Who Killed David Hans Schmidt?

We dealt with David Hans Schmidt a couple of years back during the ill-fated revival of A Current Affair. He was a cheerful, straight-ahead, agressive, self-professed sleaze merchant with the unlikely home base of Phoenix, Arizona, eager to broker all kinds of celebrity smut from Tonya Harding to Colin Farrell to Paris Hilton. He talked like an out-of-towner out to take on Hollywood big shots like ourselves, hinted at a shadowy military past and reveled in all the publicity the mainstream media lavished upon him as they presented him as an underworld curiosity. More recently, he dealt with the corporate porn-pushing gossip site TMZ.com in the marketing of various sex tapes, including a spectacularly distasteful one featuring a washed-up child actor from the old syndicated television series, Saved By The Bell.

Then he tangled with with Tom Cruise and his team when he allegedly tried to extort the star over wedding photos. He was facing two years in prison but planned to ask for probation next month. Cops had him under house arrest with a GPS tracking device. They say they found him dead in his house yesterday, an apparent suicide at 47.

An apparent suicide.

(The photos above of course do not depict suspects in the demise of the unfortunate Mr. Hans Schmidt, but people whose lives or businesses were bothered by his.)

Michael Lynn is an E! True Hollywood Beach Boy

Tabloid Baby pal Michael Lynn (above, right) has another great E! True Hollywood Story premiering tomorrow (Saturday) night, this one on newly-hot-again TV actor John Stamos, who rebounded from the end of his marriage to Rebecca Romjin by reviving the old TV show ER and making tabloid headlines with a recent drunk-seeming appearance on Australian morning TV with our old pal from the A Current Affair=Hard Copy days, Kerri-Ann Kennerly:

Of course, Michael, who's the top longform scripted reality television producer not only at E!'s iconic (that's their word and it's a good one) series, but in the industry, got an interview with Stamos for the one hour. But he tells us that for him, the highlight of the shoot-- and possibly his life-- was when he was invited to appear onstage in San Diego to sing "Fun Fun Fun" with Mike Love's latest version of the Beach Boys. Stamos has performed with the group for years, as all of us fans of Full House know all to well.

Watch for it. E! True Hollywood Story: John Stamos. Saturday, September 29 at 6 pm, Sunday, September 30 at 8 pm. And more plays Tuesday, October 2 at 6 pm and Sunday, October 7 at 9 pm.

Bonaduce may ankle Carolla show for Chicago!

Adam Carolla's crapulous LA morning radio show got a cattle prod up its flabby ass earlier this year when former child star and adult wild card Danny Bonaduce was forcibly injected into the mix. Carolla's show actually became listenable as Bonaduce brought some Howard Sternian (remember him?) reality and heart into what was otherwise dominated by Carolla's boring, repetitive, droning, know-nothing rants, ridicule of immigrants and "characters" like the Deaf Frat Guy.

But after Bonaduce brought the show to new levels of honesty and listenability in the days following the announcement of his impending divorce, the insecure Carolla and company clamped the lid on him, stuffed him back into the second banana cage and somehow have forced him since to play the often uninterested gravel-voiced support act to a Carolla dominance that's supported by his partner Jimmy Kimmel's contract as comedy consultant to the station group.

Now, Carolla may be left swinging in the breeze. Today's Chicago Sun-Times reports:

Don't be too surprised if the afternoon vacancy at classic rock WLUP-FM (97.9) remains open past the end of the year... Speculation is heating up that the Loop's leading candidate for the job is Danny Bonaduce, who's under contract through January as Adam Carolla's morning co-host on CBS Radio's KLSX-FM in Los Angeles. The former child star revived his career in the early '90s at the former WLUP-AM. That's where Bonaduce first worked with Jonathon Brandmeier, who now hosts mornings at the Loop...

Bad news for all!

Despite the inexplicable handjob administered to Carolla in the latest Los Angeles magazine, Carolla on his own will see ratings drop back to his Dave Damashek levels. Let's hope this news is an agent's negotiating tactic to get Bonaduce his own show in LA.

Send Carolla to Chicago. Danny Bonaduce belongs in Hollywood.

...a tip of the Tabloid Baby hat to Adrienne for the heads up...

