Wow. This comes as a complete shock, but hot off the presses comes word that Peter Gammons is done at ESPN and plans to persue "other endeavors". (UPDATE: Apparently those endeavors are with the MLB Network.) Here are Gammons' comments via ESPN PR....

“My decision to leave ESPN and move on at this point in my life has been conflicted. I owe a great deal of my professional life to ESPN, having spent more than half of my 40 years in journalism working for the network, and the choice to move on was made with nothing but the strongest feelings for the people with whom I worked. ESPN gave me a great deal more than I gave it, and will always be a huge part of who I am.

“I will forever be joined at the hip with John Walsh, who hired me as an ink-stained wretch, plunked me on TV and has always been a guiding spirit. Understand how the people who run ESPN treat people: when I was felled by a severe aneurysm in 2006, George Bodenheimer, John Skipper, Norby Williamson, my former Boston Globe boss Vince Doria and everyone made certain that my family and I had the best care and support, far, far beyond any reasonable expectation. My ESPN life has been lined with foxhole people whom I’ll never forget.

“I’ve been able to work with my closest and oldest friends, like Jayson Stark, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney, Peter Pascarelli, Jerry Crasnick and Charlie Moynihan. I spent three seasons doing games with a producer, Tom Archer, who is among the most revered leaders I’ve ever met. I told everyone last October that the team baseball coordinating producer Jay Levy put together with Mark Preisler and Marc Carman was the most creative in my 20 years on the show. I apologize to hundreds of people I owe for all these years for not mentioning their names.

“You would have had to be there for 20 years to know how hard so many good people sweated in anonymity to make all of us look as if we knew what we were doing.

“My friend Tom Rush – who taught James Taylor and me our first guitar chords – once wrote how strange it seems to walk away alone. With no regrets.”

What a sad, sad day for ESPN and Baseball. Obviously I wish Gammons all the success in the future, but Baseball Tonight and Baseball as a whole won't be the same without him. In his honor, I urge you to watch the greatest Peter Gamomons video ever made....

A few months back, I posted the depressing news that Stacey Dales wasn't returning to ESPN, and the apparent reason was because the "Leader" wouldn't grant her first-class travel request. Well in an interview with the Daily Oklahoman, Dales confirms said rumor and said that she just "had to take a stand"....

In negotiating a new three-year contract in December, Dales said she reached an impasse with the network over a travel provision that she did not specify. However, an ESPN source confirmed an Internet report that Dales was unhappy with flying coach while many of her colleagues were flying first class.

"At some point, you have to take a stand at whatever you are doing in life,” Dales said. "That’s not sounding like a feminist. That’s not sounding like a spoiled, rotten kid. That’s making a business decision that affects the quality of your life. That was an important thing for me.”

"ESPN was a great launching pad for something new,” she said. "I had a great experience with them.”

Again, it seems like a petty detail on both parties behalf, but like Dales said....I guess you have to take a stand. If I was any other network, I'd jump at the chance to hire Dales. In fact, I wouldn't even waste her talent on the sideline. Find a studio or booth for her already.

Stacey Dales, ESPN fail to make a deal (News OK)

Tony Kornheiser went on "On The DL" again this week and after a few questions about his work on Monday Night Football and "bloggy news", the ESPNer broke the news that he's only going to be doing MNF for awhile and not radio....

“I don’t want to yo-yo. I don’t want to do it five months on and six months off. Or five months on and seven months off, whatever the math is. I don’t want to do that. So if I’m going to do Monday Night Football...if I’m gonna...then I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do radio until I can do radio forever.

“Right. There is no radio, as long as I’m doing football. But I’ll happily be a guest on anybody else’s radio show whenever they want me. I loved it. I love radio. To do it for a while and stop becomes more painful than not doing it at all.”

Seems like a smart idea, and hopefully something that will give him time to improve on his work in the booth. Like him, I think the three are working much better this year, but still have some holes in their game. A lot of that has to do with the crappy games they've had this year, but also a lot to do with them still defining their own roles.

Oh, and everyone also give a round of applause to Dan Levy on his 100th show! Congrats.

Special 100th Episode Extravaganza - Tony and Jaws Lead Off (On The DL)

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)