Perhaps you missed the clamor of the crowd, oh-so anxious for the return of fired Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti?
"Who?" you ask.
Mariotti. That guy. That crusty, sometimes rude and nasty sports dude who has, in his previous work with the Chicago Sun-Times, made enemies of Ozzie Guillen, Jerry Angelo and Lou Piniella (to name a few).
Now there's talk that Mariotti may end up with the Chicago Tribune, Crain's Ed Sherman reported today.
Not that Mariotti would become part of the increasingly slimmer paper itself, but rather that he "will turn up with the Tribune's 'Chicago Now.' It is a new site featuring a network of bloggers writing about and commenting on everything and anything, including sports," Sherman writes.
The reporter points out that -- the ill health of the Chicago Tribune aside -- Mariotti has been writing that newspapers are dinosaurs and the future is in the Net.
In his Monday posting, Sherman says:
Local
The most logical scenario is Mr. Mariotti adding Chicago Now to his AOL duties. It would give him a chance to have a regular voice again in local sports. He also would provide Chicago Now with a high-profile go-to guy to lure people to the site.
There seems little doubt that Mariotti could handle both assignments.
"If anybody could write 14 columns in a week, it's him," Sherman says. He adds that, with a non-compete clause with the Sun-Times running out next month, Mariotti will likely begin flinging daggers at his old employer, from the comfort of full employment elsewhere.