Springsteen and NBC News use the Today show

Rock hero Bruce Springsteen sure made the most of his album-pushing appearance in the Today show this morning. With Tim Russert, Matt Lauer and the NBC News contingent cheering him on from the front rows, Bruce greased the crowd with Promised Land and his new single before introducing the new Living In The Future with a diversionary shout-out to "cheeseburgers, french fries, the Yankees battling Boston"... and "the Bill of Rights," before launching into the real message that Tim and the Bush-hating (not that there's anything wrong with that...) NBC News team were proud to share the picture with:

"In the past six years, we've had to add to the American picture, rendition, illegal wiretapping, no habeus corpus, the negect of our great city of New Orleans and her people, an attack on the Consititution and the loss of our best and brightest young men and women in a tragic war. This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here, happening here..."


Rock 'n' roll!

Flashback: Our Man Elli's Israeli Field of Dreams

As Major League Baseball heads toward the playoffs, it's back to baseball here this morning and the latest twist in wake of Our Man Elli in Israel's Breslinesque report on the blunders and misadventures of the Israel Baseball League's first season.

Let's see where we left off: The powerful Chicago Tribune swats away our charges of plagiarism as if we're some pesky fly and a naive young hometown journalist helps IBL's founder spin his side of the story. Our Man Elli is talking to lawyers (and we're talking to journo colleagues) about the former, and he's taking the high road in the latter, telling us this morning: "I’m not going to debate Larry Baras ont he subject. He's entitled to give his side of the story. I'll let the article speak for itself. No one, including Larry, has denied any part of it."

We were ready to give a play-by-play refutation of the Boston Jewish Journal article, but why bother? Spin is spin does. Instead, let's look back at another one of Elli Wohlgelernter's past articles on the IBL, this one posted on the Israel 21c website back in November 2006, well in advance of Opening Day in Israel (book publishers, take note):

An Israeli field of dreams

By Elli Wohlgelernter
November 13, 2006

More than 60 self-styled athletic studs hoping to play professional baseball in Israel came out on November 10 to participate in the first such tryouts ever held in Israel. The job of Dan Duquette, who ran the tryouts, was to separate the contenders from the pretenders. Larry Baras, who came up with the idea, was simply ecstatic just that so many showed up.

The players were equally enthused. Most of the hopefuls were either American born, who had moved to Israel as children, native Israelis who learned the game from their American fathers and played on Israeli teams; or Americans who had moved here at a later age, after having played in the U.S. All of them were looking for one more chance at the game they loved.

Most of them did not have a realistic shot at making the cut, and they knew it before they arrived at the Sportek athletic facility in Petah Tikva. But the very idea of professional baseball tryouts being held in Israel offered everyone a chance to dream, and it was a prospect too good to miss.

"I always loved the game of baseball," explained 45-year-old Ari Alexenberg, whose was raised in Israel, where his family lives, but who now lives in the United States. "When I grew up in Israel it didn't exist, and when I moved to the States, as an Orthodox Jew, all the games were played on Shabbat, so I couldn't play. So I didn't really play my first organized game of baseball until I was 23 years old.

"I quickly moved up, and had a lot of ability-- played semi-pro ball-- but I realized that it would take many years of honing my skills to actually keep moving. I was married, so I moved on. The irony is, the game passed my by because I lived in Israel and because I was an Orthodox Jew. But the fact that now there is an opportunity to play in Israel, at the age of 45, was too good of an opportunity to pass up."

The tryouts were run very professionally by Duquette (left), which is no surprise: as one-time director of player development for the Montreal Expos, he drafted future stars such as Marquis Grissom, Charles Johnson and Rondell White. Later, as general manager for the Expos, he acquired elite pitcher Pedro Martínez in a brilliant one-sided trade , and as general manager of the Boston Red Sox, Duquette's shrewd deals - nabbing Martinez again from the Expos, trading for pitcher Derek Lowe and catcher Jason Varitek, and signing free agents Manny Ramirez and Johnny Damon - is credited with building the Red Sox into what ultimately led to the team's 2004 championship.

Duquette is under no illusions that he will find a diamond in the rough on this day. He understands that there has been very little opportunity for Israeli kids to learn and play the game, and so the local pool of talent for the new league is negligible.

