by Cleveland Frowns on January 27, 2012
Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio has joined the ranks of a number of name brand sports journalists in mounting a defense of Tony Grossi, who was removed from the Plain Dealer’s Browns beat after having issued a tweet stating that Randy Lerner is “a pathetic figure … the most irrelevant billionaire in the world.” The defense put forth by Florio and the rest who’ve taken up the mantle for Grossi here (including, most noisily, WKNR’s Bruce Hooley*) boils down to two points: 1) Journalists should be allowed to publish “strong opinions” about the subjects they cover; and 2) Grossi’s tweet was issued accidentally, “the kind of mistake that could happen to anyone, and everyone should be entitled to the benefit of the doubt in a case like this.”
Right after the one-day-only Quicken Loans mortage re-fi special at The Hustler Club sponsored by Morton's Steakhouse, JoeBees and Nissan of North Olmsted
To the first point, only an idiot would disagree, but the problem is with viewing Grossi as a martyr for this particular cause. Again, there’s plenty of reason to think that a more credible reporter would have kept his job after a slip like this — a reporter who’d done the work to back up the “strong opinion” with the factual narrative that’s there to support it. But Grossi was the farthest thing from that. After three years at least without a negative word to print about Lerner, Grossi only turned when he realized at the end of last season that Lerner’s top man Mike Holmgren had as much disdain for him as anyone who’s ever been running the show in Berea.
Bad enough that this turn manifested itself in 140-character personal insult and not anything that could be described as reasoned criticism, but even if Grossi could have survived such a slip in a vacuum, there’s plenty of reason to believe it was his systemic dishonesty and unprofessionalism that really did him in in the end, and that the Lerner tweet was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Florio shrugs this off much too easily, writing that: [click to continue…]
by Cleveland Frowns on January 25, 2012
So it turns out that Mike Holmgren was serious about this “you’re either with us or you’re not” thing. Per Scene’s Vince Grzegorek: “Multiple sources tell Scene Tony Grossi is no longer the Browns beat writer for the Plain Dealer as of today.”
Last week, Grossi accidentally tweeted the following about Randy Lerner: “He is a pathetic figure, the most irrelevant billionaire in the world.” He has lost his post as a result of that.
He was in hot water with his editors and bosses at the PD over the inadvertent tweet, which displayed a huge bias, hatred even, toward the Browns’ owner.
There was an obvious question whether he could objectively continue to cover the beat, one which the Plain Dealer weighed in on today with the move.
Maybe someone at the PD might have gotten to this three years ago when Grossi introduced himself to Eric Mangini by foaming and cursing at him, or any time before that or after, as he worked an astonishing hatchet job on the last Browns coach. But as hard as it is not to connect the pathetic state of the Browns franchise over the last decade with the pathetic work of the top man whose job it is to shine a light on it, and for all the times that Grossi let “bias” and “hatred” infect his reporting, it’s depressing and telling that he wasn’t removed from his post until that bias and hatred found a most worthy target in Lerner.
Literally.
In a vacuum, Grossi’s long overdue removal would be an unqualified good, and we still have to think it’s for the best, but [click to continue…]
by Cleveland Frowns on January 25, 2012
by Cleveland Frowns on January 25, 2012
This one is open to everybody: Your chance (everybody’s chance) to win the $40 Red Lobster gift card that was bestowed on us directly by Red Lobster itself in recognition of our efforts in the search for truth, our support for civilization generally, and what it’s all done to brandish the Red Lobster brand.
Of course there’s nothing worse than getting your Super Bowl pick wrong, so what to do with this prize is obvious and the rules are simple: Write an essay about why one team or the other is the pick to win and/or cover the spread in the Super Bowl (Patriots -3.5 over Giants) and post it here by next Monday January 30, at noon. Whoever writes the best essay among the folks who pick the winning side will get the gift card. As always your editorial board is the judge, jury and executioner as to what the best essay is, and still after so many contests we’ve run here nobody’s ever been remotely aggrieved by any of our judgments on these things, so don’t hold back. You’ll be a better person either way for the effort.
Also, if you were one of those people who was worried that the gift card was intended and should have been used solely for the direct inspiration of the editorial board, you’ll be glad to see that our sponsor knows when and how to make it rain: [click to continue…]
by Cleveland Frowns on January 24, 2012
Could there be anything more insanely petty and dumb than the idea that a major professional sports franchise shouldn’t retire the jersey of by far the greatest player in its history just because that player exercised his lawful free agency rights as a 25-year-old? Technically, probably just the owner of that franchise and the legions of butthurt fanboys that cheer him on.
Anyway, it’s what we have to hear about again on Cleveland talk radio today with the Cavs set to play the Heat tonight in Miami, so it’s as good a time as any to remember: Even if you hadn’t rocketed to impossible fame and fortune from the back seat of your homeless crack-addicted single-mother’s car by the age of 18 to find yourself in the employ of a sloganeering loan shark who, along with everyone else around you, could do nothing but bend over for you at every turn for seven-plus years out of fear of running a gravy train off the tracks … even if that wasn’t you, and as much as you might have or should have understood how much you were going to hurt the people of Northeast Ohio if you left … you might still have had really good reasons to decide you didn’t want to work for a guy like Dan Gilbert anymore.
A number of which might have nothing to do with his organization’s inability over seven years to give you a teammate who was any better than Mo Williams D Block! Anderson Varejao, that are strongly suggested by some of the more useful pages on the internet. [click to continue…]
by Cleveland Frowns on January 23, 2012
The Niners were 0 for 12 on third down yesterday (technically 1 for 13, but the one conversion came on a meaningless short throw on the last play of regulation). Their wide receivers made one catch for three yards on nine targets. On any of their last four drives a field goal would have sent them to the Super Bowl, yet they moved the ball a total of -7, 0, 2 and 9 yards respectively on each. This, despite the services of a pair of running backs who ran for over 100 yards on just 20 carries and the best pass-catching tight end in football. Niners wideout Michael Crabtree was one of the best receivers to play college football in the last decade. He can’t be that bad now in the NFL.
It’s something for the (thankfully) dwindling “surround Colt McCoy with weapons” crowd to think about. [click to continue…]
