Mariotti quits, I do a top ten list at 2:30 in the morning

Top ten replacements for Jay Mariotti. Update later.

Update.....

Think about this for a second: the biggest story in sports today is the resignation of a Chicago media member. As long as any of us live, that may never be the case again.

We’ve covered Mariotti on here a few times before, and it’s safe to say that pretty much everyone hated him. I enjoyed most of his stuff, but as I believe Stompy pointed out on this site, his clear bias against the White Sox made him impossible to like or respect. As a journalist, all you really have to be is objective, and Mariotti got too caught up in feuds with Ozzie Guillen and Jerry Reinsdorf to remember that.

More than anything, I think his popularity helped kill him. Desipio said today that the contract extension Mariotti signed a few months ago with the Sun-Times was three-years, $6 million. Remember that like papers all over the country, the Sun-Times is rapidly losing money and laying off tons of employees. During that time they paid Mariotti $2 million a year? It’s easy to see how that could go to someone’s mullet wearing head. 

Now for the fun part: who’s really to replace Mariotti at the Sun-Times, assuming the paper doesn’t take a look at some of the candidates I proposed in my top ten list today?  For the record, I’ve long said that the Sun-Times should fire Jay, Telander, Couch, and Carol, and just have Patrick Z. McGavin write four columns every day. I’m pretty sure that would work.

A name someone in the company brought up that I think makes tons of sense is Jason Whitlock. Whitlock, who’s from Indiana, currently works for the Kansas City Star and Fox Sports. Chicago is a way bigger market than KC, and the Sun-Times could probably double or triple the paycheck he gets from the Star.

I’ve always had mixed feelings on Whitlock. Obviously, you have to separate his columns into two categories: the ones about race, and the ones about sports. A lot of times I feel his race columns are dead on, and as that one ST employee said, race is pretty much the biggest topic in Chicago at all times. A prominent black front page columnist every day in Chicago would likely be a huge hit.

So yeah, anyways, Jay’s gone. That’s pretty cool. If you have some time on your hands today, I recommend you check out the comment section the Sun-Times set up.