"Until we can build up the infrastructure here in Israel - and by that I mean the coaches and the facilities - we're going to have to import players from the Australian league, and the minor leagues in the States," Duquette said. "We're going to give the Israelis as much chance as we can to make it, but until we build up the baseball in Israel, we're going to be importing a lot of our players."

Building up baseball in Israel is indeed part of the long-range plan. One goal that's only a dream so far is fielding an Israeli team in the 2009 World Baseball Classic, an international tournament of 16 national teams. Participants on the Israeli team could include Jewish players from the Major Leagues, such as Brad Ausmus, Gabe Kapler, Jason Marquis, Shawn Green, and Kevin Youkilis.

But where will the Israeli players come from? Duquette hopes to open a baseball academy, modeled after the successful one he runs in Massachusetts. Other plans call for youth baseball clinics - one held this past summer drew 165 participants - as well as programs to develop women's softball.

IBL officials are hoping that increased participation in baseball by younger Israelis will lead to more locals playing in the new league, as well as provide a fan base for the league. Opening Day is scheduled for June 24, 2007.

The trick to having a successful venture, obviously, will be attracting fans, perhaps the biggest challenge facing the Israel Baseball League in its first season. Baras, a businessman from Boston who is the brains behind the whole initiative, is well aware of that challenge. As he sat in the dugout watching a simulated game among the prospective players, glowing over the numbers that came to try out, Baras described the environment he envisions where whole families can come and have a good time.

"Because we really want to encourage attendance by native Israelis, there will be a lot of entertainment on the field, before and after the games, and in-between innings," he said. "There will be barbecue stations throughout the stands, so there will be a gastronomic feast. And incidentally, there will be a baseball game going on. So we are striking a balance between getting the best players we can possibly get, while putting a real focus on family entertainment and food."

Baras has been working non-stop for 16 months trying to get Israeli baseball off the ground, and has had wide support from across the Jewish community spectrum as well as the baseball fraternity in America. "I get a real impression that people appreciate our efforts and motivation," he says, flashing his ever-present upbeat smile. "I expect to make every mistake one can possibly make during the first year. I guess that success will be defined by making it through the first year with people having enjoyed it and wanting to come back."

Dan Rothem (right) is a 30-year-old Israeli-born pitcher who played at Gardner-Webb University in North Carolina, the first native Israeli to receive a scholarship to play college ball in the U.S. He understands the mentality of the average Israeli who knows nothing about the game, and the challenges Baras and Duquette face trying to sell baseball to natives.

"It will be difficult. The nature of the game is so different, baseball is so static, while the other games have a clock in them, they're so dynamic. That will be the biggest hurdle in drawing people's attention, in trying to explain the game to them and point out where the real action is - the duel between the pitcher and the hitter - and to get them to see the explosiveness of the game. It's possible, but that will be the biggest challenge: for us to get people hooked on the game."

Rothem was said to be the one Israeli player guaranteed to make the league's roster. And even though he's 30 and has no chance to make the Major Leagues, he has a goal. "If they put together a team for the World Baseball Classic in 2009," he said, "and if I can make that team, that would be a dream come true."

It's a dream Baras and Duquette are having as well.

PLAGIARISM EXCLUSIVE! CHICAGO TRIBUNE TO TABLOID BABY: "YOUR CHARGE IS BASELESS! THE STORIES ARE DIFFERENT!"

The Chicago Tribune is standing strong against our charge that their Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg (far left) plagiarized a story from Our Man Elli In Israel, despite the evidence we laid out. The powerful newspaper's public editor Timothy McNulty (left) was kind enough to respond to our complaints and allegations for the second time this afternoon-- and oy, what a response!

After tiptoeing around the matter yesterday, we challenged him to take a stand-- and Mr. McNulty rebutted our rebuttal with a strong denial of any wrongdoing in the case of Greenberg paraphrasing a story about former Israel Baseball League manager Ken Holtzman that was posted here weeks earlier, written-- and including verbatim translations from the Hebrew-- by Our Man Elli:

First, to be clear, your charge is baseless.

Mr. Holtzman spoke to Walla!, which has a Hebrew-language news page with sports.

Mr. Wohlgelernter quoted those remarks in a story in the English language edition of Haaretz and properly attributed them to Walla!

