Mitch Albom’s Awful Olympic Columns
Media Gossip/Musings August 11th. 2008, 4:30pm
It isn’t about the athletes. Or the storylines. It’s about Mitch. All Mitch, all the time:
August 8 – Read about why Mitch decided to go to Beijing.
August 9 – Man, it’s tough to get a cab here! Want to hear about my hotel?
August 9 - Mitch Albom goes shopping! Fashion and DVDs! Cheap!
August 10 – Let’s mock the way a Chinese host speaks, and then tell readers about how crummy it is to get caught in a monsoon on the way to a basketball game.
What a sad, sad decline for a guy who, 15 years ago, was one of the best sports columnists in the country.
85 Responses to “Mitch Albom’s Awful Olympic Columns”
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August 11th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
he really has mailed in his career ever since he wrote Fab Five and Tuesdays with Morrie
August 11th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Mitch, stick to writing the novels that net you about Fifty Gabillion Dollars. You’re clearly mailing your column in at this point.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:35 pm
He’s made his millions with those sappy books. He’s just writing about his vacation and getting paid for it. Not a bad gig if you can get it. Now, don’t get me wrong, his columns are garbage (even when he makes up stuff!), but I’d probably be doing the same thing if I was set for life. Why would he want to bust his ass like Posnaski is doing? Posnaski had three columns in yesterday’s paper from China.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:36 pm
now that my internship is over and I am at home and not in front of a computer all day, it gets really hard to keep up over here. i finally catch up and its a post about Albom? o well, Go America!
August 11th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
I remember when he made up that Final Four piece, yet he has prospered ever since
August 11th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
benji-what is your new avatar?
August 11th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Were you talking about Albom there or Rick Reilly?
August 11th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
To be fair, the Freep has sent two columnists over. Rosenberg seems to be doing the heavy lifting on event and athlete drive columns. Albom would seem to be tasked with the “American in China” and more human interest type pieces.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
it’s this picture.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Rosenberg is pretty good. I like the pieces that he writes for Fox Sports.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
@sparty, benji – I still see the baseball glove
August 11th, 2008 at 4:42 pm
Publisher: What’s your new idea for a book, Mitch?
Mitch: It’s a story about my relationship with a lamp.
Publisher: A lamp?
Mitch: Yeah
Publisher: Does this lamp have any value to your friends or family?
Mitch: No, I just found it at a Bed, Bath and Beyond store.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:43 pm
@benji…ah “Webster.” that is great.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
i couldn’t find a picture of just him so the family photo had to do.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
I thought one of the columns was brilliant in the way it used 35 “becauses” to start off each sentence.
What an amazing writer!!!
August 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
benji- miz gave me a JS in the last thread. make sure you add it. i want that red star, i feel left out.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:47 pm
his piece on how/why downtown julie brown was given a credential to cover super bowl media day was one of the funniest columns i’ve ever read.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
jimmy: link? i could use a good laugh
August 11th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
sparty, i’ll verify you’re not lying and then add it.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
@sparty: minus Jew star
/don’t want you to get a big head.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
verify away…
August 11th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
that’s fucking wrong. personal attack!
August 11th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
TBL, is there anymore hate left to spread around after Kobe and Mitch? Give it a break, I’m not his biggest fan, but it’s pretty easy to look at someone’s columns and just blanketly say “awful,” (Not to mention you really don’t go into any detail at all on why you think they’re awful). Albom is doing what he was assigned to do, take it up with the Freep’s superiors and spare me the hatchet job!
August 11th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Im not mad at Mitch, fuck everyone its Mitch time baby all the time. Mitch forgot to add that he has a brain tumor…oh, thats just his hair.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
let me see if i can hunt for one. it was written ages ago. i feel old now.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
for saying that people who cheat are cowards? you and miz can keep giving each other stars. way to take advantage of the rules. your star is updated.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Benji needs to look a little harder – plenty of Webster pics.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
it doesn’t need to just be funny…deep wisdom counts too, benji.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
I’d go with the pic with the cowboy hat.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
i found those but they didn’t fit the gravatar thing. you had to crop it and it would slice off half his face. it was weird so i went with the family pic. besides, i don’t mind showing alex karras some love.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
webster got fat.
August 11th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
i found those but they didn’t fit the gravatar thing
Where is that?
August 11th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
@cursed: i only looked at one column, the most recent one, and this is what i saw…not funny recountings of things that happened to him…offensive characterizations of chinese people with a tinge of racial prejudice underlying them…clearly a lack of understanding of the facts as there were two chinese players on the floor that played in the NBA (Yao and Yi) and one that just signed with the Lakers…a bunch of observations that were not unique to his situation and have been repeated ad nausea everywhere. i have never read a mitch albom book and only have read a few of his columns…but it’s clear this guy is not trying on the stuff i’ve read. i’d say he’s a hack but i imagine he has the talent, just not the desire, to write quality columns anymore.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
you feel left out!? shit. take a look at my JS tally.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
sparty, i’m just giving you shit. agreed on the cheating sediment as well.
that cowboy hat pic is pretty funny. i wanted to find the image of Brody’s shirt from Mallrats but somehow found my way over to Webster.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
miz would be kicking ass if he didn’t insist on starting at -10000.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
@benji – did you agree on the cheating sentiment too?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
@tampa bo: Gravatar
August 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
self-imposed penalties have come back to bite me in my ass
August 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
miz, you did get screwed over.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
screwed myself, sparty. screwed myself…
August 11th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
benji, I’m really sorry I have to do this, but unless there is some new form of particulate matter that settles on the bottom of a body of water, I believe the word you were looking for there is sentiment.
