Let the games begin.

I don’t like Mitch AlBUM, at all.  I do like John Feinstein, a lot.

First some background.  Here, here, and here.

Feinstein took it upon himself to comment on the month-long Mike Wise suspension by comparing it to the suspension that Mitch AlBUM never received.

Completely different subject: a lot of people have asked me in the last few days how I feel about the Mike Wise twitter incident. Let me say first that Wise is both a colleague and a friend—we’re not close but we’re certainly friends. A few years ago he loaned me a jacket for a ‘Sports Reporters,’ appearance because the Final Four hotel in Atlanta had lost my jacket. (It was found eventually but too late for the show).

Mike was wrong and has said so. He made up a story that Ben Roethlisberger’s suspension would be chopped from six games to five and put it out on twitter. He did it to make a point about the internet and the social media and how almost anything gets picked up and is treated seriously. That wasn’t the way to do it. Heck, all he had to do was cite ESPN’s 409 Brett Favre ‘scoops,’ of the last two years as proof. If you are a journalist, you don’t make stuff up EVER. Mike’s been suspended by The Washington Post for a month and the entire staff has been reminded about the simple fact that you report what you know to be true—regardless of the venue: newspaper, internet, twitter, facebook.

Pretty innocuous stuff so far, right?  Feinstein continues.

To his credit, Mike hasn’t blamed anyone but himself for his mistake. I DO find it ironic that he has been nailed so heavily on this while Mitch Albom basically skated five years ago when he LIED in a column. Albom described how two Michigan State players looked from the stands during a Final Four game and how he felt during that Final Four game. The only problem was he wrote the column on Friday and the game was played on Saturday—and the two players in question, who had told Mitch they’d be at the game didn’t show up. Whoops. Tony Kornheiser calls what Albom did a “mistake of tense.” I call it a lie.

Let me pause HERE to say Mitch and I are not friends. We did Sports Reporters together for a long time. We never exchanged any angry words that I remember but we were never friends. I thought what he did back in 2005 was awful and said so. I thought the column he wrote when he came back from a two week, ‘vacation,’ from The Detroit Free Press was worse. It began—I’m paraphrasing but only slightly—“I don’t often talk to God. But lately I’ve been asking him to give me the grace to forgive those who have been jealous of me.”

Oh please. How about just saying, ‘Man did I screw up. I got carried away with myself and violated tenet one of journalism. I’m so sorry.’ Instead he said people had criticized him because they were jealous of his success.

Believe me when I tell you I’m not jealous of Mitch. I’m very happy with my career and my life—the Mets aside. But I thought what he did was much worse than what Wise did—a firing offense to me—and the editor of the Free Press basically gave him a free pass because he was her biggest star.

Think that’s bad?

This past summer the Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE) awarded Mitch its highest honor: The Red Smith Award. Some very distinguished people have won this award. It’s a big deal. I thought they demeaned the award and the past winners by giving someone caught in an out-and-out lie the award. Of course the APSE is made up of a bunch of editors, it is extremely political—some very UN-distinguished people have also won the award—so it isn’t that big a deal. Except that Mitch came in and gave an acceptance speech on the subject of ethics in journalism.

When it has something to do with Rich Rodriguez.

dave alvin with 4th of july

charlie louvin with his brother ira – i don’t believe you’ve met my baby

via the big blue

Have they lost their collective minds?  I was informed of this story by a University of Michigan season ticket holder last weekend.  Prior policy was to allow ticket holders to bring in unopened bottles of water to Michigan Stadium.

What makes this even more bizarre is that instead of allowing fans to bring in unopened bottles of water…

the first 25,000 fans entering the gates will receive a bottle of spring water from Absopure that commemorates the stadium renovation.

UM officials are blaming homeland security for the ban, but as far as I know, fans are allowed to gather in large numbers all up and down and around the stadium and no one is taking their water away when they do.

So is it all about the money?  Charging 110,000 people $4.00 for a $0.25 bottle of water seems like a very profitable venture.  I guess if they are trying to raise enough to buy RichRod out of his deal, then perhaps all UM fans won’t mind chipping in?

ESPN Baseball analist (my bad) Tim Kurkjian was asked what he thought of the Cincinnati Reds‘ Joey Votto‘s MVP-type season and whether he can sustain it.

Kurkjian replied (in paraphrase), “Votto has 35 home runs.  The Reds haven’t had a first baseman with that many home runs since Lee May 40 years ago.  So, no.”

Can someone please explain to me what the past 40 years of first basemen hitting has the slightest bit to do with the future of Joey Votto?

Local Muslims chastise Boehner

Big plans for Big Bone

WNWO reports that the Toledo Public School Board discovered $824,000 in unaccounted for money and will use a portion of that to pay for crossing guards.

I stick with my original post (linked below) that the district could save money by appointing parent organizations to run the program at very little cost to the district.  Very little training or skill is required and the benefit of the program is directed at the kids and their parents.

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