Mr. Greenberg also properly attributed the quotes to Walla! when he wrote his story, at the suggestion of his editor, and based on a telephone interview with league commissioner Dan Kurtzer, a conversation with a league advisory committee member and an e-mail exchange with Holtzman.

The work is Mr. Greenberg's, the stories are different.

As I understand it, you are essentially claiming that Greenberg should have given Wohlgelernter credit for translating the Holtzman quotes back into the original English.

I also understand that you will make of this what you will. I see that within 24 hours of my getting back to you promptly, you have added two mocking posts without waiting for a reply.

Tim McNulty

Sigh.

FROM ELLI'S ORIGINAL ARTICLE
POSTED AUGUST 28th ON TABLOIDBABY.COM:

In an interview on July 20 with the Israeli Web portal Walla!, Petah Tikva manager and former Major Leaguer Ken Holtzman let loose with a sweeping broadside against the Israel Baseball League, sparing no one.

He criticized the baseball fields: “They would reach the level of high schools in our country”; the teams: “Chosen at random, and in a strange manner”; the Israeli players: “There are no good Israeli players”; the other players: “According to what I can see, none of the players can reach even semi-pro baseball in the United States… the really good player would never come here”; and the Israeli fan: “There is no chance that baseball will succeed in Israel. People here relate to baseball the way people in America relate to soccer. They see it as something very boring, and it will never catch on… you can't make a big impression because there is no culture of baseball, and the facilities are the worse possible."

A season of frustration all came pouring out, and against league organizers as well.

They wanted to make the league work very very quickly,” Holtzman said. “...But they opened the league a year too soon...They should have waited.”

FROM JOEL GREENBERG'S
SEPTEMBER 17th CHICAGO TRIBUNE ARTICLE:

He was much more forthcoming in a July 20 interview with the Israeli Web portal Walla!, in which he lambasted the league and its management for what he described as a series of shortcomings.

The playing fields, he was quoted as saying, "would reach the level of high schools in our country." The teams were "chosen at random and in a strange manner." As for the players, Holtzman said, "none can reach even semipro baseball in the United States."

"There is no chance that baseball will succeed in Israel," Holtzman went on. "People here relate to baseball the way people in America relate to soccer. They see it as something very boring, and it will never catch on. You can't make a big impression because there is no culture of baseball, and the facilities are the worst possible."

Holtzman also heaped criticism on league organizers, whom he accused of rushing into the first year of play without proper preparation on the ground.

"They opened the league a year too soon," he said. "They should have waited."

What do you think?

Elli's Exposé: Israel Baseball boss begins the spin

It's been a month since we published exclusively Our Man Elli In Israel's exposé of the first season of Israel Baseball League, and the repercussions are still reverberating around the world. We've got plagiarism charges against The Chicago Tribune (their man in Israel ripped off Elli's reportage and the paper's public editor patted us on the head and refuses to acknowledge the thievery), many Jews are up in arms that someone would dare criticize the attempt at bringing home runs to the Holy Land, and now, league founder Larry Baras, who's at the center if the criticism (and has been accused of being the Max Bialystock of baseball) is using his hometown paper to strike back-- and spin the story that Elli Wohlgelernter unleashed upon the world.

The hometown paper is The Jewish Advocate of Boston where Baras lives and works. Reporter Rachel Axelbank allows Baras to address the issues raised in Our Man Eli's article-- without acknowledging that it was Elli Wohlgelernter who alone researched and wrote the story in which the charges were levelled.

Nor does Rachel hold Baras to task for his answers and challenge the spin:

“On one hand, it has been tremendous to get the thousands of e-mails and all the good wishes that I’ve received,” (Baras) added. “But it’s been tainted a bit by my witnessing the ability of people to find something wrong even with the concept of baseball in Israel.”

Baras may be correct, but the criticisms put forth in the recent articles are not ones to be dismissed quickly. Complaints of ill-constructed – and thus dangerous – playing fields, no ice for muscle therapy, severe equipment shortages and paycheck delays are hardly the kind of frivolous kvetching heard from American pros.

While Baras did not comment specifically on the problems, the reasons for them or potential solutions, he did speak to the difficulty of conducting the league’s business...