/yes, I’m a bitch
August 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
it was your own doing, miz? i think that deserves +100 JS. cannot hurt to give him that…still leaves him 9886 JS from breking even.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
yes i did mr perfect
August 11th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
you’re late sportsgal
August 11th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
imagine how Lezakian ut would be for me to come back from this JS deficit and pass you
frenchiesmfers up!August 11th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
sportsgal, Miz already corrected me. and i have been dealing with sediment basins and engineered soils all day. so lay off.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
He’s talented, when he wants to be.
I think his major problem is that he hasn’t had any of his work edited seriously in about 20 years because he is the only “star” at the Detroit Free Press and they can’t afford to lose him.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
i think we should have a decent under the lights tonight at MLJ…with Olympics up and running to go along with some baseball action. Where is Fetch? Twinkies and Yanks tonight…
August 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
benji = engineer?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
Lay off me, I’m starving!
August 11th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
sparty spelled breaking wrong, sparty spelled breaking wrong!!!!
August 11th, 2008 at 5:09 pm
sound slike one of RWH’s fetishes
August 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
uh oh….
August 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
@miz: yeah.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
+1 JS, miz.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:10 pm
The Fan’s Attack, I guess I just get annoyed at the simplistic ripping of writers (which happens all too often here). Ripping on attempts at humor is tough because everything is so subjective – I for one can read something, not really laugh, but appreciate where the writer was coming from.
Take for instance Norm Chad. Most writers in the business (I know some of these people) think his stuff is genius. Yet he got ripped for his humor up and down when he did a live chat here. Seems like an easy thing to do… is what I’m saying. Similarly to what TBL did here, he called Albom’s sriting “Awful,” and then wrote a phrase of why each column was “awful.”
There are a ton of writers out there, if you don’t like their style, don’t read them. Nothing is being forced on you. I also think it’s become a cliched thing to say someone’s “hack.” I don’t think everything TBL writes is brilliant prose or commentary, but I don’t make it point to call him a hack or say he’s “mailing it in” when he posts party pictures.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
benji = geotechnical engineer? how long you been practicing?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:11 pm
kindly re-read the post, and take a look at Fan’s comment.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
Anyone see that the d-backs got adam dunn?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
i can’t believe i’m typing the following:
The Hef Chronicles > The Albom Chronicles
August 11th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
i’m out…
August 11th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
@john: MLJ broke that story a while ago.
@miz: no, civil engineer. i don’t have my PE yet or any certificates for that matter. i’ve been working full time about a year since school, but worked summers at an engineering firm for 5 years.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
@benji:
Do you know the difference between civil engineers and mechanical engineers?
Mechanical Engineers build bombs, civil engineers build targets.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
@benji: Didn’t know you were an engineer. My undergrad was in engineering.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
apparently rick reilly is co-hosting PTI with wilbon today and tomorrow. god help us all…
August 11th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
damn, I need a geotech to give me an allowable soil bearing capacity for geopiers. welcome to the field. have you taken your FE yet?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
never heard that jibbles. funny stuff.
miz, are you an engineer?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
@NickP – you too huh. man, blogs really do attract nerds (structural engr. here).
August 11th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
I agree, it is difficult to successfully write humorous anecdotes, but i’m not even sure what he was doing was trying to be humorous. he just wanted to rip on China and successfully did that, but not really for any of the real reasons somebody should rip on China.
it just came across as poor writing without much thought or research put into the column.
like i said, he’s probably not a hack…he’s just lazy.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
miz, send me an email and let me know exactly your issue.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
@benji – yeah, structural. I’ll sit for the PE in October, ‘09.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
i’m surprised no one has used “enginerds” yet. i haven’t taken the FE yet.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
@NickP – you too huh. man
Got the BS, but switched gears in grad school.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:23 pm
@benji – your facebook email? if so, it’ll have to be later tonight since I don’t have facebook access at work.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:24 pm
@NickP – what’d you switch gears to?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
yeah, that’s fine Miz.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
MBA – finance
August 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Only engineering tidit I have is a shirt a friend used to wear: it was a half filled glass of beer, and below that it said:
To the optimist, the glass is half full.
To the pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To the engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:27 pm
TBL, fan cogently explained why he doesn’t necessarily like the specific column that he read. He also admitted he only read one. You on the other hand trashed him as a writer, yet wrote less than 40 words to explain why. Seems if you’re going to go on the attack like that, you’d write something a little more detailed, what you did was kind of a cop out (IMO). Did your editor limit your space on this matter?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Oh and by the way, I’m not really into Albom either. Hence me not really reading him too often these days.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I’ll hit you up, benji. thanks.
August 11th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
no prob Miz, but you know if i help you, you can never cross me regardless of the dumb shit i say. deal?
August 11th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
deal.
/reluctantly
August 11th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
Nick P, were you offended when all the non-engineering people would use the term “Asian-neering” for your library? That never got old did it.