soon) seriously and Jeff Riger, Dan Leach and Pat Caputo are barely afterthoughts.
So, this was about the Ford Family’s and PR hack/human paraquat Bill Keenist’s hard-on for Valenti. Except, if this was ALL about trying to get Valenti removed, why didn’t the organization do this YEARS ago when they had the goods on him?
We are talking about a dude who once made a comment about killing Matt Millen and the team’s head coach (I forget if the boob in question was Marty or Mooch at the time) with one bullet to save on ammunition.
And who infamously made a joke about deceased Lions defensive player Corey Smith who tragically drowned at sea. How many new contracts did the Lions sign with 97.1 after Valenti made those comments?
Valenti has kept his criticism in recent years above board so it does seem odd that the franchise would only NOW try to force Valenti out as a condition of signing a new contract with WXYT.
2) But we are talking about Bill Keenist here and I wouldn’t put anything past that pile of horse manure. This fuckstick’s abhorrent behavior goes back YEARS as former WDFN and WXYT-AM program director Gregg Henson detailed in his blog the other day.
I’ve told the story many times on this website and I am going to post it one more time in case just ONE person has never heard it.
Yep. At Killer’s public memorial at Cheli’s next to Comerica Park, Keenist admitted that the team’s full frontal attack on Tom was all one big lie. Keenist had attempted to nuke Kowalski’s credibility — the most precious commodity a journalist has — and this psychopath had the chutzpah to admit to this at the man’s wake!!!!!!
If that’s the way they treated the legend they named their media room in Allen Park after, do you really doubt any of the stories Valenti told on the air Friday????
3) In the end, the Lions definitely wanted to go to a station that didn’t criticize them and I don’t think 97.1 gave a rat’s ass about losing the pathetic franchise. CBS Radio just had to spend an exorbitant amount of money to keep the Tigers — allegedly spending $9 million more than their original bid to keep the team from jumping to 105.1 — and they weren’t about to get into a bidding war with 760 for a team that plays a majority of its games on Sunday — not exactly prime time real estate for a radio station.
4) Losing the Lions won’t impact 97.1’s bottom line and now they can brand themselves as not kowtowing to the teams they cover. But don’t believe it for a second.
Why?
Because their on-air talent spent all Friday telling you how they weren’t allowed to say certain things because of their broadcast partnership with the Lions. Do you really think it is that different with the Wings and Tigers?
And while the Tigers aren’t as bad as the Lions when it comes to attempting to censor the WXYT hosts, that crew led by Ron Colangelo (VP of Communications) among others isn’t loaded with saints, either.
5) Valenti’s agent, Mort Meisner, positioned his client perfectly in the fallout of this Lions blunder. As I have been reporting on this site for months, Valenti’s contract with CBS Radio expires in March of 2016. And now Meisner can claim that his client is so powerful that a billion-dollar sports franchise wanted him snuffed out.
(But not omnipotent enough to mention me during his tirade Friday, even though a lot of his material — especially the attacks on the team’s website and on Tim Twentyman — was lifted directly from my act.)
After the ink is dry on Valenti’s new contract, I don’t think he will have a hard time affording a Flaming Tomahawk steak every night should he so desire.
6) The funniest part of Paul’s article about the 97.1/Lions divorce was the following quote from the team’s VP of marketing and corporate sponsorships, Elizabeth Parkinson:
“Anytime that our media is either not factual or misrepresenting the content that they’re sharing, those calls are made. Our media team is working with all the media to correct inaccuracies. Absolutely, they were working with CBS to correct inaccuracies, you name any media outlet, and they’ve worked closely with our media teammates. If there are inaccuracies, somebody’s going to get a call.”
Can you imagine how dumb this broad is to ADMIT that shit to a reporter? And of course, when all else fails …. just call a black and white from Allen Park police to come over to 222 Republic Drive to do a drive-by.
So no matter what the ultimate truth is regarding the Lions’ breakup with CBS Radio, the best part of the entire debacle is the Ford Family came up looking petty as usual. The story went national (Pro Football Talk, Deadspin, Awful Announcing, etc.), addressed the Valenti rant and Keenist came off looking like the dipshit that he is.
Not that it’s the first instance of Keenist has landing on Deadspin’s radar. There was the time he mortgaged his house so Oxford High School could install a blue football field like the one they have at Boise State.