“In Israel, last summer was the summer of the Lebanon War. The previous summer was the summer of disengagement. The previous three were about the Intifada. For so many people, this summer was the summer of baseball.”

Rachel writes of her "surprise" at the revealed underbelly of the league and admits she was "charmed" by a game she attended in Tel Aviv-- but then adds that the game she attended included the infamous Ryan Crotin incident (seen in the clip above)-- which was followed by Crotin's public complaints.

We'll leave it to Elli to address the spin.

Stay tuned.

Next jury: Remember Lana Clarkson's last close-up

Chicago Tribune dodges our plagiarism complaint

Here we go again!

A year and half ago, we tried to get the New York Times to admit they'd made a mistake when one of their reporters placed producers for A Current Affair at a movie premiere-- six months after the show had been canceled! Of course, the polite assistant to the managing editor split hairs and limboed around a correction, stating with an apparent straight face that "the first part of this sentence is written in the conditional tense... the second part goes on to describe what happened..."

Now, after the blatant plagiarism of Our Man Elli in Israel's August 28th Ken Holtzman story by Chicago Tribune reporter Joel Greenberg, we're getting the same soft shoe shuffle from the stately midwestern journos of the Second City. It began when we emailed every Tribune editor whose address we could find on the paper's staff email page (and we salute them for having that page):

Dear Madames and Sirs,

On September 16th, one Joel Greenberg, your reporter in Israel, filed a story in the Chicago Tribune that lifted directly from a story, written by Israeli Broadcasting Authority correspondent Elli Wohlgelernter, that had been posted on our website a month earlier.

Here are two links that will lead to the story in question: (1) and (2).

We would like a correction and/or an acknowledgment of the plagiarism.

Thank you.

The starched shirts are always very polite. We got a reply within hours. But oy, what a reply:

My name is Tim McNulty and I am the public editor at the Chicago Tribune.

In your message, you said that you posted a story on July 20 and attributed it to the Israeli Web portal Walla!

On September 17 (not the 16th), we ran a story and attributed it to the Israeli Web portal Walla!

If both stories were properly attributed to the original source, I don't understand your claim.

Regards,

Tim McNulty

We replied in kind:

Dear Mr. McNulty,

Thank you for your swift reply.

The article by Mr. Greenberg which was dated Sept 16 on ChicagoSports.com (1) was lifted from Elli Wohlgelernter's article that first appeared on Tabloidbaby.com on August 28 (2).

Mr. Wohlgelernter translated the quotes from Hebrew, and a comparison of the two articles shows that Mr. Greenberg simply collapsed Mr. Wohlgelernter's story into his own story more than two weeks later.

See a comparison here: (3).

Other journalists, attorneys and watchdog sites agree that this is a case where attribution should have been given to Mr. Wohlgelernter, as his story had caused great controversy for more than two weeks before Mr. Greenberg copied it.

We would appreciate a clarification or correction.

The Chicago-based media watchdog Jim Romenesko has pointedly ignored our complaint (now that his site is spomsored by a j-school, he sneers at the word "tabloid"), but others are paying heed and watching developments closely.

As are we.

We'll keep you posted.

(NOTE: The Public Editor "acts as mediator between the paper and the public.")

SPECTOR MISTRIAL!

These LA juries just can't send a famous person to prison. Off the top of our heads, we wonder what that NBC Dateline producer had to do with keeping the trial from ending in acquittal.

Spector Trial: No verdict, but threat leads to nice pix

We were checking to see if there was a verdict in the Phil Spector case when we read the LA Times story that "the jury in the Phil Spector murder trial completed its 11th day of deliberations without a verdict today as the Sheriff's Department launched an investigation into what authorities said was an implied threat against the judge in the case. A post on a MySpace page titled the Official Team Spector site stated, 'The evil judge should die,' possibly a threat against Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler, who has run the Spector trial for months..."


Which led us to the Phil Spector Official Team Spector MySpace Page and some very interesting photos, some of which are included here, some of which featuring John Lennon, near whose head Phil Spector once fired a gunshot into the ceiling when our Hudson Brothers pals were in the next studio.

