Who Doesn't Hate Jay Mariotti?

By Karl Klockars in News on Jun 10, 2008 6:12PM

Ozzie Guillen hates Jay Mariotti. Jerry Reinsdorf hates Mariotti. Andy MacPhail hates Mariotti. Dan McNeil has gone head-to-head with Jay. Charles Barkley has called Mariotti "a loser." Everyone at JayTheJoke.com certainly hates Jay Mariotti. Now it seems that even Jay's co-workers are hatin' on Jay - and you probably would too if he called you his "soft colleagues," who "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." Even worse, "I ignore what they write and say about Guillen, and I'd advise any reasonable person to do the same." Oh, snap.

Teddy Greenstein writes today about the intra-office soap opera that is the Sun-Times sports desk. When Mariotti slighted his colleagues (intentionally or horribly short-sightedly) by implying he was the only one in the market with the cajones to take on Ozzie Guillen, Chris DeLuca fired back and so did Rick Telander—even though no one ever got to read Telander's article. Editors wisely nixed the piece; yes, even if you really, really want to talk shit about Jay Mariotti, dirty laundry should stay in-house.

It would be one thing if Mariotti actually had a point for once—we get it, he thinks Guillen should be fired. But with the Sox and Cubs both in first, who does he think he's fooling? Ozzie's here to stay through the season, and no hurt feelings on Jay's part will change that. As for the Sun-Times, if the S-T sports department was a Vietnam platoon, Mariotti would be Douglas Niedermeyer. And we remember what happened to Niedermeyer, don't we?