Jay Mariotti has been involved in yet another war of words recently, but this time, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is just a spectator to the verbal fireworks, rather than an active combatant.
Loudmouth Jayis taking flak from his colleagues at the Chicago Sun-Times—specifically columnist Rick Telander.
Mariotti fired the first salvo when he wrote, "[Guillen's] only critic in the Chicago media, mostly because my soft colleagues either fear Guillen's wrath, enjoy how he rips me, work for one of the Reinsdorf-controlled broadcast outlets or are afraid of getting on the chairman's bad side."
Chris De Luca, a baseball columnist at the Sun-Times stepped in, and simultaneously defended his colleagues, and ripped Mariotti.
Telander responded with a fiery column that was spiked, and then filed another version, which also did not run.
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Teddy Greenstien's column on the situation describes Mariotti accurately when he said in a June 10 article that Mariotti, "seems to pride himself on making enemies."
Jay deserves to be thrown under the bus by his colleagues at the Sun-Times, especially after he threw them under to start.
He consistently rips the White Sox no matter what they do, good or bad.
That alone must have made the 2005 World Championship they won that much more difficult for him to handle.
He also recently trashed Mike North, formerly a morning radio host at Chicago's WSCR-AM 670, saying North, "dumbed down Chicago's intelligence quotient."
More than a few Sun-Times readers feel the same way after reading Mariotti's columns.
The single biggest problem Loudmouth Jay has (and he has plenty) is his complete lack of basic journalism ethics and objectivity.
How the Sun-Times, or any other media organization for that matter, could hire a writer so blatantly biased and out of touch with his readership is beyond me.
Stunningly enough, the Sun-Times handed Loudmouth Jay an extension through 2011.
Here's hoping that the Sun-Times follows in the lead of WSCR and gets rid of their boorish, un-professional "journalist."
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2 months ago
I remember, specifically, that one day on Around the Horn during 2005 Jay Mariotti said "the White Sox will not win another game this season and miss the playoffs." After saying those words, the White Sox won the final two games of their series against the Tigers to clinch the AL Central, swept the Indians to close out the regular season, than proceeded to go 11-1 in the postseason. That would combine to make a 16-1 record after Mariotti's statement.
It is absolutely a true statement that Mariotti takes pride in ripping all Chicago teams (or all Illinois teams, for that matter, as his beef with the '05 Fighting Illini proved).
Great story. I couldn't agree more.
from 2 months ago
I sometimes watch ATH just to see him lose. I kinda like it when Tony Reali mutes Mariotti. If only I could do that...
2 months ago
Mariotti often "becomes" part of the story because he is so immensely known throughout sports. It happens when reporters ask the players questions like, "hey, did you happen to see what Mariotti said about you this morning?" This results in the players being quoted by the reporters (ala Ozzie Guillen) with negative and/or rude comments directed at Jay. In return, Jay then rips back.
The reason I personally like Jay Mariotti so much is because he knows the hot topic issues in the sports world and especially in Chicago. Case in point: Last Friday was the Cubs vs. White Sox series, round two. The previous night was the NBA Draft, where the Bulls had the first pick. So when deciding on what story to write about, Cubs/Sox or Derrick Rose, Jay wrote about both, appealing to not only the baseball readers but the basketball ones as well.
To say you don't know why the Sun-Times would give him a contract extension is failing to realize the exact reason you wrote your article: Jay Mariotti is a must-read and creates conversation and argument; also known as selling papers.
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