Deadspin: Mitch Albom

Media Approval Ratings: Mitch Albom

Leitch — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 13:05:47 EDT

Back when we were rehearsing on this here site, trying to talk the overlords into Gawker Media into the notion that a sports blog might not be a terrible idea, one of our first posts was about Mitch Albom's little ethical lapse at the Detroit Free Press. The surprise to us at the time was less than Albom had pulled such a stunt, and more that ... hey, Mitch Albom still writes columns?

We imagine every day Mike Lupica throws blunt objects against the wall that he didn't think of writing a heart-tugging syrupy book about some teacher that he had. Alas: Albom got there first.

Albom doesn't have that much to do with sports anymore, basically just showing up on "The Sports Reporters" every once in a while, but just because Christopher Moltisanti is starring in movies about your books doesn't mean you can't play in the sports sandbox every once in a while.

So: Do you like the Mitch Albom? Do you not like the Mitch Albom? Let us know.

Poofy-Haired Gnome Takes Kevin Hart to Task

DAULERIO — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 13:31:10 EST

Diminutive, exploiter of dying old men-novelist and Detroit Free Press "columnist" Mitch Albom jumped up on a stack of a phone books in order to impart some moral judgment about sad recruitment faker Kevin Hart. Albom, pumped full of rock star ego thanks to Oprah Winfrey's fanbase embracing him like their personalized pookie doll, says the Hart situation casts an unflattering light upon society.

I always find it startling that Albom stil has a job, but equally baffling is how the Free Press still lets him sit in harsh judgment of others, considering the fact that he's stepped on so many people for the sake of his own self-interest for a good portion of his career.

But Mitch Albom obviously is hypersensitive to these types of things. He feels things differnetly than others. He does. He's an angel sent down from heaven disguised a 50-year-old man who dreses like a 12-year-old boy.

God, I just want to flush him down the toilet.

In this hoax, maybe the joke is on us [Free Press]

Mitch Albom: Still Full Of Gooey Crap

Leitch — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 12:45:44 EDT

Slate's Bryan Curtis, fine critic of brunch and one-time Deadspin contributor, uses his column this week to sink his claws into the infamous Mitch Albom, and he absolutely shreds him. Some highlights:

Mitch Albom is a fabulist all right, but not just in the journalistic sense. Albom is literally a teller of fables, a peddler of shallow morality tales for the masses. You can see it in his risible sports writing, and you can see it in his best-selling books. A representative of Starbucks, which will sell For One More Day as part of its new books promotion, told the Los Angeles Times that the chain wanted its literary selections to be "deeply felt." Albom's writing is deeply felt, and dimly thought. He's a huckster evangelist for the soccer-mom set.

Curtis also brings up the oddly muted reaction to Albom's Jayson Blair impression from last year, which we always thought was swept under the rug in a bit too tidy a fashion. Of course, you might remember who went on CNN to publicly defend his "colleague:" Tony Kornheiser.

The Passion Of Mitch Albom [Slate]
Five People You Meet In Hell [The Daily Closer]

Viva Los Mitch Albom Haters!

Leitch — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 16:15:26 EST

Those of you who hate Mitch Albom, be advised — your reason for living has returned. After a five-month layoff, the blog Mitch Albom is a Terrible Writer has returned — full of vim, vigor and gleeful contempt for its subject, the author and columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Excerpt:

"Mitch Albom is a shithead. He just wrote a dreadfully insignificant article about John Lennon. To attempt to lend himself credibility, Albom notes that as a child he dreamt of becoming a musician. Instead, he became the worst writer of both the 20th and 21st centuries — quite a distinction."

We became familiar with this blog while doing research for Why Your Hometown Columnist Sucks and were sad to see it had gone dark. So where has this blog been for five months? The author, who calls himself "Morrie Schwarzenegger," tells a tale of South American adventure and political intrigue that sounds suspiciously like the plot to the Russell Crowe movie Proof of Life. But anyway, he's back, and Mitch Albom might want to consider a restraining order.

Mitch Albom Is A Terrible Writer [Blogspot]
Why Your Hometown Columnist Sucks: Mitch Albom [Deadspin]

Sorry. We're Not Done With Mitch Albom Yet

Leitch — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 14:23:57 EDT

Even though we wrote about it recently, we still can't stop thinking about that time Mitch Albom made up a bunch of stuff and turned it in as a column. Like, we're still supposed to read him after that.

In his blog Return of the Reluctant, author Edward Champion came up with an interesting piece in which he compares Albom's apology for the fabrication with Richard Nixon's "Checkers speech." It's so right-on, in fact, that it's actually a little scary.

Oh, and an open letter to the author of Mitch Albom is a Terrible Writer: Summer's over — get off your ass and resume your blog. Mitch is still out there, possibly writing a television pilot, which means we need you now more than ever.

