By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@gmail.com
May 29, 2013

So, over the last few weeks, DSR co-founder, Gregg Schultz, has been going through all of the emails ever sent to the DetroitSportsRag during the decade the site has been in existence.

I have never done a wonderful job archiving the emails, but fortunately for YOU, most of the correspondence that came into the site also went to Gregg. And I don’t think he has ever deleted an email. Like, ever. Dude probably has 5,000 “Spanish Prisoner” missives from Nigerian royalty in his Microsoft Outlook inbox alone.

Most morons who have written to ME never knew that the email which was posted on the DSR was actually a community inbox that also went to Schultz and Danny Fox.   Including my own father at one point.

(Tom Kowalski was pretty much the only media member who asked for a direct email from me to make sure anything he said wasn’t going to be read by multiple people.)

Anyway, over the last few days I have posted some email beauties on Twitter from members of the Detroit Sports Media.   Here is a sampler platter until we get to the main course.

These were fun emails to reminisce about considering Jemele Hill now works for a little site called “ESPN.com” and Terry Foster and I are now bitter enemies who have engaged in a couple of infamous Twitter Wars.

But, they weren’t a bombshell like the email I am going to release in this column.

So, here is the backstory.   Back in the late 90s, Rob Parker published a book that included a bunch of his old columns.  You know, garbage that nobody wanted to read in the first place.  He titled it, “Getting Robbed: 50 Columns from America’s Angry Black Sports Columnist.”

Shockingly enough, nobody wanted to read a “Greatest Hits Album” from a jackass who could barely string two sentences together.   The foreword was written by Pistons guard and executive Joe Dumars, but it would turn out that wasn’t the only contribution the Hall of Famer would make regarding this endeavor.

When the book predictably flopped, Parker ended up owing his publisher a fairly sizable amount of dough.  The figure that was frequently bandied about was $5,000.00.

In a bizarre coincidence, the publisher was financially backed by former Detroit Red Wings defenseman, Aaron Ward.  The former first round NHL pick was a friend of former WDFN-1130 program director/personality Gregg Henson.  You might remember the famous “Whatever he hits, He destroys” drop that Henson and Jamie Samuelson would play on their show.  That was in reference to Ward.

So, when Parker had to make good with Ward’s company, he went to Dumars for a stimulus package.  This was unethical on so many levels.  Parker was a sports columnist for the DETROIT NEWS and he was asking for a bailout from a guy he had to cover on a regular basis.  Hell, the foreword alone was probably a journalistic no-no.

But obtaining a $5,000.00 “gift” from one of the most powerful sports personalities in Detroit when you are a columnist for a major daily? Even Jayson Blair and Scott Templeton would have known this was off limits.

Anyway, this information trickled back to Henson.  Who told me about it.  I had other sources and I figured that I was pretty much immune to a lawsuit from Parker.  The story was that Ward and/or his partners actually received a CHECK from Dumars to cover Parker’s debt.

Apparently, Parker didn’t even have the brains to get cash or a check written out to “Cash” from the Pistons exec.

So, I ran with the story.  Soon after, I received an ominous email from someone claiming to be an attorney for the Detroit News.  The paper wanted me to stop writing that Parker had taken money from Dumars, who at this point was the General Manager of the Pistons.

If you want to read about that farce, the Metro Times summed up it pretty well in this article.  You should REALLY click the link if you haven’t read it before.

Seriously, click the damn link.

Now, you have to keep in mind, America’s “Angry Black” Columnist was calling out everyone in town for their supposed misdeeds at the time.  Except Dumars who would get a bi-monthly fellating from his own personal, Judith Regan.

Rob Parker NEVER wrote a negative word about Joe Dumars in his time as a Detroit News columnist.  Not once.  Not even when the Darko Milicic pick blew up in the Pistons face.   While everyone else in town was getting put on blast by Parker, Dumars skated by like Paul Coffey in his prime.

And not only was Parker calling for everyone else’s head in Detroit, he actually was stupid enough to mock Rod Marinelli’s daughter for marrying a bad defensive coordinator.  Which I actually found humorous.  Until he then lied about his “close” relationship with Marinelli which led to his demotion at the News which then led to Parker quitting the paper all together.

Dumars? Waab treated him like someone who once loaned the writer five large.  The “kid gloves” treatment was a running joke among Parker’s media “friends.”

You might ask after 800 plus words, why am I bringing all of this up today? Well, when Schultz was perusing the old DSR emails, he found a doozy from one Terrence Reginald Foster.

When the DSR started ten years ago, Foster wasn’t a co-host on the most listened to sports talk radio show in town.  His radio career was floundering and the News treated him like a red-headed stepchild.

Terry Foster had several axes to grind.  So he attempted to ingratiate himself with the DetroitSportsRag.  He even wrote an article about the site in the News.

