Let's Suck Up To Billionaires, Parts 7,983 a) and b)

Double-barrelled blowjob from both Detroit papers.

Mike Ilitch, already a billionaire, is making tons and tons and tons and tons of money, so all is well.

First, of course, from the Detroit News, always the bootlickers of the rich and powerful:

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060929/OPINION03/609290378/1322/AUTO04

Not to be outdone, the Free Press gets its suckage in:

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2006609290462

 

Let's go, ROY-als . . . (clap, clap . . . clap/clap/clap . . . )

 

And in the Freep, no real mention of his wife, who, in a wonderful bit of revisionist history, suddenly had nothing ever to do with the Tigers as soon as she wanted a piece of Detroit casinos....
Family makes me sick...

 

SLAP --
Explanation, pls?
Don't know the story.

 

Found this on line in a column by longtime Detroit News general columnist Pete Waldmeir... Another underrated writer; a Detroit version of Royko...wish he'd never retired. This incident is also part of the Big Chill between the Tigers and Sparky Anderson; Ewald is his friend and Sparky didn't like the way they shit on him.
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Marian Ilitch's feat was more like an immaculate conception. After years of bragging in person and in official business documents that she was an owner of not only the family pizza empire, but of all the family sports end entertainment investments as well, she announced that she actually never "owned" and part of the Detroit Tigers.

Major League baseball, you understand, has a rule that prohibits its franchise owners from investing in a casino or any other gambling enterprise. And Ms. Ilitch was about to buy a large chunk of the new Motor City Casino. When Baseball's lawyers produced copies of the Tigers' team handbook and other documents detailing her ownership, Ms. Ilitch said it was all a mistake; that the Tigers' team publicist Dan Ewald had printed all those lies about her without her permission.

Ewald, of course, was furious and told anyone who would listen how every scrap of information that went into the team's handbooks all the years he worked there had been thoroughly vetted by the Ilitch family. But MLB took Ms. Ilitch's word that she was a non-owner and she went on to buy 25 per cent of the MGM casino ....and now stands to pay another $525 million to buy the rest of it.

A mother of seven, the next move Ms. Ilitch is rumored to be planning is a trip to Lourdes, where she'll have her virginity restored.

 

The Ilitch spawn are real pieces of work, too.

Basically, they're going to be running Detroit for the next 50 years. I'm surprised one of them doesn't run for governor. Apparently to be born the silver-spoon scion of a billionaire brood is what it takes to get the nomination these days.

BTW, all this public-relations suckuppery is a prelude for Ilitch getting back into the taxpayers' pants to build him a brand new Red Wings arena. Now that the hundreds of millions of public money spent on CoPa has paid off so handsomely, by pumping nine-figure profits into his pockets.

 

Atanas is my personal favorite Clampett, but Denise is the true piece of work. She deserved everything that came to her when she got bounced from the family bidness...

 

These days?

 

So it's unusual to write about a team owner when the team makes the playoffs?

And Detroit would be better off without the Ilitch family?

Having just been there, I'd have to say the city is rebounding brilliantly. And I'd bet the Ilitches have a great deal to do with that.

But I understand that because they're rich and successful, they must be evil. To make matters worse, I bet they even vote Republican. That should be good enough to get them the firing squad.

 

No one even hinted at the dreaded "R" word, tony. You're grasping at straws to turn this into another political thread. Jesus fucking Christ.

 

tony, did you read this post? If not, you should do so now. It speaks volumes about how rich assholes like the Ilitches can disobey or completely ignore the rules and get away with it just because of who they are.

 

You are wrong. The family, especially Marian, is cheap, petty and unforgiving. They do what they want, when they want. They have worked with the city for landgrabs in the area around the Fox Theater and Comerica, giving the property owners a fraction of their cost. There was one deal where they claimed it was for a parking lot, then it was revealed that they wanted the land for possible JLA replacement -- which would have made the value of the lot far higher. The owner took it to court and won, but not without a fight.
Tony, you're dead wrong. This isn't about politics or picking on the rich. It's about people who claim to want to help the city at all costs -- the public --so they can get rich.
Having lived there for most of my life, I stick up for all things Detroit. I wont for the Ilitches. Have they helped stabilize a dying city (not region, but actual city)? Yes. But do the ends really justify the means?
The city is not rebounding brilliantly. Like every mayor since Jerry Cavanaugh, the last 40 years have found that those in charge of the public and private sector can't understand that the way to rebuild Detroit is not by putting glass and steel downtown. It's like polishing a tooth filled with decay.
The way to rebuild Detroit is rebuild the neighborhoods and make people want to move back again. Give them shops and grocery stores that dont have rotten meat and produce. Make them spend the money for the basics where they live, not drive to the burbs to buy average priced staples or at overpriced stores in their own neighborhood.
You shore up the neighborhoods and make people want to live there, the city of Detroit can grow. You keep focus on downtown, its a 9-5 town except on game nights. And since those game nights are ruled by the Ilitches, they can do pretty much whatever they want. And since there's no money for the power brokers in building the neighborhoods, there is no comeback.
Writing about the owner of a successful team is not wrong. Not pointing out the bad with the good, is.