Tricky Mitch [Ed Rants]
A Question Of Ethics [Detroit Free Press]
Mitch Albom is a Terrible Writer [Blogspot]

Why Your Hometown Columnist Sucks: Mitch Albom

Leitch — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 14:37:45 EDT

To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, your local sports columnist is like Larry of the Three Stooges: You don't really need him, but it wouldn't be the same without him. We always vow to use our powers for good, so we part the newsprint curtain each Tuesday and examines a different lousy local columnist. Who knows — next we could be coming to your town. So for God's sake tidy up a little.

If all of Mitch Albom's soccer mom fans were to gather in the same place at the same exact time, the resulting pressure on the earth's mantle could very well change our orbit around the sun. Albom could not be more popular with the SUV set if he set out in a rowboat and stopped Hurricane Katrina single-handedly, saving a few dolphins from fishing nets on the way back in. Best-selling author, composer, host of his own radio show — Albom is a cottage industry.

But then there is the actual writing. Let's step inside one of Albom's columns, shall we? Pandering? Laborious? Albom can be all of these and more. Of course you know that Mitch recently made up a bunch of crap in one of his columns, Jayson Blair style, and almost got canned. There's also the rumor about how Oakland University is refusing to send any more interns to his radio show because he once threw something at one of them, a la Russell Crowe.

And it may surprise you to know that there is a growing group of resistance fighters in his own home town who just don't like the man. We can't explain it any better than the folks at the blog Mitch Albom is a Terrible Writer, which calls him "a smug asshat of a second-rate talent," among other things.

As if it wasn't bad enough to live in Detroit ...

Mitch Albom is a Terrible Writer [Blogspot]
Mitch Albom [Detroit Free Press]

Stuart Scott Could Be Yours For $25 Grand (Plus Shipping!)

Leitch — Thu, 08 Sep 2005 12:30:13 EDT

$25,000.

You can do a lot with $25,000. You can provide food for starving Africans before Sally Struthers eats them first. You can buy 1,518 copies of Bill Simmons new book (not counting shipping, which is probably a bitch). You can even join 2,500,000 of those record clubs where you get 11 CDs for a penny.

You can also hire ESPN anchor Stuart Scott to come speak at your corporate function. The site HireSportsSpeakers.com allows you to bring your favorite ESPN personalities to come talk to you and your fellow corporate drones about leadership, teamwork or, you know, just how to read off a Teleprompter. The site serves as a broker between corporations and sports personalities, negotiating their fees and putting together their schedules.

One would think that paying Stuart Scott $25,000 plus "travel is almost always on top of the fees, usually something like first class for two, ground transportation and hotel" to do anything other than promise never to use the terms "pillow," "cool," "boo" or "yah" again would be somewhat excessive. But Scott isn t even the most expensive anchor on his own network. In fact, he s not even close.

Full list of top ESPN anchors/sports personalities and their speakers fees after the jump. Start saving those pennies for Tom Tolbert now!

The appearance fees for major "sports personalities."

$15,000 and below
Mitch Gaylord - $10,000
Greg Gumbel - $15,000
Ron Jaworski - $10,000
Tony Kornheiser - $15,000
Tom Tolbert - $15,000

For a guy who has a sitcom based on his life — albeit a pretty unwatchable one — we think that's a pretty good price. Well, relatively speaking. By the way ... Mitch Gaylord! Still alive, we guess. Good for him.

$20,000-$30,000
James Brown - $30,000
Rich Eisen - $25,000
Roy Firestone - $22,000
Marion Jones - $20,000
Jim Nantz - $25,000
Dan Patrick - $30,000
Rick Reilly - $25,000
Stuart Scott — $25,000

We don't know how much Dan Patrick made for his Hair Care For Men ads, or, for that matter, how much Rick Reilly got for encouraging his readers to become drunken idiots, but it couldn't have been too far from this amount. By the way, Reilly's amount is probably around the starting salary for entry-level print journalists in this country, if you were wondering what that collective "pounding-head-against-desk" sound was.

$40,000-$50,000
Mitch Albom - $40,000
Chris Berman - $50,000
Jim Rome - $40,000

You know, we wonder if Mitch Albom actually has to be there giving the speech to collect his cash, or if he can just say he was there.

$50,000 and above
Bob Costas - $60,500
Al Michaels - $75,000

For an extra 10 grand, Bob Costas will promise not to lecture you about your lack of class and decorum. Don't worry, though; he brings his own stepstool for the podium.

Just For Fun
Leslie Nielsen - $70,000

Enrico! Pallazzo! Enrico! Pallazzo!

HireSportsSpeakers.com [Official Site]