By Jeff Moss
DetroitSportsRag.com
May 31, 2013

In the last few years the Detroit Free Press sports section hasn’t exactly been a bastion of journalistic excellence.  Actually, it has been a huge embarrassment for the once great newspaper.

You’ve had the paper’s legendary columnist write a column about a Michigan State basketball game.  Before it occurred.

Then the paper let a COLUMNIST lead an investigative witch-hunt into a football coach who he didn’t like personally.

This was followed by yet another columnist writing a piece about a no-hitter when he didn’t even watch the damn game.

Not to be outdone, the Freep’s senior baseball writer embarrassed himself last year by putting Raul Ibanez on his AL MVP ballot.

And I haven’t even gotten to the third trimester abortion that comes out of Jeff Seidel’s laptop on a regular basis.

But, the one thing we haven’t been able to pin on any of the Freep sports writers is plagiarism.  Well, maybe, until now.  You be the judge.

So, on Wednesday afternoon before the deciding Game 7 of the Blackhawks/Red Wings series, NHL.com writer Brian Hedger posted an article about the last Western Conference matchup between the two Original 6 teams.

Mitch “Condescending Baggins” Albom also decided to come down from his perch atop Mount Superiority and grant us peasants his journalistic brilliance by covering Game 7.   As you might know, Frodo is only a part-time sports columnist these days as his priorities are on his philanthropic efforts in Haiti and writing new morbid novellas for soccer moms and nursing home residents.

Now, keep in mind that Hedger’s piece was posted at 2:34pm and Albom’s theoretically didn’t write his column until AFTER Game 7 was played.  I say theoretically because we know Frodo isn’t exactly adverse to writing about events that have yet to occur.

Here is a quote from Hedger’s article:

The Red Wings and Blackhawks have clawed at each other for 87 years, played the most head-to-head games in League history and are separated by roughly 280 miles. There’s a lot of history recorded, Hall of Fame nominations earned and blood spent between two of the most iconic teams in professional sports.

And here is a snippet from Albom’s article:

No more first or second rounds for the Wings and Hawks. No more clawing through one another to reach the Stanley Cup Finals.

I guess that it could be a coincidence that they both used a form of the word “claw.” Nothing really earth shattering here as long as there aren’t any other coincidences, but …….

Here is another paragraph from the NHL.com writer’s article:

Longtime fans on both sides will see more than just Jonathan Toews and Henrik Zetterberg battling in the faceoff circle on Wednesday night. Seeing the winged wheel and Blackhawks logo, for some, will remind them of classic clashes from the past between guys named Hull and Howe, Mikita and Lindsay, Yzerman and Savard.

And now, a word from our favorite death obsessed Hobbit:

Fight over. With the playing ghosts of Hull and Howe, Mikita and Lindsay, Yzerman and Savard nodding from above, the two teams skated past each other and shook hands, and the rivalry as we’ve known it — and this last entertaining series — was history.

WHOA!!!!! Hull and Howe, Mikita and Lindsay, Yzerman and Savard.  The same exact pairing of player names in the same exact order for two franchises that have been in existence for over 90 years and have dressed thousands of players?!!?!?

That’s not a coincidence unless your name is Lynn Hoppes.

I don’t know if this rises to the level of plagiarism, but it sure is lazy.  You would almost have to believe that Albom copied and pasted Hedger’s article.  I also wonder if the game heading into overtime and deadline issues caused this to occur.

We all know how Albom likes to blame “deadline issues” when crap like this hits the fan.  Just ask Mateen Cleaves and Jason Richardson.

I have learned that the incompetent gentleman (Freep sports editor Gene Myers) who runs this dysfunctional sports department is aware of these “coincidences” and plans to take no action at all.   The higher-ups at the paper would excuse Albom if it was found out that he killed a hooker and then apologize to their “star columnist” that they didn’t get him a JDate account in time.

Just like when Myers refused to respond to the accusations that Drew Sharp wrote a column about Justin Verlander’s no-hitter when Sharp clearly didn’t watch the game even though I made SEVERAL ATTEMPTS to elicit a response.

The sports section of the Free Press has become a running joke in town and the fact that Albom is even allowed to work part-time as a columnist is ridiculous.

There is no way in holy hell that Albom witnessed three Red Wings games during the regular season yet come playoff time he is a regular Bob McKenzie meets Eric Duhatschek.

Anyway, this is what happens when you send someone who is busy finishing his latest book in which Morrie tells Father Time to have a little more faith because a small town in Michigan is receiving phone calls from the five people you meet in Heaven.

Just the other day, the Chicago Sun-Times fired its entire photographic staff and replaced the actual living and breathing human beings with iPhones.

Maybe it is time the Freep’s publisher shitcans the entire sports department and replaces these morons with Galaxy S4’s.

I am aware a Galaxy S4 can’t chronicle a sports event, but having no sports department at all would actually be an improvement.