I haven't watched an episode of Around The Horn since I was doing those video clips for Deadspin, and even then it was begrudgingly. Well recently SI put together a Best of Sports Media for the decade, and not only did we receive an ridiculous (yet extremely appreciated) honorable mention for Sports Blog of the Decade, but they also took a light jab at ATH. Via Deadspin....

The topics are patently absurd (one involved Evander Holyfield boxing a horse for the WBA heavyweight belt), but on the whole it's no more bizarre-and a lot funnier-than, say, Around the Horn.

That seems one of the nicer things that people have said about that abortion of a show, but apparently that was enough to send Bill Plaschke over the deep end. Via Plaschke's Twitter....

-I saw where, in its annual media issue, a certain publication took another shot at Around the Horn. We love it. Just spell our names right.
-One of these days, your grandfather's media is going to realize that, when it comes to ATH, they are out of touch with today's consumers
-ATH thrives because the grass-roots sports fan — which is most of us — thinks sports should be fun, and what's wrong with that?
-While our critics have dwindled to a few, we embrace those who still think seven years of hundreds of thousands of daily viewers are wrong
-Our show wouldn't connect with today's sports fan if yesterday's sports media didn't still rip it. The rips remind us the show still works
-I'll end this by once again thanking our show's patron saint, a notable broadcaster who called us, ''Gasbags on parade.''
-I'm honored to be one of those gasbags, and thankful that so many people allow us to parade into their lives...
-(and if those last few tweets don't get me into the showdown Thursday, nothing will!!)

Ah yes....those gasbags on parade. I mean when someone as respected as Al Michaels calls you a "gasbag", I would think you would take notice. But on the other side of the coin....if it ain't broke don't fix it. I know a good handful of people that list ATH as one of their favorite shows, and 700K worth of viewers at 5pm isn't anything to shack a stick at.

It was almost a year ago that Jay Mariotti resigned from his position at the Chicago Sun-Times. In the meantime, Jay has tried his hand at blogging and continued his appearances on "Around The Horn". You would have thought that those jobs were enough, but apparently Mariotti hasn't annoyed the city of Chicago enough in his mind. Mariotti is officially heading to the Chicago Tribune this September. Sports by Brooks has the scoop....

I’ve learned that effective September 1, Mariotti will join the Tribune as a weekly columnist - this the same man who spent nearly two decades mocking the same venerable daily which now extends him a byline. I do expect a seamless transition period though, considering the Trib set up Mariotti’s inbox long ago. (Uh, Jay, I thought ‘newspapers were dying‘?)

Mariotti’s contractual non-compete clause with the Sun-Times officially expires at the end of August, one year after he quit his position. So you can expect his ink-jetted invective to begin emanating from the Tribune in September.

It’s an interesting hire, considering Mariotti and the Tribune have very different motives with the move. The Tribune is bringing in Mariotti to fight off the startlingly advance of ESPN into the Chicago sports media marketplace. (Ironically, Mariotti also happens to be a prominent employee of ESPN.)

I'm sorry Chicago. I know how you must feel right now, and I can't sympathize with you enough. It's like a patient being told that he/she has beat Cancer, but now they've gone into remission, and it has returned. You can fully expect Mariotti to use this position to trash the Sun-Times, every chance he gets. Good times.

Official: Jay Mariotti Moving To Tribune On Sept. 1 (Sports by Brooks)

And no....it's not with his writing. In yesterday's Around The Horn Showdown, Jay Mariotti decided to bring out a prop, an actual baby, and the kid did not seem to like being held by Jay. Fast forward to the one minute mark of this clip to watch the hilarious action....

My favorite part is after he get the win, and hands the kid back, that he says the baby is from Nebraska. Like it isn't his fault that the baby cried....it's a Cornhusker! Too funny.

Oh my god! I can't believe he actually pulled it off!!! Rapper Lil Wayne actually beat three of our country's finest sports writers to take the ATH....ummm....well I'm not exactly sure what he won, but who cares! Here are the highlights....

All kidding aside he was a bit to quiet, but maybe it seemed that way because Mariotti and Paige are so damn loud, but he was actually pretty good. Plus that LT "face time" bit was actually pretty funny. Good on you fellow blogger.

Video: Lil Wayne On Around The Horn

If there is anyone out there crazier than Woody Paige, Lil Wayne is probably the guy. The rapper has already appeared on First Take multiple times, and has his own blog on ESPN.com, but ESPN has decided that's not enough. Wayne will be on the panel of tomorrow's airing of Around the Horn. Seriously....

