What a relief.

Times have been tough for Cubs fans recently. In the last few years we’ve seen Bartman become the new Buckner, dodged falling concrete at Wrigley and watched Mark Prior and Kerry Wood become the most proficient long tossers in baseball history.

But none of that frustration compared to the White Sox World Series win. We sat silent as they celebrated Juan Uribe’s stunning play for the final out. We saw the massive headlines proclaiming victory the next day. We pretended we didn’t notice our White Sox friends strutting around in their “2005 World Series Champs” gear and averted our eyes from the banner every time we drove past the Cell.

Then the Cardinals brought home the trophy the next season for good measure.

For those keeping score, that’s a century without a championship coupled with back-to-back wins by the two biggest Cubbie rivals. And the Red Sox, our former AL brothers in futility, exorcised their demons in 2004. Cubs fans are flying solo as the pathetic poster children for downtrodden sports fans.

Fortunately, it’s all over now. Jay Mariotti seems to think wins don’t matter, as long as money is flowing like Champagne at a victory celebration:

In a hype war that has become almost as meaningful as the won-lost totals, the Cubs remain the attention-grabbing behemoth in this blood-warring baseball town. After a brief blip from the White Sox, who introduced Chicago to the foreign concept of a World Series trophy, the Cubs are the hot team again with a Sports Illustrated cover, major TV profiles, Lou-phoria and—this, I could do without—the sight of broadcasters Len Kasper and Bob Brenly jamming with a rock band.

Let me get this straight—media hype is as important as winning and a championship is just a blip on the radar?

Cub fans need not worry about their lack of a title as long as Lou Piniella is making magazine covers?

If Jay Mariotti was on trial for not knowing the first thing about being a fan, this column would be exhibit A. Winning games and winning titles are everything.

Do you really think any rational Cubs fan is going to counter with “at least we’re winning the hype war” after some Sox fan plays his World Series trump card?

Sure, the Cubs are getting the attention right now. Offseason hype always goes to the team that changes the most, and Piniella and Alfonso Soriano are two high-profile new faces. The White Sox made more under-the-radar changes to restock their farm system and won’t be able to fully evaluate the moves for a few years.

Even the White Sox themselves admitted it would probably take a few championships before they are competing on an even level with the Cubs in terms of attention and attendance. But they still lead in the most important category - World Series Wins while their fans were actually alive.

The last two days of columns say to me that Jay has let his animosity towards Ozzie Guillen and Jerry Reinsdorf pollute his thinking to journalistically unacceptable levels.  Which would be a serious concern if he were a journalist.

Jay.  We get it.  Ozzie called you a fag.  That’s embarrassing.  Add to the mix that almost an entire city (gay hot spots included) took Ozzie’s side, and you have probably one of the biggest disasters of your career.  It only makes things worse that you continue to launch pathetic and predictable attacks against Mr. Guillen.

It’s obvious from the beginning of your article that you know you are singing a tired song.  You write:

Let me guess what might happen here. I’m going to criticize Ozzie Guillen as a serial defamer, a reckless hypocrite… The man will fire back at me, maybe with a repulsive slur, and his 70-something owner will pile on by calling me ‘’a piece of garbage’’ or something dimwitted like that.

Television networks will interview me. Butt-kissing media will defend Guillen. And the White Sox once again will collapse under the weight of their perpetual distraction of a manager and miss the playoffs…

It’s March 4. And already, I’m tired of the Blizzard of Oz.

Yes, Jay, it’s time that you make your annual prediction for the White Sox.  And as usual, you have decided to bet against your enemies.  That’s some great journalism.  Maybe you should consider why you have these enemies in the first place.  Could it be your history of hack writing and accusations?  Plenty of columnists in Chicago have questioned the Sox.  Heck, most have even questioned Ozzie.  Why is it that you are univerally hated, but others aren’t?  You should ask your therapist.

Perhaps you should start with this column, and the way in which you unfairly represented Ozzie.  You claim that Ozzie’s comments were made because:

Management needed to find someone to blame for its own second-half failings.

