The Ballad of Ray Gray

March 15, 2021 “The Ballad of Ray Gray” The skinny kid with the Golden Gloves He told his mama she’s the one he loves He left the gym around noon that day The home of Tommy Hearns and Marvin Gaye He saw the Hurricane in person that night in Chicago for a prizefight And Rubin got the win but everything caved in for him and Slim Ray Gray The deal went down on Euclid Street The kinda deal that you can’t complete But Ray was far away on that fateful day Listen what I say They said the man was Slim But, man, it wasn’t him We got to free Ray Gray (break) Now, Brother Ray we know it wasn’t you S’that other brother with the Fu Manchu So, Sister Whitmer you know what to do It’s time to free Ray Gray He didn’t do the crime but he’s still doin’ time We got to free Ray Gray (break) Now catchin’ covid in a prison cell I tell ya, brother, that’s a livin’ hell So bang the gavel, mama, ring the bell It’s time to free Ray Gray (bridge) I wanna see him walkin’ down on Woodward Avenue hand-in-hand with Mrs. Gray on every Independence Day They say he shot him that day I say there ain’t no way It’s time to free Ray Gray I tell ya, people that there ain’t no way We got to free Ray Gray (break) Now Sister Whitmer go and tell the judge that Brother Ray he doesn’t hold a grudge But time is ringin’ thin I need to sing it again We got to free Ray Gray Tell the judge that there ain’t no way It’s time to free Ray Gray The time has come today Listen what I say We got to free Ray Gray ____________________________ Written by Dave Mesrey Copyright 2021

WDIV Detroit: June 28, 1990: Mandela at Tiger Stadium #4

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Neavling, LeDuff to headline Motor City Muckraker benefit show Friday night at the Old Miami

Steve Neavling (left) and Charlie LeDuff.

Longtime Detroit journalists Steve Neavling and Charlie LeDuff are teaming up to headline a fundraiser Friday night for Neavling's independent news site, Motor City Muckraker.

Muckraiser 2018 will take place at the Old Miami and feature a silent auction and live music from Young Grudges, Unsound, and Tony Paris & Sugarburn.

Young Grudges

LeDuff, the self-styled gonzo journalist, and Neavling, the controversial former Detroit Free Press reporter and founder of Motor City Muckraker, will discuss the state of the city and the state of journalism in the age of Trump.

Since leaving his radio gig at AM 910 earlier this year, Neavling has revived Motor City Muckraker, the award-winning site he founded in 2012, and aims to transform it into a nonprofit, adding more writers and reporters to expand his brand of independent Detroit journalism.

Doors open at 7:30 p.m., followed by a silent auction, including signed copies of LeDuff’s books.

Music starts at 9 p.m.

$10 at the door

21 + over

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The Old Miami is located in Detroit’s Cass Corridor at 3930 Cass Ave. For more info, visit the Muckraiser event page on Facebook.

The Cakewalkin' Jass Band returns to Tony Packo's to celebrate 50 years of hot New Orleans jazz

Ray Heitger and the Cakewalkin' Jass Band close out a historic three-day set at Tony Packo's Cafe.

"If whatever you do in life does not sometimes bring you to tears, it's not worth doing."

—Ray Heitger

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TOLEDO, OHIO — Capping a raucous  three-day weekend at the legendary Tony Packo's Cafe, the Cakewalkin' Jass Band showed why they're still the hottest little New Orleans-style jazz band north of the Mason-Dixon line.

Led by Ray Heitger on clarinet, the Toledo-based octet, featuring special guest Duke Heitger on trumpet, celebrated 50 years of traditional New Orleans jazz, packing the house at the classic little hot-dog joint on Front Street where they held court for more than three decades.

With plenty of friends and family and CJB alumni on hand to help bring it home, the Cakewalkin' Jass Band and Tony Packo's teamed up once again to take Toledo back to a bygone era.

Baseball and the art of keeping score

Red Barber sittin' in the catbird seat at Ebbets Field.

By Dave Mesrey

When Jackie Robinson made his historic major-league debut in 1947, becoming the first African-American baseball player in the 20th century, Brooklyn Dodgers announcer Red Barber was sitting in the radio booth that day high above Ebbets Field. The Ol’ Redhead was no doubt keeping score, as were countless Dodgers fans in the stands and listening in on WHN.

In the 1940s, scorekeeping was nothing new to baseball. The practice had been around for decades, ever since Henry Chadwick pioneered the art of keeping score in 1859.

But Robinson was something new to the major leagues. Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey’s gamble to break baseball’s color barrier with a 28-year-old infielder from California was not only groundbreaking, it was history in the making.

On April 10, 1947, Rickey issued a statement that read, "The Brooklyn Dodgers today purchased the contract of Jackie Roosevelt Robinson from the Montreal Royals. He will report immediately.”

Five days later, Barber not only wrote a black man’s name on a major-league scorecard for the first time, he completely changed his outlook on race.

Team captain Pee Wee Reese, a white shortstop from Kentucky, was one player who led the way in accepting Robinson as a teammate and as a major leaguer. “I was just trying to make the world a little bit better,” Reese said. “That’s what you’re supposed to do with your life, isn’t it?”

Inspired in part by Reese, Barber came to accept Robinson.

“Being raised in the South, when the black ballplayers came, I had to begin thinking differently,” Barber said. “I had to understand with clear eyes that I should — and must — accept him equally as I did other players.”