Fresh off his four wins at the 2009 Grammy Awards Sunday night, rapper Lil’ Wayne will be a panelist on ESPN’s Around the Horn Tuesday at 5 p.m. He will match wits with regular reporters Woody Paige, Jay Mariotti and Michael Smith in the 30-minute sports debate program moderated and scored by Tony Reali. Lil’ Wayne, who contributes to ESPNthemag.com and has appeared on ESPN's First Take and, led performer nominations with nine and won four -- Best Rap Album (for Tha Carter III), Best Rap Solo Performance ("A Milli"), Best Rap Performance by Group or Duo ("Swagga Like Us"), and Best Rap Song ("Lollipop"). He will appear on ATH from Los Angeles.

I guess you can't really make that show anymore annoying than it already is, and Lil Wayne is actually pretty good during his appearances on First Take. With that said, this seems to be inline with a lot of the other current gimmicks on the network to garner ratings for certain shows.

Set your TIVOs now, folks!

(Via ESPN PR)

Can't let the weekend go by without mentioning the media news that Deadspin broke yesterday: the former Chicago Sun-Times columnist and Around The Horn panelist that everyone loves to hate is debuting at AOL Sports in some capacity tomorrow (DS says he's going to be on FanHouse, the banner at the site just says "AOL Sports".)

You may remember Mariotti's hissy fit of a resignation a few months back, obviously, followed by what seemed like waves of missives from his former co-workers about how they won't miss him. It's pretty clear when your paper features a subscriber who returned because you left (along with allowing the beat writers and columnists to trash you), people aren't really that fond of you.

I know it's only encouraging him, but I'll probably read Mariotti's debut at AOL for the same reason I read Whitlock at Fox Sports: just to see how blatantly wrong and off-base he can be, while getting paid for it.

I don't know if anyone was watching the start of Around The Horn last night (and why would you be?), but RCS caught a cameo by Tha Doggfather. For some random reason, Snoop Dogg popped up with J.A. Adande during the shows opening segment, and here is your video proof....

Not only does J.A. befriend pornstars, but apparently has courted some rappers into his cavalcade of celebrities. I would make fun, but if I knew Snoop, I'd name drop him at every opportunity. Who knows what I'd do if I was a regular on a TV show?

Snoop Dogg Appears On Around The Horn (Real Clear Sports)

On The DL has been doing the Lord's work for quite some time now, but this could be DL and Co.'s greatest interview yet. Levy talked with Chicago columnist Rick Telander yesterday and naturally, the subject of his war with Jay Mariotti came up. Not only did it come up, but the latest story is just about the funniest thing I've ever heard....

“I was taking a sauna, which I do like once every ten years, and who walks in but Jay Mariotti. I swear to God. If God is my savior, if he is (he probably doesn’t want to save me, but) there he was. He almost freaked out. There were other people in the sauna. I probably shouldn’t even go on about this, but it was an hour ago. It was one hour ago, and he just started babbling.

I don’t think it’s fair for me...I’m telling you so much...it’s just surreal. I think if my eyes don’t deceive me, if he’d seen the Yeti or...Michael Myers sitting there, I don’t know, it would have been about the same. But you’d have to ask him that.

The first thing out of his mouth, ‘well, let’s just bury the hatchet.’ I had not said a word. Hatchets or anything – I didn’t have a hatchet in hand. Nothing.”

It's amazing what can transpire when two guys are naked in a sauna. That's pretty much the only place that Telander wouldn't have punched him in the face, and how funny is it that they just ran into each other like that. Of course there's much more in the interview including Rick lacing into Mariotti's writing style, so head over to OtDL for the rest. Mainstream Media continues to amaze me everyday.

Rick Telander Holds Nothing Back (On The DL)

At the time of his resignation from the Sun-Times, Jay Mariotti talked all big and bad about staying in television and finding an Internet position somewhere on the web. Well apparently he couldn't find a website, or that was just a cover up, because last week strong rumors surfaced about him attempting to gain employment with rival paper, the Chicago Tribune.

I'm here today to tell all of you Chicagoans that that's not going to happen and that Sun-Times lawyers have put a kibosh to the whole idea....

Discussions between former Chicago Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti and Tribune Co. about a possible role at the media company have ended, Mariotti said late Tuesday.

He said lawyers from the Sun-Times threatened to sue if he joined the company, claiming a jump to the competing news outlet would violate a non-compete agreement.

Mariotti and Tribune "talked about television, about the Internet, about the newspaper,'' he said. Mariotti said that discussions about working for Tribune Co.'s Chicago Tribune newspaper became a stumbling block. "The Sun-Times' lawyer threatened me with a lawsuit in 64-point type. Things sort of stalled,'' he added.

"At one point last week, there were lawyers on both sides looking into this,'' Mariotti said. "It's daunting to put together a deal. This [lawyer's letter] got thrown out in the middle of everything. We both decided that we can't do what we wanted to do.''

So you've got that going for you Chicago, which is nice. Seriously though, I know you have to do what's in the best interest of yourself at times, but that's one slimeball move right there. You re-sign with the Sun-Times back in June, head to Beijing for the Olympics, comeback saying you want something new and that newspapers are dying, you resign, you wait not even a month before trying to sign with the city's rival paper. You would think that the media in Chicago would be sick of him by now, but I guess controversy brings readers.