I mean, who signs over their house note so a HIGH SCHOOL football team can replace a green field with a BLUE one? These guys?
Papa Smurf?
What a fucking imbecile.
Terry Foster Forced Out By The News
Valenti wasn’t the only one on his radio program who was making news on Friday as Terry Foster Tweeted this out that morning ….
As I wrote on Twitter, the News “granted” Foster early retirement papers in the same way Felix Unger’s wife “granted” him the ability to live with Oscar Madison when she threw him out of the house and divorced his ass.
No, the News pushed Foster out the door in a fashion similar to how they treated former baseball writer Tom Gage. With Gage, the paper took away his beloved Tigers beat and had him writing articles about the decreasing popularity of bowling until Gage finally accepted a buyout.
What the News did with Foster was far more diabolical though. After Vincent Goodwill left the paper to cover the Bulls for Comcast, the brass informed Foster that he had to take over the Pistons beat from Goodshill — knowing full well that this was an impossibility due to his 97.1 gig.
The incredibly insecure Foster actually was telling people with a straight face that the paper really wanted to utilize his experience from covering the Bad Boys-era Pistons in replacing Goodshill, when everyone in the business knew they were just putting the screws to the guy.
And Foster REALLY looked thrilled having to actually work for his News paycheck after years of freeloading while he opened up failed restaurants and rode Valenti’s coattails.
Here is a photo him from Tuesday night’s game at the Palace against the Cavaliers:
Between his 97.1 duties and having two children still at home, the News knew they had Foster’s nuts in a vice and they kept squeezing on those gonads until Foster finally had to acquiesce.
And I am sure a ton of hard-working employees at the paper are thrilled that Foster is no longer going to be collecting a six-figure salary to do absolutely nothing except complain that he was actually asked to earn that living.
Anthony Fenech Is Not The Real MVP
And finally, what would a Detroit sports media potpourri be without a mention of our favorite whipping boy, Anthony Fenech?
I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that the dummy wrote an article this week explaining why he gave Josh Donaldson his A.L. MVP vote. It’s just hilarious that Fenech voted for the Blue Jays third baseman after writing the following last offseason …..
That chatroom exchange is the gift that keeps on giving. We’re still not sure why you wouldn’t want the great player as opposed to the guy who has a “chance” to be a great hitter, but we never flipped over a PT Cruiser while drunk driving.
But that’s not why I am mentioning Fenech’s MVP explanation, as funny as a baseball writer having the opinion that he wouldn’t have traded NICK CASTELLANOS for WAR machine Donaldson is.
No, it’s this passage that got my attention:
Seriously, when giving Russell Martin a tenth-place AL MVP vote is only about the fourth dumbest thing you did in a column, ya probably should give up sportswriting and become a barista.
The Blue Jays won the division title in 1987?!!?!!?!?!?!? Um, there are certain mistakes you can’t make as a sports journalist and being a DETROIT BASEBALL WRITER and fucking THAT up is one of them.
I can only imagine a World War II scribe referencing the Axis powers victory in a book as being comparable.
Like, the ’87 pennant race between the Tigers and Blue Jays is KIND OF a big deal around here. I can still remember a 15-year-old Jiff Myst smashing his 1984 framed commemorative Free Press World Series poster of Kirk Gibson when Mike Henneman gave up three runs in the ninth inning against the Jays on the penultimate Saturday of the season. I am still not sure how that heartbreaking 10-9 loss — coupled with Michelle Fenberg not wanting to have anything to do with me — didn’t lead to suicide.
And who could forget the gem that Frank Tanana spun on the last day of the season against Toronto, propelling the Tigers into the postseason?
Fenech, that’s who. Because not only did he fuck up one of the most noteworthy baseball moments in Detroit sports history, he also forgot that the Jays won TWO World Series titles in the nineties!!!!!
Poor Cito Gaston.
I mean, in Fenech’s parallel world, did Alan Trammell win the AL MVP over George Bell that year also?????
And what the hell are Fenech’s editors doing!?!??!? Do they read these awful pieces riddled with factual errors or is Nick Cotsonika too concerned with getting this fool an Uber or keeping him away from female co-workers?
Of course, after DSR readers went apeshit on Fenech for that insane historical fuckup, the paper edited his story on their website.
Too bad for “Ant” that all of his demons can’t be as easily erased.