By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag@GMail.com
June 16, 2016
The list of people in the Detroit media who despise me is not a short list. The catalogue of folks in the Detroit media who will actually publicly state their distaste for me and this website is another matter entirely.
Basically, the latter group is reserved for batshit crazy and paranoid Detroit News baseball writer Lynn Henning and Fox–2 reporter M.L. Elrick.
It’s no mystery why Henning is willing to bash me on Twitter. I’ve made it my personal mission to expose this senile fraud for the conman that he is. But Elrick’s hatred and obsession with the DSR is pretty bizarre since he isn’t a sports personality and our interactions have been pretty infrequent.
The “feud” started over a year ago when I criticized Elrick for co-hosting a show on Detroit Sports 105.1 with former Red Wings enforcer Darren McCarty. I thought it was a bad look for the man who played a part in taking down former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick back when he was still riding Jim Schaefer’s coattails at the Free Press.
I found it quite odd that a man known for targeting and taking down scumbags would co-host a program with a dude who has left two families in his wake and whose history included running up his then-wife’s credit card with gambling debts at the casino at which she worked and then “stealing” her car and driving it to Detroit before he unceremoniously dumped her.
Yes, even though McCarty was neither a mayor of a large municipality nor a city councilman, he left his poor ex-wife from Calgary in financial ruin, took her car to a foreign country without permission and didn’t even bother to break up with her in person.
Anyway, this was pretty much the sum total of our interaction. 98% of the sports media in this town would probably pay a monthly fee if this were the sole attention they’ve received from the DSR.
But Elrick’s personal animus for me goes over and above our personal back-and-forth regarding McCarty. Elrick never passes up a chance to take a shot at me.
Back last December when former DSR managing editor Justin Spiro broke the news that Drew Sharp had plagiarized the work of blogger David Harns, Elrick went on Facebook and disparaged our reporting.
Even though it wasn’t even me who broke that Sharp story, Elrick found it necessary to kill the messenger. When I called him out on this nonsense, he labeled me a troll and challenged me to show up at the Fox-2 studios to confront him in person.
(You know, something that McCarty didn’t even do when deciding to divorce his Canadian WIFE!)
Of course, I showed up at the Southfield WJBK studio parking lot and addressed all of this with Elrick in the bitter cold. The entire discussion was caught on Periscope.
(I actually have a long history of visiting the WJBK compound on 9 Mile Road from attending a recording of “Jackpot Bingo” to shadowing Bruce Kirk for a career day event when I was in high school to donating to Jerry’s Kids to multiple appearances on “Sportsworks.” But this was the FIRST time I wasn’t allowed past the front gate.)
When I asked Elrick why he despised me so much, he brought up three specific instances where I was a douche bag ….
1) The time when I made fun of Tom Lewand’s wife’s weight. As I explained to Elrick, while it wasn’t one of my finer moments, I had declared a Jihad on the organization because they tried to get me ARRESTED for posting a goofy PhotoShop. No, seriously. They called a black and white out to the Allen Park facility to take a POLICE REPORT which labeled me as the “suspect” and William Clay Ford, Sr. as the “victim.”
So, on the day my beagle was diagnosed with cancer, I had to deal with an Allen Park detective contacting me about a “death threat” because I posted a picture of Fredo Ford, Sr. in a casket. Hell, I think I showed restraint by only comparing the wife of the then-Team President to an offensive lineman.
Anyway, guilty as charged.
2) Elrick accused me of contacting a Detroit sports media member at home after they were fired from a job. Elrick refused to give me the name of the person in question so I couldn’t defend myself (even though I run a website dedicated to covering the local media scene and was most likely trying to get a quote or reaction for an article that I was writing about said person’s dismissal).
3) The item that seemed to piss Elrick off the most though was his accusation that I mocked former WRIF and WMGC radio talker Drew Lane over the death of his girlfriend’s son.
At the time, I didn’t know what Elrick was talking about. I have over 70,000 Tweets, I have written thousands of posts on the site and have recorded over 100 podcasts. I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of all the shit I have either written or said over the last 13 years.
Initially, I didn’t do much research into the matter because I didn’t recall any such comment and I was still trying to recover from the frostbite I was dealing with after spending 30 minutes in frigid weather arguing with the Pulitzer winner.
But then earlier this week Elrick co-hosted a Podcast with Lane and he went after me again. In a discussion about the DSR’s story regarding Connor Cook’s racist dad, Lane decided to give this site credit for breaking that story.
That led to the following discussion between Elrick and Lane:
Lane: It’s a sports website that ..
Elrick: Don’t say the name.
Lane: It’s a Detroit sports website.
Elrick: Oh don’t say … This, this, this, this puke isn’t even worth being mentioned. The only time we should mention him is for his obituary. Except no one will care when he is dead.
Lane: Well, I am just trying to give credit where credit is due … Oh, god … DetroitSportsRag.
Elrick: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lane: Is that the one you were thinking of?
Elrick: That’s the one I was trying not to think of. I don’t even like to acknowledge their existence.
Lane: …. I guess I should have just brought it up and said it came from somewhere.
Elrick: From some little child …. This is truly giving the Devil his due.