You write paragraph after paragraph discussing his comments about Brandon McCarthy, but you fail to mention that they were in response to McCarthy criticizing the players on Ozzie’s team.  Instead, you decide to incorporate your “adorable” little nickname into an accusatory falsehood:

Spring training barely could start before the Blizzard inevitably flipped his lid, this time portraying McCarthy as a Chicago pub crawler and suggesting the pitcher’s erratic second-half performances involved too many last calls and not enough called third strikes.

From the day Ozzie took control of this team, he has made it clear that he will defend his players any time an outsider attacks them.  Defending his clubhouse against the insults of an old player is one of his duties.  McCarthy could have said he felt Texas was a good fit for him without insulting the Sox.  He didn’t.  That makes him fair game.

You also perfectly display your lack of baseball knowledge:

How does Guillen know a lot of bar people in town? Oh, maybe because he has frequented his share of bars, too. Ozzie can have a beer and Brandon can’t?

Well, yeah, Jay.  Ozzie doesn’t have to stand on a mound, in front of thousands of people, and throw a ball almost 100 MPH at a small target.  He just has to sit in the dugout and watch.  So, yeah, I think it is much more acceptable for Ozzie to enjoy the nightlife of Chicago. 

What you really want is for one of your many enemies to fail.  You claim that Ozzie is:

...still the luckiest man on earth to have used homophobic terms in successive seasons, only to escape with no real punishment.

What did you expect Jay?  That Bud Selig was going to defend your honor?  Many people have criticized the commissioner, but you’re the only one to have done so in such a backwards manner that the GMs of the Sox and the Cubs came together to publicly rip you.  Nobody in MLB respects you, so it only makes sense that Ozzie slipping and using a politically incorrect term (supposedly off the record, I might add) isn’t going to result in his firing.

Jay, you are insanely boring.  Your articles are repetitive and petty.  They lack insight and come across as nothing more than petty bitch slaps.  We’re begging you to please come up with something to write about and stop using your column for personal grievances. 

We’ve decided to help you out.  We’re going to help you keep track of how many times you insult members of the White Sox organization.  Today is your first article since spring training started and you’ve already attacked Ozzie, Kenny and Jerry.  That’s three tallies.  Let’s see if you can keep it under fifty for the season.

So, like, does anyone know what’s, like, happening in Chicago Sports?  I feel, like, totally clueless ever since the most awesomest sports writer ever, Jay Mariotti, took his vacation. 

I mean, I guess I know that the Bulls didn’t trade for that, like, European guy.  Hello!  That might come back to bite them!

And every idiot knows that the Bears should have signed Lovie to, like, an extension by now.  I mean, that was news a week ago! 

And like, there’s, like, hockey.  Yeah, totally hockey.

Wait, what are you saying to me?  Are you saying to me that Jay Mariotti is back today?  Oh, my God!  I’m, like, totally flipping out!  I can’t wait to see what he has to say!

Okay, let’s see here.  This column is totally about how the Bears need to sign Lovie to an extension.  Radical!  I was, like, just talking about that!  Oh, my God!  Check this out:

I don’t want to describe the Bears as the Britney Spears of the 2007 sports year, but they’re perfectly capable of blowing all their credibility and couth with dizbrain thinking.

He, like, totally just dissed Brit!  Oh my God, Jay vs. Brit is totally the new Paris vs. Nicole!  That’s awesome!  I’m totally on Team Jay!  But I have to ask… What is a “dizbrain?” Is that, like, some sort of awesome new word?  It’s not in that, um, big, um, dictionary.  This is what I love about Jay!  He, like, totally has a smart person’s job, but totally writes just like me!

No way!  Did you guys see that Jay called Ted Phillips “Tightwad Ted?” That is like, the most hilariously awesome nickname ever!  What is that thing?  You know, that, like thing where words sound alike?  Alliterization?  Yeah, Jay just like totally alliterizizied.

