Unverified Voracity Never Forgets Comment Count

Brian

Pissin' on the First Amendment. A note on a new message board policy: threads about the Free Press are now banned. Details on the board. Most of them saw a piece of me die, a lot of them were full of the sort of ugly ad hominems I delete from my posts about the paper, and they were all redundant since at this point I'm pretty sure the blog's readership has formed their opinion of them.

This might seem hypocritical a day after I posted some ad hominem at the Free Press myself, but I can control the frequency of that (very rarely). I can't on the board (every damn day).

Never forget. The meaning of this should be obvious:

never_forget-500

But in case you need a legend, MGoUser "MGauxBleu" has a legend. A salute to all those who have dared the wrath of Angry Michigan Secondary Hating God but not lived to tell the tale.

MOLK! Okay, I didn't listen to all of the Media Day videos, but some guys did and they caught David Molk tellin' it like it is:

Q. How excited are you to get back on the field after sitting out the last few games of 2009?
A. I can't wait. The reason I like football is that I like to hit people. I hate everything else. I like to hit people really f___ing hard (laughs), and I haven't been able to do that for a really long time.

In the wild. The FAU-Michigan State game at Ford Field provides an interesting test case of what a game against a tomato can is worth when not parasitically attached to a season ticket package. Because it's technically an FAU "home" game—they had to move it because their stadium won't be ready—State can't do the parasite thing, and ticket sales are going as well as you might expect. Under 10,000 tickets have been sold because though Spartan fans did go to Michigan State, they didn't go to Ohio State and can therefore count:

With a sideline ticket going for $69 (and the most expensive ticket topping out at $79 or $88.10 with fees) the game just may be a little steep for the citizens of Detroit, whose economy is in ruins.

Many of the grumblings from Spartan fans I hear from is that the tickets are the most expensive of the season – sideline seats at Spartan Stadium go for around $49 - and they consider this to be one of the worst games of the season.

Not wanting to shell out 70-90 bucks to see FAU play MSU is less about an "economy in ruins" and more about having a shred of sense. If Michigan was playing Bowling Green at Ford Field and it wasn't part of the ticket package I wouldn't pay 80 bucks to see it. I might play 30, and I run a Michigan blog. End zone seats have just been reduced to 20 bucks—it won't be long until the whole stadium is that price.

What a bizarre system: teams radically underprice games against actual opponents and try to make it up with body bag games.

Fiutakin' it. This one is a doozy. From David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Press:

Forcier started every game last season. But he drew the ire of now-injured Troy Woolfolk when the senior cornerback chastised him publicly for skipping voluntary summer workouts, saying Forcier had lost respect of teammates and coaches, in part for practicing in a non-winged helmet.

If you are in disbelief this was actually written, a screenshot:

image

So… yeah. David Mayo of the Grand Rapids Press thinks Tate Forcier brought an unauthorized helmet to practice.

Etc.: The Shredder got one of his paint masterpieces autographed by Tate. Five questions about Notre Dame optimistically answered. Gardner, Robinson, and Forcier on Media Day from MVictors.

Comments

El Jeffe

August 24th, 2010 at 10:57 AM ^

How is it possible to be as uninformed as David Mayo is? I'm serious. How could you know, for example, where Mallett transferred to, or that Forcier started every game, but not know that the wingless helmet was a motivational ploy? Just absolutely stunning incompetence. Not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things, but man.

saveferris

August 24th, 2010 at 12:53 PM ^

Michigan is not his regular beat....fair enough.  I just Googled "Wingless Helmet" and the first hit was the an article on annarbor.com that explains just why Tate Forcier was at practice with a plain helmet.  This took less than 90 seconds to research.  I'm not a journalist by trade, so I shouldn't be better at this than Dave Mayo....sheesh!

BlockM

August 24th, 2010 at 11:11 AM ^

"Hey Troy, what's up? Ready for practice?"

"Dude, Tate, wtf is up with your helmet?"

