Jay Walking: Why I'll Miss Chicago's Loudest Sportswriter

By: Mark Fitzgerald (Commentary) The unexpected news that Jay Mariotti quit the Chicago Sun-Times will gladden the heart of countless sports fans here, who have gobbled up countless gigabytes in the blogosphere documenting their hatred for the sportswriter. Google "Jay Mariotti sucks," and you'll get 12,400 returns. Mariotti was held in such contempt in the clubhouses of some teams that he has written his columns for years without stepping foot in them. He said in all seriousness he felt unsafe in the White Sox clubhouse, for instance.

And it's not as if Jay will be much missed in the newsroom, either. Columnist Neil Steinberg's rant recorded on "You Tube" captures a taste of the way he's regarded by some of his colleagues.

Consider the statement Editor in Chief Michael Cooke issued this afternoon: "We wish Jay well and will miss him ? not personally, of course ? but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days."

So maybe I'm a majority of one, but I gotta say I'm going to miss him.

In the same way that I think "Seinfeld" is so brilliant because it crafts great comedy out of all the things I hate about TV sitcoms -- such as the hypocrisy and lying necessary to set up the joke, the careless ways in which a character's own, well, character will be changed for the convenience of the plot -- I admired Jay's work for all the ways that it epitomized yet transcended the worst of sportswriting.

Jay was so SERIOUS about this silliest of human diversion. If Ozzie Guillen dropped an F-bomb here or there, he wasn't rude or ignorant -- he was evidence of the fall of Western Civilization. A high draft pick who comes up with a bad back the second day of training camp wasn't evidence that the Chicago Bears are snake-bitten, but just not in the cute way that the Cubs lose. No, it was an evil plot worthy of the Illuminati.

Especially hilarious was how he could turn on a dime in his opinions, calling for a coach or manager's scalp one day and hailing him as a genius the next. When the Chicago Bulls were making their epic runs with Michael Jordan and his supporting cast, Mariotti's columns recording his soaring hopes at each playoff victory and Garden of Gethsemane-scale agony at each defeat was as close to being a heart attack on paper as you'll get outside an EKG.

Jay's volume was always turned up to 11, but that made for rollicking reading perfectly appropriate for a scrappy tabloid like the Sun-Times.

I loved his column, too, for its constant little failures, like the antic nicknames he tried to be hang on athletes that almost never caught on with Chicagoans. It must have torn him apart when a nickname that Kup -- Irv Kupcinet for crying out loud, what was he, like, 132 years old at the time? -- thought up for Jordan achieved some traction with sports fans.

There's even irony in his leaving just two months after signing a three-year extension with the financially struggling Sun-Times. Breaking a contract was always, in Jay's eyes, a fatal character flaw when an athlete or coach did it.

Cooke, who extended the contract offer, is no doubt correct that the Sun-Times sports lineup will not miss Mariotti. Rick Telander has always been the city's best sportswriter. "Quick Hits" page editor Elliot Harris has always been funnier -- and intentionally so. The sports beat writers are all first-rate.

But a paper that for some time now has not been what it used to be has been diminished again with the departure of Mariotti.

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Looks like I'm not a majority of just one. Eric Zorn, a metro columnist for the rival Chicago Tribune says he "likes the yappy one."