Oh and if you really want to have some fun this morning be sure to read the comments on the page linked below. Here are just a few....

If Mariotti goes to the Trib, then I might as well get all my news from The Onion.- JTO

I never thought I'd ever say this but: HOORAY FOR LAWYERS!- Uncle Bouncy

I would stop reading the Trib if they hired that sleazeball.- Dennis

Former Sun-Times columnist Mariotti not joining Tribune (Chicago Tribune)

For years, I never understood how Mariotti kept a job in Chicago. He bashed the teams, the fans and mailed in articles for the better part of the last two years. He was really the epitome of everything negative in mainstream media, but worry not Chicago, you don't have to deal with Jay the Joke any longer.

Mariotti, whose public battles with fellow staffers, team owners, and rival columnists are legendary, didn't disclose any specific plans except to say he will continue doing his regular stint on ESPN's "Around the Horn.''

He said that he "is talking with a lot of Web sites'' and added that the future of his business "sadly is not in newspapers.'' Mariotti said that he sent a resignation letter to Cyrus Freidheim, Sun-Times Media Group Chief Executive and Sun-Times Publisher. When asked via email by the Tribune whether Mariotti had resigned, Sun-Times Editor Michael Cooke responded, "You're kidding?''

"They accepted it,'' Mariotti said of his resignation. "It was my call entirely.''

"I'm a competitor and I get the sense this marketplace doesn't compete,'' he said. "Everyone is hanging on for dear life at both papers. I think probably the days of high stakes competition in Chicago are over.

"To see what's happened in this business...I don't want to go down with it.''

It's probably a relief for most Chicagoans to see him go, but dammit if the guy isn't dead on in his reason for leaving. All this ultimately means is that he'll be on ATH more and coming to a podcast/webisode near you in the not so distant future. Chicago wins but America loses.

Now if we could only get him to jump off that ledge in the photo above (I kid, I kid).

Sun-Times columinst Jay Mariotti resigns (Chicago Tribune)

I don't know if this is an experiment, or the network is trying to ramp up for the new Sports Center format in August, but today's absence of PTI and Around the Horn definitely caught me off guard. I tuned in for my nightly fast forwarding, er viewing of ATH and noticed a random Sports Center Special with Chris McKendry airing. My first thought was that something crazy in the Sports World had gone down, but that wasn't it. I next assumed that I was on ESPN2 for some reason....nope. Lastly, I figured that they had finally cancelled ATH! No such luck.

So what the heck was up? There hadn't been an official press release about the "Special" Sports Centers, but I figured I'd go back and check. And there, buried in a week long "this week in ESPN" release (that mainly includes NASCAR News), was this tidbit....

ESPN will present a week of special one-hour SportsCenter programs Monday-Friday, July 21-25, at 5 p.m. These SportsCenters will feature elements from different ESPN platforms, including ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Fantasy Sports and content from SportsCenter. Hosting the specials will be Chris McKendry (Monday), Dari Nowkhah (Tuesday-Thursday) and Josh Elliott (Friday). Around the Horn and Pardon the Interruption will return Monday, July 28.

I also did some searching and found this little message from Michael Wilbon about halfway through the 5pm show....

Hmmm. That's curious isn't it? Since when does a show that replaces both of its regular hosts with random people on a regular basis take a hiatus? Tony Kornheiser has been absent for weeks from PTI and that press release is dated today. I'm not going to make a ton of conspiracy theory type guesses about things (you're welcome to do so in the comments), but just in case someone is reading.....two hours of Sports Center in the evening is waaaaay too much. Hell an hour is too long, but let's just focus on this "Special" Sports Center.

Chris McKendry seriously counted down plays #50-41 of the "year so far". No no....not Baseball. The ENTIRE year of 2008. Tom Brady to Randy Moss in the Super Bowl was #48 and Josh Hamilton's HR Derby performance was #49 (which isn't even technically a "play"). I'm not sure what the experiment is, or what is going on, but I'm not a fan. I need Dan LeBatard talking about David Hasselhoff's crotch every night or I'll go crazy.

It's an interesting choice to say the least, and I'll try to keep you updated.

I normally wouldn't draw attention to the nightly annoyance that is Around The Horn but they actually have an interesting guest host this week with Reali on vacation.

Rob Stone will host Around the Horn this week (June 30-July 4), substituting for the vacationing Tony Reali. Stone, who has handled a variety of play-by-play and studio roles as part of ESPN's soccer, college football and bowling coverage, is making his first appearance on ATH. Reali has missed just three shows since assuming the role of host three-and-a-half years ago in February 2004. Stone will also fill-in for Reali the week of July 28-August 1.

