Jay Mariotti

File:Mariotti.jpg

Jay Mariotti

Jay Mariotti (born 1961 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a sports columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and a regular panelist on ESPN's sports talk show Around the Horn. He occasionally takes the place of the Washington Post’s Tony Kornheiser as a guest host on ESPN's Pardon the Interruption. He attended Ohio University in Athens, OH. Mariotti began writing for the Sun-Times in the summer of 1991. Mariotti did not appear in the Sun-Times for several weeks after his column of June 26, 2006. During that time the Sun-Times indicated he was "on vacation". His column re-appeared on August 1, 2006.

Style of writing

Mariotti has been criticized by other sports writers for working from home and not interviewing the people he writes about. Mariotti contends that he won't go into the White Sox clubhouse because of "a history of threatening and unprofessional episodes" involving White Sox players.

Many of Mariotti's columns about the White Sox during the team's championship season in 2005 were gloomy and pessimistic. On April 4, 2005 he wrote "The Sox will win 84 games and miss the playoffs." On September 20, 2005, he wrote, "Part of our lot in life is that the local baseball teams are destined to tease, crash and burn. The Sox are deluding themselves if they believe Bobby Jenks, a 270-pound rookie reliever, can stop a historic free-fall." On September 27, 2005, he asked "Do you honestly think this team can do the slightest damage in the playoffs? Just why are the Sox playing for October when they clearly don't belong there?" Mariotti's opinions about the team wavered dramatically, as witnessed in column excerpts from June 21, 2005 "I will state for the record today that the Sox are crash-proof in this regular season. They are not going to miss the playoffs. Hear me? They aren't choking. Got that?" and from September 18, 2005, "If there is any sense of mercy, the White Sox will be blacked out the rest of the season so a terminally cursed city needn't witness The Mother of All Collapses. I have been opining since the summer trade deadlines that the boys are vulnerable to a classic choke job."

Notable feuds

Tony Kornheiser

In January 2004, Chicago's ESPN 1000 replaced Tony Kornheiser's once-nationally syndicated show with a show hosted by Mariotti. Kornheiser was unhappy about this and has hinted at some behind-the-scenes smugness on Mariotti's account after this switch took place. The feud between the two sports journalists seems to be one-sided in the public eye, with Kornheiser frequently stating how he can't stand Mariotti both on Pardon the Interruption and on his Washington, DC area radio program while Mariotti has referred to the feud as non-existent.

Woody Paige

Mariotti's on-air rivalry with Around The Horn co-star Woody Paige is based off of a real-life dispute they had in the early-to-mid '90s, when both panelists worked for the Denver Post, resulting in Mariotti's leaving. The two have apparently settled their differences, and their "feud" on the show is mostly in jest. Woody still occasionally refers to Mariotti as "Jabroni."

The Chicago White Sox

Mariotti's most public feuds have been with the Chicago White Sox. Mariotti has an ongoing feud with television announcer Ken "Hawk" Harrelson. After a White Sox game in the late 1990s, Harrelson entered the press box to confront Mariotti about a column he had written. The two exchanged words and have been feuding ever since. In a separate, more recent exchange, Mariotti complained that Harrelson had intentionally bumped into him during a White Sox road game. Witnesses stated that Mariotti threatened to sue Harrelson. Since the incident, Mariotti has written four columns about Harrelson, calling him "Jerry Reinsdorf's shameless mouthpiece", and claiming that Harrelson announces as if he were constipated. Harrelson has referred to Mariotti as a "hiney bird" on several occasions, which he explains as being a bird that flies in concentric circles until it eventually flies up its own rear end and disappears forever.

Mariotti also has a bad history with Jerry Reinsdorf, owner of the Chicago Bulls and White Sox. On November 17, 2004, Mariotti wrote a column criticizing Reinsdorf's ownership, writing that he should sell the team so that the Sox could compete for a championship. He continued, saying that the White Sox would not win a World Series as long as Reinsdorf owned the team. On June 7, 2005, Mariotti again wrote, "I can safely say the Sox won't win a World Series as long as (Jerry Reinsdorf) owns them." The White Sox won the World Series on October 26, 2005 in a four-game sweep of the Houston Astros. In a column he wrote for the next morning, Mariotti claimed that he was happy to see Reinsdorf win the World Series with the White Sox.

Despite supporting Ozzie Guillen when the Sox were considering hiring him as manager in 2004, Mariotti has angered Guillen since then with several columns that have been critical of the White Sox and Guillen's outspoken style of leadership. Since Guillen's return to the White Sox as manager, Mariotti has in almost every article about the White Sox referred to Guillen as the "Blizzard of Oz." Though this was initially done out of fondness for Guillen's aggressive style (something the team lacked under previous manager Jerry Manuel), the phrase has come to be perceived by many as a slap in the face to Guillen. Tension between the two boiled over in June 2006 when Mariotti wrote a column criticizing Guillen, calling him "senseless and immature," for apparently ordering rookie relief pitcher Sean Tracey to hit Texas Rangers batter Hank Blalock after the Rangers pitcher Vicente Padilla hit White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski with two pitches during a game. Tracey failed to successfully retaliate and Guillen pulled him from the game. Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports says that Mariotti broke a cardinal rule of journalism by not visiting the White Sox locker room to interview Guillen for his column. Guillen, upset that Mariotti hadn't interviewed him, unleashed a tirade against Mariotti that included the comment: "What a piece of shit he is, a fucking fag." Guillen's comment was perceived by some as anti-gay and he was fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Baseball and ordered to attend sensitivity training. Commissioner of Baseball Bud Selig's office issued a statement that said "Baseball is a social institution with responsibility to set appropriate tone and example. Conduct or language that reflects otherwise will not be tolerated. The use of slurs embarrasses the individual, the club, and the game." Guillen accepted his punishment, saying "I put Bud Selig in a spot he's not supposed to be." Guillen also said, "'If I hurt anybody with what I called him, I apologize, but I wasn't talking about those people. I was talking strictly about [Mariotti]. I will apologize to the people I offended because I should have used another word. Besides that, I'm still waiting for Jay. Why he's so afraid to show up to the ballpark? When you're afraid to do something, you feel guilty about something. Then tell him we'll pay the cab. I'll take a limo where he lives and bring him to the ballpark and we'll have a conversation. But that's the way he is. He's garbage, still garbage, going to die as garbage. Period."

External links

• Mariotti's columns
• Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn on Jay Mariotti's journalistic style
• Write on, Jay A column from the Chicago Sports Review