He'll Always Be Clueless

I tried really hard to be happy about the whole “Mariotti is leaving the Sun Times” story. After all, who wouldn’t be happy about the fact that Chicago won’t be subjected to this smarmy prick spewing pretty much the same spiteful crap week in, week out? This is a guy who literally writes three columns:

1. The owner of ________ team is cheap and needs to spend more money.
2. The manager of __________ team is stupid and should be fired.
3. Whatever minor event that occurred the day before is the single worst thing that has ever happened and representative of what a horrible city Chicago is.

Given this, coupled with my general spite for the vast majority of mainstream columnists, there should be no reason why I wouldn’t have vast amounts of material to throw at this slapdick (note: I’m trying them all before I settle on one).

Unfortunately, I don’t really have much to say about him, because (as much as I hate to say this), I agree with his reasoning. The newspaper is a dying entity. And its dying because of columnists like Mariotti. People are tired of reading guys who clearly don’t really like sports that much and are more concerned with exercising their writing chops than with actually developing cogent thoughts about the teams they cover. Instead of actually coming up with unique angles and stories that might make fans enjoy the game more (or at least give them funny ways of ripping their shitty teams), most newspaper columnists have resorted to finding slightly unique ways of writing the same column over and over again.

It’s no wonder that about 8,000,000,000 Cubs blogs have sprung up over the last few years. People are desperate for interesting, engaging writers who can actually express what it is truly like to be a fan. To be honest, I haven’t read a single column from any of the Trib, Sun Times or Herald columnists that was half as interesting, engaging or funny as some things I’ve read on Hire Jim Essian or one of the other blogs we link to. It is utterly impossible to relate to the newspaper columnist today, and what’s worse, the columnists aren’t even trying to bridge that gap. In demonstrating the absolute arrogance they’ve come to embody, they aren’t even trying to adapt and more often than not, are simply jumping ship like the rats they are.

A simple piece of advice to guys like Jay Mariotti: just because you’re going to get paid a whole lot of money and your columns will appear on some worthless web site, it doesn’t mean you’ll be “adapting to the new way of doing things.” Being a web columnist involves a lot more than simply being unavailable in print: it means writing with a sense of the fan (especially the young fan). As demonstrated by your entire career, you are far too arrogant to ever relate to a fan. That will never change because you are incapable of change. And that’s why we hate you.

It would have been so much more fun to write about how Mariotti is stuck in a Chinese prison after refusing to pay his 9 year old male prostitute when he gave him the clap. Unfortunately, that didn't happen (at least we can't confirm it). In the end, he is leaving the Sun Times for the right reasons, as the newspaper is dying. But in true newspaper columnist form, he is too arrogant and lazy to even try and understand what caused it. Good riddance.


P.S. Yes, I realize that I wrote "I don't have much to say about Mariotti," then wrote four paragraphs about him. You know why? Shut up, that's why.

UPDATE: News has gotten out that he didn't leave for quite the reasons he said he did. He's an even bigger bitch than I thought, which I didn't know was possible.