We then met at Mr. Joe’s Bar in Southfield to discuss Foster writing for our site.  He penned an article for the DSR which had to be taken down in under 24 hours because the News didn’t want T-Fos moonlighting.

And they sure as hell didn’t want him writing articles for a website that was BOMBING his fellow employees,  Lynn Henning and Chris McCosky, on a daily basis.  That was when I wasn’t accusing Rob Parker of being on the take or writing like a third grader.

Foster was paid $125 (or maybe it was $150, who knows) for the article and even though we had to almost immediately take it down, he never returned the cash.

You see, Terry likes to take advantage of just about any situation he is in.  He can’t say no to ANYTHING.  I am sure that is why he wrote that awful Detroit Tigers book that nobody cares about and why his name is currently going up on two Detroit area restaurants that probably won’t be open nine months from today.

Who the hell is going to go to a restaurant in FRASER because Terry Foster’s name is on it? I mean, we are talking about FRASER!!!!! People didn’t even go to Jacques Demers’ restaurant in Southfield and that guy actually did something in this town.

(In a weird coincidence, both Demers and Foster are illiterate.  When does Dexter Manley get a pub in Westland?)

Jackie “The Jokeman” Martling is embarrassed at how Foster uses his 97.1 gig to shill for his other business ventures.   It is amazing that CBS Radio lets him get away with this crap, but there isn’t exactly a lot of quality control going on at “The Ticket” anyhow.

F-Terry.

Let’s back on point though because I need some sleep.

The following email was sent to me from Foster on August 4, 2003.  At the time, Parker was a columnist for the News and Terry was not and this didn’t sit well with Foster.   At all.

He would bitch about Parker to anyone who would listen.  I vividly remember  Foster droning on and on about Parker’s missteps during a phone call outside of the old E.G. Nicks in West Bloomfield.  When I was supposed to be inside for my sister’s wedding rehearsal.

But, this correspondence took the cake.

The column Foster was referring to was the one where I gingerly accused Parker of taking the money from Dumars.

You are the fucking man. That column about Parker was so on the mark.

The only mistake you make is calling the bail out by Joe a rumor. It happened. Now you did not hear this from me but Joe has confirmed it with me.

He said it was true. He bailed rob out.

And Rob just kisses his ass. Notice how rob is hard on everybody. But he is soft on the Pistons. Come on.

You are right, Terry. I didn’t HEAR it from you. I READ it from you.  The utter backstabbery (made up word) on display in that email is breathtaking.   Not only did he throw Parker right under the SEMTA, he did it to a guy he BARELY KNEW who wrote a blog attacking the Detroit Sports Media.

Amanda Bynes’ vagina thinks this behavior was reckless.

(Oh, and if you are asking why I have an unfinished “Reminder” in that Mac Screenshot, well, I guess I can now check-off, “Make the next Terry Foster/Rob Parker/Joe Dumars meeting EXTREMELY uncomfortable.”)

This email is almost ten years old now and I totally forgot about it until Gregg forwarded it to me on Tuesday.  (Shit, now that I think about it, I believe I missed my sister’s ten-year wedding anniversary.  Oops.)

I knew that Foster had TOLD me that the story was accurate and that Dumars supposedly confirmed it, but I didn’t recall that I had WRITTEN EVIDENCE.

(The other crap in the email from Foster was Detroit News gossip regarding the dismissal of longtime columnist George Cantor who has since passed way and a fired editor at the paper.  I don’t have the time or the inclination to get into all of that mishegas, suffice to say that was more dirty laundry that Foster was airing out to barely an acquaintance.)

And you know what, I would never have posted this if Foster didn’t go on Twitter last year and tell his thousands of followers that I was a racist.

And then Tweet out that he was going to “leave me alone” because I had some sort of family/personal issue.  Could you be a little more specific? I have tons of issues.

I probably would have respected the “you did not hear this from me” in his email if he didn’t wrongfully label me a racist because I personally think HE sucks.  And he just happens to be an African-American.

Hell, if his studio gangsta partner, Mike Valenti, would have gone public with his Direct Messages on Twitter where he informed me that Terry was dead wrong and I clearly wasn’t a racist or that two-faced coward, Matt Dery, would have done the same, we might not be where we are today.

But, where we are today is a really fun place for the DSR.  Creating havoc as always.

And while there may be craft beer on the menu at the new “Foster’s Famous Smokehouse and Sports Bar” in Fraser, I am guessing Rob Parker’s All-Star (Hot) Dawgs won’t be making the cut.

This is so fucking great.

Stay tuned for more emails from the vault.

Unless Dery has Gregg assassinated tomorrow.

Hahahaahhahahahahahahahahahahhha.

To. Be. Continued ………..