Paging Mark Guthrie

Do you know Mark Guthrie? He used to pitch for the Cubs. Wait, no, he delivers newspapers in Connecticut. Write him a check for $301,000, won't you? It seems the Tribune Company kinda fucked up and paid the wrong Mark Guthrie the ballplayer's salary. The other Mark Guthrie delivered The Hartford Courant, a Tribune company newspaper, and somewhere in the payroll office, someone's about to get fired.

The problem isn't completely that they paid the wrong person—it's that he won't give all the money back. He still owes the Tribune company $26,000. The Cubs didn't catch the payroll error until five weeks after the fact when reps for the pitcher Mark Guthrie inquired about his missing pay. Newspaper Guthrie says he was waiting for a call to explain his unusually large balance. The Cubs took back $275,000, but then Newspaper Guthrie had the bank freeze his account.

The Cubs say they don't want to embarrass anyone, and that they just want to correct the error. It's kind of turning into a mess, though, as N.G. now has some demands. According to the Courant,

He said he wants assurances he won't get hit with a big tax bill from the IRS. He wants an audit of his bank account because he believes some of his paychecks were mistakenly sent to Guthrie, the baseball player. He wants his legal bills paid and is considering a countersuit. He said Tribune had no business going into his bank account.

See, just when you thought direct deposit was the best thing ever…
(Thanks, Carolina!)