Posted by chicagomedia.org on June 09, 2008 at 23:44:11:
Columnist Jay Mariotti seems to pride himself on making enemies. He has been called a "pissant" by Jerry Reinsdorf, a "hiney bird" by Hawk Harrelson and much worse by Ozzie Guillen.
A recent poll by the irreverent Deadspin.com Web site tabulated his national approval rating, based on some 8,000 votes, at 6.2 percent. TNT's Charles Barkley, who called Mariotti a "loser" during a March radio appearance, earned a thumbs-up from 95.6 percent of Deadspin voters.
Now Mariotti is taking body blows from his own colleagues at the Sun-Times. The situation heated up to the point that Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke stepped in last week to symbolically separate Mariotti from fellow sports columnist Rick Telander, after Sun-Times editors refused to run columns Telander filed for the Wednesday and Friday papers.
The conflict started after Mariotti wrote last week of Guillen: "As you may have noticed through the years, I am the Blizzard'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."
The next day, Sun-Times national baseball writer Chris De Luca led his column this way: "The same critics who avoid ever stepping into the White Sox's clubhouse are calling the Chicago media soft for not skewering manager Ozzie Guillen. They want Guillen fired yesterday. Sounds tough, but the rhetoric comes up a little, well, soft."
Telander also believed Mariotti had unfairly impugned his reputation and fired back in a Wednesday column that got spiked, according to media insiders. The paper explained to its readers in a box that Telander was taking the day off.
Telander filed an altered version for the Friday paper that, according to sources, mentioned the "bleatings" of "mini-dictators" who are "terrified of accountability."
It also quoted Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski as saying no visitor to the team's clubhouse need fear for his safety.
Cooke, who declined comment Monday via e-mail, stepped in and decided the piece would not run.
Telander also declined comment on his spiked columns but voiced support for his baseball-writing colleagues.
"I'm a big boy and I can handle this," he said. "The people I feel sorry for are the hard-working, talented journalists at the Sun-Times like Chris De Luca, Joe Cowley, Toni Ginnetti, Gordon Wittenmyer, Carol Slezak and Greg Couch."
Sources said Telander also asked for an apology from Mariotti. He has yet to receive one.
Mariotti declined to reply to an e-mail seeking comment.
(Teddy Greenstein)