Kent Babb, former Kansas City Star sports columnist until he departed last October for a position with the Washington Post, is criticized in a story on Deadspin about Ravens’ linebacker Ray Lewis, who was involved in a brawl 13 years ago that left two dead.

It should be noted that Deadspin is the sports blog that broke the Manti Te’o hoax story of a girlfriend that never existed. That story has generated massive coverage for the Notre Dame football player.

Deadspin’s Barry Petchesky wrote a story today saying Babb may have gone a bit far trying to dredge up a story about when Lewis, who was part of a group in 2000 involved in a brawl where two people were killed. Lewis became a prosecution witness and avoided jail time, while the defendants were acquitted.

Petechesky makes it clear that he felt the story was simply an attempt by the Washington Post to dredge up the old story on Lewis now that he will be playing in the Super Bowl next week.

Deadspin said that Babb went to Akron, Ohio, to meet the mother of one of the youths killed and put together a tear-jerker story chronicling how upset the woman was visiting her son’s grave.

“Priscilla’s gloves disappear into her pockets, but her eyes don’t leave the marker,” wrote Babb. “As the silent minutes pass, the smile fades. Her lip quivers, and her eyebrows furrow. I love you,” she says, barely louder than a whisper. “I love you.”‘

It is definitely an emotional scene. But Petchesky wrote that it was the first time the mother had ever visited the grave since he was killed 13 years ago. In fact, she never even attended her own son’s funeral.

The Post had a photographer at the ready to take the emotional photo of the mother at her son’s grave site.

Babb responded to questions put to him about his story:

Have you received a lot of grief for bringing up the topic?

“I’d say about 10 percent of the reaction has been negative or angry. Ravens fans haven’t taken too well to it, but that’s not a surprise. Almost everything I’ve heard on Twitter and via email has been positive, but like always, there’s a certain faction of the population who doesn’t want to read anything negative — or anything that references anything negative — about their favorite athletes.

“As for fellow journalists, the Deadspin writer didn’t seem to like the piece, but that’s OK. This kind of story isn’t for everyone.”

The Deadspin article made it seem as if you tried to manufacture this emotional story when the mother had not attended her son’s funeral or even visited the grave in 13 years?

“Kind of a leading question, but I’ll hazard an attempt here: I called the mother on Tuesday evening and asked if I could come to Akron and have her show me some of her late son’s favorite spots, in an effort to get to know how he lived. As part of that, I asked her how far her house is from her son’s gravesite, because I wanted to see the grave. She said she had no idea, because she had never been. Well, at that point, she had my attention.

“I would’ve wanted to go with her to the gravesite regardless of whether she had been there 100 times or twice, but it’s extraordinarily unique, at least to me, that a parent hasn’t visited her eldest son’s grave. I don’t know that I tried or did manufacture anything, but if I did by pursuing a story angle that’s unusual, I suppose I did.

Did you or someone else from the paper drive her to the cemetery?

“I drove my rental car with her in the passenger seat. I honestly have no idea why this would seem unusual. I ride with interview subjects all the time, and sometimes I drive them. I’m a big fan of the drive-and-talk interview style, because it’s casual and most of the time the subject is more able to forget that they’re being interviewed when they’re in the car.”

Would you have written the story if Ray Lewis and the Ravens were not in the Super Bowl?

“Probably not. It was written by USA Today and the Baltimore Sun last week, before the Ravens reached the Super Bowl, so there was some interest. Lewis, though, is the most well-known player on a team playing for the NFL championship, and he essentially asked for additional attention when he announced his retirement before the playoffs started.

“Whether readers or fans or anyone likes it or not, this is a big part of the Ray Lewis narrative, and at this level, I feel that anything is worthy of examination. Lewis has done an awful lot of good during his career, and that shouldn’t be overlooked — and I don’t suspect it will be during the next week.”