"Oh, this thing? It's just my new 'True Blue' helmet. You pay extra for these things, you know? Doesn't have all that yellow junk all over it."

"That's messed up."

"Yeah, well, I mean, if you don't respect the fact that my helmet is cooler than yours now, that's your problem. Coach Rod actually suggested it. He thinks I deserve a little recognition for all the awesome plays I made last year."

"I'm gonna guess that's not how it went do-"

"It did, man. It did."

IvyLeague

August 24th, 2010 at 11:12 AM ^

This moron and his wife got caught GROWING 71 pots of marijuana in his house about a year and a half ago. On second thought, it is so widely publicized why Tate didn't have wings you would think even an adult stoner wouldn't be this stupid. 

bronxblue

August 24th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^

I like to hear that from Molk - this team needs to have a fire in its belly, and for the Center to be that clear of his intentions shows a level of passion that I don't remember seeing with this team the past few years.

As for MSU-FAU, seemingly every MSU alum I know thought it was a dumb idea once the prices were announced.  I'm sure the school will eat some of the lost tickets and give them away (either free or at a very reduced price) to fill the stadium, but I can't imagine that any fans would pay that much to see their team play a crappy opponent (that goes both for MSU and FAU). 

El Jeffe

August 24th, 2010 at 12:21 PM ^

But I heard it was like the old facemask rule--5 yards for unintentional bludgeoning of an opponent with a severed limb. It's really a judgement call, which is why I generally go easy on the zebras. Would you want to have to make that call, in the midst of all the screaming and arterial spurting and such?

Blazefire

August 24th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^

is my Hero for the Idiotacracy for the day. Yes, idiots of the world. You too, with hard work and a bit of luck, can get a relatively cushy, well paid job too.

LudaChristian

August 24th, 2010 at 11:14 AM ^

I've seen a couple different instances where the lack of the wings on the helmet was misinterpreted by reporters with no clue. Like Tate and the others would take them off themselves just to be diva-licious? Think it over, folks.

umchicago

August 24th, 2010 at 11:20 AM ^

isn't this game FAU's responsibility, if it's their home game?  the smarter idea would be to allow students in for free with ID (which i'm guessing would be true at FAU) and charge $20-$40 for the other seats.

zlionsfan

August 24th, 2010 at 12:05 PM ^

although apparently they'll need to bring their Owl Cards. (I wonder if FIU students make jokes about Tigger and Pooh.) Tickets for non-students are $12 and $25.

I really can't see too many people flying (or driving) up from Florida to pay outrageous prices to see a game in a ghost city in a stadium that'll have woefully inadequate concessions. (I drove up with some friends for the WMU-Illinois game and we were surprised at how few stands were open. Of course some people actually went to that game; unless these prices drop quickly, that won't be a problem for this one.)

Don

August 24th, 2010 at 11:33 AM ^

The departures of Turner and White had nothing to do with off-season conditioning, breaking team rules, or other normal transgressions. Both of them insisted on wearing helmets that they customized themselves with the help of local auto body painter and tattoo artist Roth Von Dutch. The stripes on Turner's helmet were turned into thick strands of barbed wire, and the stripes on White's were filaments of flame, with a flaming, winged death's head where the standard UM wings would be.

UMaD

August 24th, 2010 at 11:35 AM ^

This makes me happy.  Its one bit of evidence that may eventually get ADs to stop planning cupcake home games under the false logic that all additional home games bring in equal revenues.  They don't.   If fans are willing to pay an extra $90 on their season tickets for a game against Cupcake U, it means you've underpriced the rest of the schedule.

bronxblue

August 24th, 2010 at 12:17 PM ^

The thing about FAU is that they nearly made a bowl game last year after going the year before and winning, have a decent number of returning players (including top rusher and a pretty good QB in Van Camp), and really are not afraid of the Spartans.  I'm sure it looked like a cupcake a couple of years, but Howard Schnellenberger has really turned them around.