"I was at A&M Studios with my brothers and everyone knew that Lennon was in the big studio with Phil Spector and through the walls you could hear Spector going off on John. One time, Spector pulled out a large gun and started chasing John through the hallways, John was trying to laugh it off but it was horrible. I mean, Spector's reputation had preceded him. I was scared to death."
--Mark Hudson
in Larry Kane's book,
Lennon Revealed

Why is Romenesko ignoring our plagiarism story?

“There is an enormous change taking place in this country in journalism. And it is online… And they are really going to cut into daily journalism... We have a vibrant, new way of communicating in America. We haven't come to terms with it… But there are a lot of people doing very, very good stuff."
--Seymour Hersh in The Jewish Weekly, as copied on the Romenesko media site

The website called Romenesko, formerly “Mediagossip.com,” is popular among professionals like ourselves for its daily links to news, commentary, and insider information about journalism and media and has become popular among professionals in the industry. So you’d figure that a story that contains evidence that a reporter for the Chicago Tribune plagiarized a story frst published on a small mediacentric website would be a natural for posting and the requisite debate that would follow – at least as important as an item this morning about an NPR lady saying that people will pay to download porn but not NY Times columnists).

It was eight days ago that we first posted—and sent Romenesko a link to— the shocking claim that Chicago Tribune reporter Joel Greenberg had lifted a story written by Our Man Elli in Israel and reprinted it without attribution.

And for eight days now, as the story has developed and deepened, Romenesko has continued to ignore the story.

In the past, "Mr. Link Man" Jim Romenesko has taken our tips and run them without attribution, and has responded to our emails with digs at our “tabloid” title— as if the experienced, respected and learned journalists in the Tabloid Baby cooperative were somehow less worthy than shamed institutions or The New York Times. But in this case, we can’t help but wonder if something else is amiss. Though he and his column were bought up by the Florida-based Poynter Journalism Insititute, Romenesko, described as a tough, straight-talking obsessive in the Drudge mold, is based in a suburb of Chicago-- home of the Tribune.

Could Romenesko be protecting his hometown favorite? Does a guy who authored a book called Death Log, whose tabloid Obscure Store & Reading Room site has been linked on Tabloidbaby.com since 1999, so fancy himself a member of the establishment that he’ll only mediate disputes among his powerful corporate patrons? Or is Romenesko, a creature of the Internet, like Dylan’s Mr. Jones? Romenesko ought to re-read Sy Hersh's quote that he posted yesterday. There’s something happening here, and we’d like to know what it is.

Hudson Brother embarks on solo tour

It was a month ago that we brought you the exclusive photo of the first Hudson Brothers reunion in twenty years, and only a few days later that we revealed the sudden appearance of a Hudson Brothers MySpace page. Now, we learn that a Hudson Brother solo tour is about to begin. In the grand tradition of Ray Davies, Neil Innes and Frank Sinatra and brother Mark Hudson's Livin' On the Edge tour will take the audience through a rolickin' past and into the future. Find the latest information here and here. Meanwhile, here’s the release on the Mark Hudson solo tour that we’ll bet will include guest shots from Brett and Bill somewhere along the way:

LIVIN' ON THE EDGE
A ONE MAN SHOW FEATURING MARK HUDSON
MUSIC, STORIES & COMEDY

Mark Hudson is the Forrest Gump of Rock & Roll. He was with John Lennon during his famous lost weekend. He was with Led Zeppelin when they tried to set light to Elton John at a party. He was asked by Cher to do something very private that had always eluded her. This is just the beginning. Mark always seemed to be in the room when something historic, funny or just plain unbelievable was occurring.

In "Livin' on the Edge", Mark talks about his experiences with rocks' elite through monologues, funny anecdotes, impersonations and lots of music. The stories will leave you in stitches and the songs will keep playing in your head. His colourful outfits, colourful facial hair and colourful wit will hook you right from the start.

Mark wrote the Grammy winning song "Livin' on the Edge" for Aerosmith. He went on to write a dozen other Aerosmith songs, as well as producing several of their albums. He co-wrote "The Reason" with Carole King which became a huge smash for Celine Dion. He has produced tracks for Ozzy Osbourne, Hanson, Elmopalooza, Ringo Starr, Baha Men and many more.

