In the first few days after Ozzie Guillen dropped his infamous F-bomb on Chicago Sun-Times columnist and "Around the Horn'' regular Jay Mariotti, Mariotti appeared on Mike and Mike in the Morning on ESPN Radio and said, among other things, "I'm not the story.'' Never mind, for now, that he was on a national radio show talking about it, that he wrote about it in the following days and talked about it on his national TV show.
He's not the story, he says. In this instance, he might be right. In fact, his father is the story. Mariotti's father wrote a letter to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review which was published in Sunday's paper, which defended his son, and which showed that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. The elder Mariotti obviously can be as condescending and patronizing as the younger. For example:
"Here's the way it works, Chicago fans.
First, a journalist's job is to report stories, although you may not always agree with it. Even when a columnist is opinionated, if facts support a story, be they negative or complimentary, the column should be written.
What fans don't seem to understand is that journalists are not, or should not be, homers. Unfortunately for writers, and rightfully so, fans are loyal to teams. But loyalty can be blinding when your team is criticized.
Sadly, too many in the Chicago media shy away from, or sugar-coat, stories that tend to otherwise infuriate team owners or players and, in too many cases, the fans.
So, some of the media in Chicago avoid the slings and arrows of potentially severe and harmful retaliation (personal attacks and threats) by the powers that are. Their vendetta is subtle and ongoing.
This is not speculation on my part, but is occurring as I write and has been for years concerning Jay Mariotti.''
Thanks, Pop, for the journalism lecture. I like the fact that, in his mind, if you, as a sportswriter, don't rip the home team mercilessly at every opportunity, whether it's deserved or not, you're a "homer.'' Or you "sugar-coat'' things. Or, basically, you're a coward.
The elder Mariotti also played the First Amendment card, and while issuing his manifesto about courage, he completely glossed over the idea of a critic facing those he criticized.
But, parents, you know? What can you do.
Just to catch everybody up, here's the column that set Guillen off. Here's Mariotti's response to the original Guillen reaction, and another one three days later (remember, he's not the story). Here is the reply by Rick Morrissey of the Chicago Tribune (our sister paper) on Mariotti's penchant for not attending games, especially when he rips someone. Here is a pretty clear-headed analysis of the issue, from both sides, by Mariotti's Sun-Times colleague Rick Telander.
And here is a defense of Mariotti's philosophy by ESPN.com's Skip Bayless who, oddly enough, actually does attend games and talk to people when he rips them. He worked for our competitor in San Jose when I was at the San Francisco Chronicle, and while he did his usual stir-it-up stuff there, he also reported like crazy and never, as far as I could tell, kept "at arm's length'' from his subjects. So it's an odd position to take, unless he's just doing it to be contrarian as usual.
More: This is what John Rocker thinks of it all. Note to Guillen: if John Rocker has your back, it's time to re-think your position. Of course, technically, Guillen already has re-thought it and apologized for the word he used, just not for his feelings about Mariotti. And, technically, Rocker and Jay Mariotti's father agree, too.
Apparently, the lesson from all of this is: this is a free country, and I ought to be able to shout the most vile, filthy things imaginable at you, as long as you don't do it to me.
One more thought about sensitivity training and Ozzie Guillen: is Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated enrolled in that class?
Back in April, Reilly devoted his back-page column to quoting Guillen in dialect, a tactic most forward-thinking journalists stopped doing about 50 years ago. Basically, he made the manager of the defending World Series champion sound like Speedy Gonzalez. Example: "Mang, eet don't take no geenus to play baze-bool. Eet don't take no Bay Roo. Jew jus fukkus.'' Followed by an English translation. Followed by a completely facetious, "Wait! Don't go! I'm not making fun of him!'' Followed by quotes from others around the organization about how that foreign-type guy don't speak the language too good, including the owner, who offered up this side-splitter: "I understand him pretty well. Until he asks for a raise.''
And, when Guillen brought up the completely logical and defensible point that American baseball writers had better start learning Spanish if they want to not only cover the sport better but prosper in an increasingly-bilingual society, Reilly quoted him in that hilarious south-of-the-border accent and then dismissed him with, "Good point,'' before continuing the ridicule.
In all fairness, Reilly may have apologized for that. If he has, please let me know and I'll apologize myself.
To his credit, Reilly had the guts to insult Guillen and his entire culture directly to his face. Had Mariotti chosen that path, maybe none of this would have happened. Conversely, had Guillen recognized that the F-word means a completely different thing to a large segment of American society than it does to him, maybe none of this would have happened, either.
Meanwhile, I hope, deep in my heart, that these findings from a survey recently completed by the Associated Press Sports Editors do not play a role in these sort of incidents taking place.
All that's certain is that if Guillen is the only one in this entire tale who is judged to have needed sensitivity training, then it was all a big waste of time.