Stoner! Hopefully we'll get to see him do something crazy like have Foudy and Mitts sit in on a show, or my personal favorite....



(Quote via ESPN PR, Photo via SBB)

I had a post last week about how I'm amazed that a writer who no one seems to like continues to write articles on Ozzie Guillen that don't speak for the fans. Everyone chimed in and said that he speaks for no one in Chicago. Well today you can add Jay Mariotti's colleagues to the list of people that can't stand the guy. Via Teddy Greenstein at the Trib....

Now Mariotti is taking body blows from his own colleagues at the Sun-Times. The situation heated up to the point that Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke stepped in last week to symbolically separate Mariotti from fellow sports columnist Rick Telander, after Sun-Times editors refused to run columns Telander filed for the Wednesday and Friday papers.

The conflict started after Mariotti wrote last week of Guillen: "As you may have noticed through the years, I am the Blizzard's only critic in the Chicago media, mostly because my soft colleagues either fear Guillen's wrath, enjoy how he rips me, work for one of the Reinsdorf-controlled broadcast outlets or are afraid of getting on the chairman's bad side."

The next day, Sun-Times national baseball writer Chris De Luca led his column this way: "The same critics who avoid ever stepping into the White Sox's clubhouse are calling the Chicago media soft for not skewering manager Ozzie Guillen. They want Guillen fired yesterday. Sounds tough, but the rhetoric comes up a little, well, soft."

Telander also believed Mariotti had unfairly impugned his reputation and fired back in a Wednesday column that got spiked, according to media insiders. The paper explained to its readers in a box that Telander was taking the day off.

"I'm a big boy and I can handle this," he said. "The people I feel sorry for are the hard-working, talented journalists at the Sun-Times like Chris De Luca, Joe Cowley, Toni Ginnetti, Gordon Wittenmyer, Carol Slezak and Greg Couch."

This whole situation continues to amaze me. NO ONE likes anything this guy does. Not a single person enjoys his writing or his nonsense on television. I know controversy sells more papers, but you can reach a point of diminishing returns. In this case someone from at a rival city paper is writing about the dysfunction at your paper. That should be a hint that there's a Cancer in the midst.

Mariotti is no Terrell Owens, Pacman Jones, or Jeremy Shockey. This would be like the Matt Gutierrez knocking out Tom Brady in the locker room seven times and still keeping his job. Unbelievable.

Sun-Times colleagues go after Jay Mariotti (Chicago Tribune)
Even Jay Mariotti's Co-Workers Hate Him (Fanhouse)

I'm sure most of you read or heard last Friday but Bill Plaschke wrote the Paul Pierce faked his Game One injury and even went so far as to label it "WWE-like" in its execution. Obviously Boston fans were upset, and let him have a piece of their mind. Plaschke wrote a detailed piece yesterday about some of the comments and it's pretty hilarious. Here's a section....

"You disgust me. You are a whore." Virtually all the vile missives were from angry Celtics fans, who weren't content to enjoy their team's opening victory in the NBA Finals against the Lakers.

"Die, you lily-livered ass." Are we in Boston or Deadwood?

"I wonder how many dried-up spit stains you've got on that cheap tie of yours, you stuttering, stammering slob."

"You better have extra security with you Sunday because Celtic fans who recognize you from ESPN will want to take a slap at you, and if I were there, I know I would."

Of all the humanity-questioning notes, the most disturbing was apparent from a subject line that contained three words that could not be printed in this newspaper.

Then the writer really got mad.

"I hope you . . . get cancer and die," he wrote. "Why don't you just die or quit, you ugly fat (bleep). I'm going to find out where (a relative) is buried and me and my buddies are gonna dig (the) skeleton up."

I guess these are the responses you get when you call one of the best players on a team that hasn't been relevant in quite some time a faker. The rest of the article details his responses and interaction with some of the folks and is actually a good read (if you can stand one sentence paragraphs). I just thought the collection of responses was just too funny not to post here. People are so brave when writing emails. It's like the new liquid courage and it's very entertaining, well that and a little scary at times.

Nasty attacks should be banned in Boston (LA Times)

Around the Horn is like a trainwreck to me. I absolutely hate the format, can't stand the guests, and ultimately despise the show.....but I watch anyway just about everyday. Well I was watching yesterday during a segment where the "gasbags" were arguing about something NBA related when Woody Paige decided to go into a rant all while not answering the question at hand (pretty much par for the course).

Well host Tony Reali decided to question Paige and basically got snapped at by the the Denver Post writer. The fun starts 20 seconds in.

"They're not going to win tonight. You know that."- Paige
"I don't know. I mean that's why we ask the question. We don't know if they're going to win."- Reali
"Of course you don't know, that's why you're not here doing this."- Paige

I know this kind of stuff happens everyday on the show, but that seemed a tad bit defensive didn't it?