Mark was the vocal director and backup vocalist for artists such as David Cassidy, Wayne Newton, Cher, Alice Cooper, Jon Bon Jovi, Aaron Neville, Harry Nilsson, Hanson, Leif Garrett, Night Ranger and more.

In addition, Mark starred in a Prime Time music/comedy series with his brothers in 1974 entitled "The Hudson Brothers Show." This led to a Saturday morning show entitled, "The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show." Mark's TV career landed him a spot as the band leader on the "Late Show with Joan Rivers" on Fox and most recently on the X Factor in England; a show starring Simon Cowell which also stars Sharon Osbourne. (Mark is known in England as "Weird Beard" for his brightly colored beard.)

Oh and by the way, Mark is also the uncle to Kate Hudson and Oliver Hudson!

Exclusive Interview! Our Man Elli may sue over Chicago Tribune plagiarism of his baseball story

"I am pursuing all legal means at my disposal."

That's the lead in the latest explosive controversy to erupt in wake of the Israel Baseball League exposé penned by Our Man Elli in Israel and first published here.

In the days after we reported that a respected correspondent for a powerful daily newspaper plagiarized the sidebar to the story, we wait to see what the mainstream news establishment does about it-- and we offer this exclusive interview with Elli Wohlgelernter, author of the original story about IBL team manager Ken Holtzman that was appropriated, lifted and plagiarized by Joel Greenberg of The Chicago Tribune.

See the evidence here.

And read on for the story behind the story, in this morning's exclusive interview with Our Man Elli in Israel:

Elli, how did you come to write this story?

As everyone who knows me knows, I love baseball. I live and breathe it every day. The thought of having professional baseball in Israel was exhilarating, both in the pre-season buildup and once it started. I went to as many games as I could, and got to know people in and around the league. But what I started to see was a sub-text with the players. They were experiencing a totally different reality from the fans! I thought it would make a good story, and started to keep notes on everything. There were many story lines going on, but what I kept seeing was a supposedly professional league that was being run very in a very unprofessional manner. And the players were suffering. Sure, a lot of them wouldn’t be professionals otherwise and were happy just to be playing professional baseball, but the real players-- the kids who wanted to make a career out of baseball-- they were being held back by the unprofessionalism of it all. I thought it would make a good story.

What motivated you?

I’ve been a professional journalist for more than 30 years. What motivated me is what always motivates me: I wanted to write an interesting, fair, factual story. And that's what I believe I did. Believe me, I only scratched the surface with what was I put out for publication-- the story that appeared on Tabloid Baby. What appeared in the Jewish weeklies was a cut-down version that left out a lot of the details in the original. But even that only told part of the story. The story of all 120 players, how they came to play in this start-up league-- that’s a movie unto itself. They’re just a terrific, terrific bunch of guys. Back in the summer of 1983, I covered the Utica (NY) Blue Sox, a Single-A team, and I thought I’d never have that kind of experience again. This wasn't quite the same-- back then, I lived with the team, rode the bus with them-- but it was pretty close.

What was the feedback from that article?

From professionals in the business, it was very positive, recognition that it was a good story, well-told—a story that revealed what happens when a dream comes up against reality. The heart of the article was how the league, first and foremost, ignored the players—in fact hurt the players--certainly the ones who were trying to forge a future career out of the league-- ignored the native Israelis, and made stupid and sloppy decisions over and over again.

The fallout?

Well. (sighs) I knew there would be some backlash, but I never expected to see what transpired. Many people were really agitated over this story. They saw it in all kinds of ways that cut into a deep emotional hold that this whole idea of baseball in Israel had on people. Many Jews accused me of being a traitor to all things Israeli and Jewish, that I was no different than the many writers among the media who propagate virulent anti-Israeli propaganda that masquerades as journalism. It was taken personally and emotionally, and continued to reverberate day after day, in comments made on many, many web sites and in letters to editors.

(NOTE: Here’s an example: "…You can find the crap in every event. This is such a positive one. Why would you look to find the negative and seek fame leeching on this? How can you call yourself a journalist? You are a dirt digger, crap scraper. That ought to be your business card: Dirt Digger, Crap Scraper, Leech.")

It really stunned me.

For weeks, you stood alone and took the heat.