And so on that fateful April afternoon in Brooklyn, Red Barber penciled in the name “Robinson” on his scorecard.



Every Picture Tells A Story

Keeping score of baseball games has long been a uniquely American pastime. To do so effectively, you have to think like a hitter and keep your eye on the ball.

Over the years, keeping score has evolved into one part standard operating procedure, one part art form. So while scorekeeping guidelines are self-explanatory, they’re also open to interpretation.

“I doubt if there are any two people, fans, writers, or broadcasters, who keep score with identical symbols and systems,” Barber once said. “I do know that any fan who acquires the habit of scoring his own ballgames will find that it adds much to his enjoyment of the pastime.” 

While it’s commonly accepted that “W” stands for “walk” and “K” stands for strikeout, not all scorers observe these conventions religiously.

And not even the pros in the press box can always keep their heads in the game. Longtime New York Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto, when distracted from the action on the field, would often mark his scorecard “WW” for “Wasn’t Watching.”

Rizzuto’s colorful scoring habits eventually found their way into the stands. Baseball superfan Andorra Fields, who’s been attending and scoring games across the country for more than 20 years, always knows the score.

Andorra Fields' scorecard from the Tigers-Red Sox game April 8, 2017.

“If you could capture three or four hours in a photograph,” she says, “it’s right there in the scorecard.”

To remind herself of what’s transpired during a game, Fields often resorts to scribbling pictures on her scorecard. That could be a hot dog, a broken bat or a pair of stirrups.

When a couple of rowdy fans interrupted a recent Tigers-Red Sox game at Detroit’s Comerica Park, Fields drew two stick figures running on her scorecard.

During the same game, when a foul ball off the bat of Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval shattered a glass partition behind home plate, Fields drew a sheet of glass on her scorecard with a hole in it.

“And if I drop any food on my scorecard,” she says, “it gets circled and labeled.”

Play-by-play announcer Pat Hughes is in his 23rd season as the radio voice of the Chicago Cubs. Last fall, when the Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians for their first World Series title since 1908, Hughes was in the Progressive Field press box keeping score during the dramatic Game 7.

After the game, Chicago’s WSCR tweeted out Hughes’ scorecard. With nearly 6,000 games scored over his long career, Hughes says his style of scorekeeping has evolved to where it’s second nature to him. 

“There’s nothing scientific about it,” he says. “I use colored pens, and that’s about it.” 

Hughes typically writes the Cubs lineup in blue ink, their opponents in red, and the umpires in black. “I also put things like stolen bases, wild pitches, and errors in red,” he says. “Those things stand out.” 

Hughes, naturally, was very meticulous during the World Series. But he’s not always so diligent when it comes to keeping score.

“Sometimes for spring training games,” he says, “I’ll put ‘D.R.M.’ for ‘Doesn’t Really Matter’ or ‘I.F.’ for ‘I forgot!’”

The Final Frame

In all their years in Brooklyn (1884–1957), the Dodgers won just one World Series — in 1955. Robinson retired from baseball after the 1956 season, falling one game short of a second world championship.

In his penultimate game in Brooklyn, an aging Robinson, batting just .275 for the year, singled in the winning run in the bottom of the 10th inning to force a deciding Game 7 against the Yankees.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s “1B, RBI.”
(Single, run batted in.)

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A version of this story first ran at Shinola.com.

Mainstream American media is failing mainstream America

By Dave Mesrey

Despite mountains of evidence illustrating its utter fucking insanity, Americans continue to publicly fund the construction of shiny new sports stadiums for the benefit of a few, all while our public school systems are in shambles, leading to an ever-ignorant public who cannot or will not recognize these stadium schemes for what they are. 

All the while, the state of American journalism is so sad that few well-trained journalists (RIP, copy editors) can even afford to work in their field anymore. 

The few well-paid journalists left, like WXYZ-TV Channel 7’s Carolyn Clifford (sorry to pick on you, Carolyn; my TV reception’s not so good, and I can't afford no stinkin' cable), are all too often reduced to the role of cheerleader. 

What Detroit's Channel 7 did tonight in prime time (an hour-long special gushing over the shiny new Pizzarena downtown) was a disservice to the viewing public and a disgrace to the fourth estate. 

At the very least, WXYZ should've displayed an onscreen graphic identifying it as a paid promotion. 

Instead, Clifford & Company acted as if the Ilitch family's sparkling corporate playpen would solve all the city's woes. 

America needs to find a way — and find it fast — to fund major, legitimate journalistic enterprises that truly serve the public good. And I'm not just talking about NPR and PBS.

Instead of continuing to set aside public funds for another wealthy businessman to build another fucking big top (bread! circuses! stadia!), maybe it's time to start earmarking public dollars to help support a truly independent mass media — professionally trained reporters who aren't beholden to their corporate overlords, free to inform and educate the public instead of merely entertaining them. 

As demonstrators marched in the streets of Detroit tonight outside the gilded gates of Little Caesars Arena to protest the headlining act and his (ahem) complicated relationship with the Confederate flag, Channel 7's Clifford displayed nary a clue as to why anyone anywhere would object to Kid Rock christening yet another field of schemes. 

Independent journalism is in its death throes, comrades. 

The question is: Can we can stop the bleeding before it's too late?