witless chum

August 25th, 2010 at 10:23 AM ^

Mayo doesn't display any more knowledge of MSU stuff than this for actually "covering" that beat. He's a cliche-recycling opinion writer and doesn't seem to do any original reporting. Booth Newspapers (GR Press, Kazoo Gazette, Muskegon Chronicle, I think the Saginaw and Bay City papers) got rid of Steve Grinzcel as their MSU beat writer and replaced him with half-assing by GR Press people. The Kalamazoo Gazette (I still get the actual paper paper) actually has a pretty good writer assigned to covering WMU sports. That was probably a sound business decision, as I'm only subscribing to get local news and I'm not going to stop wanting to know what the county commission and township board are doing because the paper's day-old MSU coverage is now of much lesser quality.

My impression is that David Mayo actually knows a lot about boxing, when I hear him on the radio he sounds enthusiastic and informed about it. But when I read him on anything else, I get the opposite impression.

And I'll stand as one vote in favor of sportswriters smoking more weed, not less.

03 Blue 07

August 24th, 2010 at 12:03 PM ^

Guys, call me crazy, but I read it as him saying that Tate practicing in a wingless helmet lost him respect from his teammates because he had (presumably) done enough to get to the point in the coaches' doghouse where they took his wings. I can see that pretty much everyone else didn't read it that way, and it is very likely a product of some bad prose, but I didn't make the conclusion that Mayo thought TF brought his own helmet from home or whatever when I read that sentence. Am I the only one?

EDIT: After re-reading it, the prose leads more to the conclusion everyone else reached. I guess I just think it was worded wrongly, and, when I read it, I guess I was making certain assumptions because, well, EVERYONE knows why Tate didn't have the wings, so I assumed that the author did as well. I still think he just mangled the hell out of the English language, or, perhaps, his editor made some revisions because the editor is ignorant? I'm just throwing out some alternate possibilities- I have no pre-existing feelings for or against Mayo, really, except I kind of thought it was funny when the whole pot thing went down.

lexus larry

August 24th, 2010 at 12:25 PM ^

Now if only I could embed like the pros here, and get that pic of Mr. Burns's monkey, one of the 1000, sitting at the typewriter, smokin' the cigar, getting yelled at for the typo (as referenced in the Wiki - "It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times!? You stupid monkey!"

+1 to you, sir!

joeburner82

August 24th, 2010 at 12:20 PM ^

I need a little mayo for my turkey sandwich and not for a source on Michigan football.  He needs to go back to covering the exciting Grand Rapids Rampage Arena football team. In his defense, Grand Rapids must be an awful place for a sportswriter.

biakabutuka ex…

August 24th, 2010 at 12:20 PM ^

He is comically wrong here, but it wasn't a hit job or anything. I remember him being the "Michigan guy" for that paper when I read it daily (90s). And everyone else there seems to be 40% pro-MSU/60% anti-Michigan.

And the pot arrest is good for a laugh and all, but he is a sports reporter, not a brain surgeon.

M-Wolverine

August 24th, 2010 at 12:25 PM ^

But this reminds me that I cannot think of a sadder day than the one we lost Teen Wolf from the Secondary. :-(

LB

August 24th, 2010 at 12:39 PM ^

please continue to provide us with a large batch of coachable young men who want to play football, who specifically want to play football for Michigan, and who like hitting people really hard. That is all, we will take it from here.

Edit: and please make the season get here, my sanity might depend on it.

Ernis

August 24th, 2010 at 2:22 PM ^

Molk: This is exactly how I felt during my halcyon days of HS offensive line... except Molk is monumentally better at it than I, who was not good enough for any college and lives in exile, forced to reap my only enjoyment in life vicariously through successful linemen.

Mayo: This is monumental stupidity. I've seen poorly-researched articles before, but this is a reversal of logic akin to Nazi racial theories ... oops I just lost the argument automatically! Guess Mayo was right after all.