In less than a minute, Elrick claimed that I was the devil, a child, “puke,” that nobody would care when I dropped dead and the only time I should mentioned is when I do croak and my obituary is published.
Now, I was really curious about his Lane accusation that Elrick made in December because this vitriol was extremely curious for a guy I really hadn’t targeted at all. So I decided to launch a self-investigation into Elrick’s charge that I made light of Tess Kalil’s son. And I found the following Tweet:
Now, I am not going to defend what I posted. It was deplorable and I shouldn’t have said it. But I believe that I should give some context to that toxic Tweet because I believe it is crucial to understanding why I think M.L. Elrick is an abject hypocrite.
Look, Drew Lane was never on my radar prior to him becoming the centerpiece of Detroit Sports 105.1. I am a Howard Stern super fan and never listened to Lane’s old WRIF morning show. If anything, I viewed Lane as a Stern wannabe based on what I had heard about his show and avoided it like the plague.
But when Lane was hired to ostensibly anchor a rival station to 97.1, I no longer could ignore him as I had to cover him on my “beat.” What I discovered was that Lane had a perfunctory knowledge of sports and had no business hosting a radio program on an all-sports station.
But what was even more shocking to me were Lane’s Neanderthalic views when it came to social issues in the 2010s. Some of the crap Lane would spew was so offensive that I would get bewildered text messages from his CO-WORKERS(!!!!) at the station wondering what the fuck he was talking about.
The Detroit water issue was the last straw for me, which then led to that nasty Tweet above. You might remember that there was a protest led by actor Mark Ruffalo on the day I sent that message and Lane went on the air and started mocking the citizens of Detroit who could not afford their water bills.
In a stereotypical and racist voice, Lane ridiculed African-Americans who were complaining about their excessive water bills. In some disgusting hybrid of an “Amos and Andy”/”Stepin Fetchit” vernacular, Lane accused black people of prioritizing their cell phone and cable bills over water payments.
(Lane failed to mock Mike Ilitch for being delinquent on his Joe Louis Arena water bill. Maybe Lane is still working on his offensive Macedonian imitation.)
With no empirical evidence that these people protesting their water bills were running up high Verizon or Comcast charges, Lane attacked them for protesting in a racist dialect. (Not to mention, try to get a JOB without a cell phone. It’s not exactly some excessive luxury these days.)
In fact, a DSR reader/contributor called the station to confront Lane about his latest racist behavior and he was hung up on. All that this person wanted to ask was which data Lane was using to make these accusations.
[CLICK! DIAL TONE!]
And Lane’s racist behavior on July 18, 2014 wasn’t some anomaly. This came on the heels of his offensive comments regarding the woman who accused Jameis Winston of rape.
On the day the Tallahassee prosecutor decided not to charge Winston with sexual assault, Lane went on the air and started playing “whore” and “slut” drops when discussing this victim of a possible rape.
Now keep in mind, this is a woman who made a very credible claim. And we all know the percentage of females who falsely claim sexual assault is negligible. But that didn’t stop Lane from shaming this poor college student on his show.
It only makes matters worse that the alleged victim won a lawsuit against Florida State University for completely contaminating the investigation of Winston.
Winston’s accuser still has a civil case pending against the Tampa Bay quarterback. I wonder how Lane will feel about playing “whore” and “slut” drops when his accuser is successful in that case as well.
Or maybe Lane ONLY thinks men are guilty of their crimes once they are convicted. I am sure that Drew is a huge believer in O.J. Simpson’s innocence.
And I wish I could isolate Lane’s blatant homophobia to one instance like the Winston rape accuser saga, but it was so rampant and egregious during his 105.1 stint that we’d be here the rest of the day chronicling his awful bigotry.
Hell, at one point during a particular disturbing Michael Sam conversation, it led Tony Paul of the Detroit News (an openly gay man) to publicly criticize the discourse.
Which leads me to my point about Elrick. He’s 100% correct that I am no angel. I have posted crap I shouldn’t have. I have crossed lines when I shouldn’t have. You will get no argument from me about this and if Elrick HIMSELF did not associate with people like McCarty and Lane he’d hold the moral high ground from which to bash me.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, he regularly co-hosts a podcast with a man who has made a career of belittling people, spreading misogyny and homophobia, and making fun of the African-American population.
Where is your outrage over that, M.L.????????
Instead of regularly filling in for Mike Clark, why aren’t you calling Lane “puke” or the Devil and stating the only time he should be mentioned is when his obit is posted?
Ya fucking hypocrite.
Keep bashing me for lashing out at Lane by making an insensitive Tweet about the suicide of his girlfriend’s son — in response to all of Lane’s accrued hatred — while laughing it up with the guy who called a likely RAPE victim a slut and a whore.
But I have to give Lane some credit. He isn’t as stupid as his frequent guest co-host. Lane isn’t the one who has ever bashed me for anything I have said about HIM. He’s never attacked me for ANYTHING I have ever written about him on this website.
In fact, he was giving me credit for the Chris Cook story knowing full well the shit I have said about him. And I don’t believe he was taking any high road.
I am sure he knows going after me like Elrick has would be completely disingenuous.
Because while he might be a racist, rape-victim-shaming bigot … at least Drew Lane isn’t a hypocrite.