Through the end of the year, Crain's daily emails will count down the year's top 25 most-read stories and blogs at crainsdetroit.com, as selected by you, based on your mouse clicks or BlackBerry button pushes between Jan. 1 and Dec. 1, 2011.
2011 25 top picks from reader clicks: 14-16 — More red flags at Borders, A Q&A provokes soccer hooligans, Dan Gilbert defends Quicken's culture in court
Crain's made this year's special holiday digital edition free to all readers of crainsdetroit.com. A registration is required if you don't already have one.
The holiday edition features the top 25 picks from your clicks; 10 images from a year in business news; Crain's reporters look back and look forward, blog style.
14. Jan. 12: “More red flags up at Borders”
For years, bookworms throughout Southeast Michigan would speak of exploring the canyons of literature that made up the original Borders bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor, evoking memories of a sort reserved for such iconic regional brands as Vernors, Kmart, Highland Appliance ... hmm.
This Jan. 12 Web story by Crain's Daniel Duggan reported, among other things, that Chapter 11 was an option for Borders Group Inc., which had grown from a single, revered outlet into a chain of more than 600 book and music stores that had been unable to transition into the digital age. Asked about the possibility of bankruptcy, analyst Jim McTevia neither hemmed nor hawed: "Yes." And even Chapter 11 wasn't sufficient. In September, Borders was liquidated.
15. Feb. 2: “5 Questions With ... sports executive and team investor Andy Appleby”
No other story this year generated as many reader comments as Bill Shea's Q&A blog with Andy Appleby, chairman and CEO of the marketing and management firm General Sports and Entertainment LLC -- and, it turns out, an owner of an English professional soccer team with a substantial fan base.
And passionate? Well, when comments to a story suggest new lyrics for "Over There" (Hint: "The Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming"), that's a pretty reliable sign of real, live, visceral, unspellchecked British football passion.
Appleby's observation during the interview that British soccer fans "take it very seriously" could be a contender for "Understatement of 2011," if we had a category for that.
Now if we could just get Dan Gilbert to buy an English professional soccer team so we could write about it ...
16. Feb. 23: “Taking stand in overtime class-action case, Dan Gilbert defends Quicken culture, explains his e-mails”
... Like we wrote about him here. In this story, Gilbert defended Quicken Loans' corporate culture and business model during the jury trial involving his company's overtime policy.
At one point, the exchanges between Gilbert and the attorney for the former Quicken loan officers who were seeking overtime drew a warning from U.S. District Judge Steven Murphy.
Testimony also featured a Gilbert email telling Quicken employees to have a nice Thanksgiving but adding: "How many mortgages will you sell at your Thanksgiving dinner?" Gilbert explained in court: "That was kind of tongue-in-cheek. The rates had come down, and we had some great products, so there was some truth to it."