I’ve been called names before, but this was a unique. I mean, I though that line about the business card was pretty funny, but the whole idea is absurd! Is there any indication that after 30 years in the business I'm a journalist who would write an article to bash Israel? I understand that these are fans talking, and the fans-- the American-Israelis who attended-- had a great time. But the players experienced a different reality. And one of them was almost killed because of the lack of professionalism among the league organizers. I understand that for the fans, it was an escape from the harsh reality of our lives here in Israel, and anything negative about that fantasy world was more than they wanted to hear-- even if every word of what I wrote was true. And no one has disputed a single fact of my story.

As he walked away,
he said, "It was a good story."
I said, "I know."

Did you consider this to be YOUR story?

No one else researched and wrote it. That makes it my story. Most everyone else sugar-coated the experience. I told what the players went through. I worked hard, cultivated sources, obtained internal email memos, hung out at the ballparks, visited the dorms, interviewed dozens of players, managers, coaches, league officials, vendors, reporters. In short, I busted my ass to get a fair, accurate, and honest story of what happened. I wrote 4,500 words on this, and could have written more. No one else did. In the business, it’s what we call an “exclusive.”

You wrote a sidebar story. What was special about it?

The sidebar focused on Kenny Holtzman, the manager of the Petah Tikva Pioneers. He’s an ex-major leaguer who was brought in to help sell the league. His words to David Rosenthal, a reporter for Walla, were explosive, a damning critique against the league. They were big enough that I pulled them out of the main story and highlighted them separately. Kenny said what was on the minds of many of the players. Coming from him, it made sense journalistically to separate it into a sidebar.

It wasn’t your interview. How could you claim it to be yours?

I never said the interview was mine. I mentioned Rosenthal a few times in the story and always gave him credit. He, in fact, was the only reporter who did any kind of serious coverage of the league at all, from before the season even began. And I wrote that in my story. What was mine was the translation of what he wrote. Holtzman spoke in English. I asked Rosenthal for the tapes, but he never recorded it. He only took notes. The article was published in Hebrew. So I translated back into English what had originally been spoken in English. I sent it to Rosenthal for verification, and he said it was accurate. Joel Greenberg lifted that translation, word-for-word.

Who is Joel Greenberg? (left)

He’s a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, formerly of the New York Times. His claim to fame is that he went to jail in 1983 as a conscientious objector, for refusing to carry out reserve duty during the first Lebanon war.

Do you know him personally?

I've played softball with him, and we're in the same business, but I can't say we’re friends.

How did you feel when you read his article on the Chicago Tribune website?

I felt that he had ripped me off. That he’d obviously had read my story in Haaretz here in Israel and only then decided to do a story because he's a reporter for a newspaper in Chicago, the city where Ken Holtzman first rose to fame as a rookie with the Chicago Cubs. It's obvious that's where it came from. Why else would he wait six full weeks to write about Holtzman leaving the Israel Baseball League?

Have you spoken with Greenberg since?

I ran into him in the street on Yom Kippur night, and he started to say something about wanting to call me about my story. I asked why was there no shout out, no hat tip, no credit of any kind for his ripping off my story. He said it wasn't the time to discuss it--which was true enough. Yom Kippur is hardly the day for expressing animosity.

Did he say anything else?

As he walked away, he said, "It was a good story." I said, "I know."

Joel Greenberg is a big shot, a well-respected mainstream journalist. Why would he stoop so low as to steal a story?

You'd have to ask him.

Do you plan to take any action?

I am pursuing all legal means at my disposal.

What do you have to say to Joel Greenberg?

“Be honest. You're a journalist."

What do you have to say to the world?

Keep reading Tabloid Baby for more updates!

One more question. How’s the book proposal coming?

I'm pursuing negotiations with publishers to tell the whole story. There’s so much that was left out due to space limitations.

Pop Quiz: Who doesn't belong in this picture?

It's a joke, no? Or is it Take Your Daughter To Work Day?

A year ago, when little Katie took Dan Rather's chair, we'd expected Les Moonves was lobbing a grenade into the CBS News fishbowl. In fact, he didn't, allowing his celebrity cutie to fail in the hands of the insular CBS regime.

Maybe this 60 Minutes move, combined with Dan's lawsuit, is part of Les' Plan B for blowing up CBS News for good.

If not, just give her the afternoon talk show and get on with it.