The Inside Dope

THE INSIDE DOPE

BY

IFFY THE DOPESTER

Spring is in the air, at long last , and this old gray head can't help but turn to thoughts of, among other things, The grand old game. Ah, the crack of the bat, the taste of the hot dog, the sunburn of the bleachers. A few of my readers may recall that I started out as a sportswriter , singing the everlasting praises of Mickey Cochrane and the '34 Tigers in the pages of the old Free Press. Sad to say, we can't very well expect quite the same performance from this year's team, but that sure won't keep me away from Tiger Stadium Tuesday - nor the SUN's Joel Greer, who'll be bringing you the "View from the Bleachers" in our very next edition.

Speaking of sports, accolades are due to many Michigan athletes at this point: to the U of M hoopers for their noble effort against Indiana in the national championship game; to the Pistons, for making the NBA playoffs the third straight year; and to local sluggers Rick Jester (178 lbs.) and Thomas Hearns (132 lbs.), both trained at Detroit's Kronk Recreation Center, for copping national Golden Gloves championships in Miami and landing automatic berths in the upcoming Olympic trials. They made it a proud month for Michigan!

The biggest winner in recent memory, though, is of course the proud possessor of the grand prize in the SUN's second annual "Win a Pound of Colombian" contest, who must remain forever anonymous-—at least until the prohibition against the noble weed is lifted. We can say, however, that among the 200 other winners in the contest was none other than Leroy Brooks Patterson, the crusading Oakland County Prosecutor, who scored himself a genuine "Win-a-Pound" T-shirt. Sorry you didn't do better, Brooks—maybe next year!

While we're handing out prizes, we have to present the Detroit Free Press, the so-called "Action Paper," with our solid gold wastepaper basket for news management—for being the only major news medium in town not to say a single word about the contest! When we asked what happened, the City Editor told us that: (1) They were understaffed that night; (2) The contest was "old news" beca use we held one last year; and (3) It wasn't news because we didn't get arrested.

Somehow, we weren't convinced, perhaps because since the SUN moved to the Motor City last September, the Freep has also been the only major medium in town to have nothing at all to say about the seemingly newsworthy fact that someone is trying to provide an alternative news medium for the Detroit area. Or perhaps we're cynical because one of the paper's top executives told us, and we quote, "We aren't going to help you in any way." Or because we've heard that a memo has gone out to certain employees ordering them not to cooperate with the SUN or mention us in their stories.

In this connection, particular mention must be made of the ever-popular Bob Talbert, the Freep's man-about-town. who originally promised us he would pick the winner of the contest. After management squelched that effort by suspected pothead Bob to express his convictions, he then promised to write about the contest (as he indeed did last year). However, there hasn't been a word from B. T. since about either the SUN or the contest.

Obviously, there is an ax over the heads of those Freep staffers—and there are quite a few—sympathetic to the SUN's efforts. What's the problem, people? We're certainly paying plenty of attention to you, even though you're the competition!

After all, it wouldn't look too good if you didn't live up to those red, white and blue coinboxes and your Bicentennial classified ads campaign. Don 't forget, this is supposed to be the land of the free, you know!