At a time when stable leadership is critical to mending wounds and keeping eyeballs on another NFC title, they are proving to be cheap, petty, shortsighted and all those nasty things we’ve always said about the McCaskeys

Oh, my God.  You should totally have heard all the petty things Jay said about the McCaskeys at our slumber party.  He was on fire!  He told us about the time he slapped Michael McCaskey and made him cry.  He totally made fun of Virginia McCaskey’s perm, and he used to totally rip Ed McCaskey, before he died or whatever.  Jay is, like, very good at the insults.

Hate to break the news, but five of the last six Super Bowl losers didn’t make the playoffs.

Oh no he didn’t!  Jay just, like, totally broke it to us.  He, like, broke it down.  Seriously.  So.  Awesome.

This column is, like, everything I love about Jay!  I’m so glad he’s back.  He doesn’t try to be too deep and he uses language that, like, normal people like me use.  So awesome. 

He just couldn’t stay away.

With the Lovie Smith negotiations dragging on and on, you knew Jay was bound to weigh in on a topic that was right in his wheelhouse.

If Mariotti were Popeye, organizations being tight with their money would be his can of spinich, giving him the strength to take cheap shots at ten times the rate of an average columnist.

With all his pent-up post Super Bowl insults still simmering inside, Jay really let loose this morning.

So much so, in fact, that he didn’t let little things like “logic” get in the way of mocking the Bears in every way possible.

Jay wants us to believe the Bears are at fault in the strained contract talks because they are cheap.

He’s right.  They are.  To Chicagoans, calling the Bears cheap raises about the same number of eyebrows as calling Mayor Daley corrupt. (Happy City Election Day everyone!)

Still, we’ll play ball Jay.  Tell us about how the Bears are cheap and it’s a travesty Lovie Smith doesn’t have his contract yet.

Jay hits the nail on the head in paragraph two:

‘’’He’s scared to death,’’ noted Colts defensive line coach John Teerlinck, echoing the world’s thoughts on a waterlogged evening when Prince showed more poise then Rexy.”

Excuse me? What exactly does Rex’s historically poor performance in the Super Bowl have to do with Lovie Smith?

If you want to argue that the Bears are doing Lovie wrong, why continuously bring up the poor performance of Grossman, who has no bigger supporter in the Bears organization than Smith?

If anything, by Jay’s “logic”, shouldn’t Lovie’s loyalty to his shaky quarterback reflect poorly on him in negotiations?

Of course it shouldn’t. But Jay can’t worry about little matters like completely contradicting himself.  So many insults, so little time.

The balance of power in the NBA has shifted my friends.

Backup guard Anthony Johnson is headed from Dallas to Atlanta for a 2nd round pick.

If that doesn’t blow your warmup pants right off, Toronto sent backup guard Fred Jones to Portland for backup guard Juan Dixon.

For those keeping score at home, that’s three backup guards and a 2nd rounder.

This was the trading deadline we’ve all been waiting for?

I already had accepted that the Bulls probably weren’t going to do anything much. With the Grizzlies’ insane asking price for Gasol, that deal was pretty much dead in the water. But I was expecting something.

Honestly, you would think I’d have learned by now. With every trading deadline that passes in any major sport, roughly one out of every hundred trades that finds its way into the rumor mill actually comes to fruition.

Actually, those odds might be too favorable.

Yet there I was this afternoon, patrolling ESPN.com and waiting to see the headline “Vince Carter to Knicks,” or “Jason Kidd to Lakers” or even “Timberwolves send Mark Madsen to Celtics for Brian Scalabrine in Swap of League’s Most Awkward White Power Forwards.”

And all I got was those lousy three guards and a 2nd rounder.

The NBA trade deadline is easily the most consistently disappointing in the major sports. Hockey never disappoints because only five people are paying attention. Big midseason trades are rare in the NFL so no one expects them. And while the baseball deadline is always more talk than action, the dynamic of teams with deap pockets pillaging small market teams for the stretch run always ensures a few interesting deals.

The NBA trade deadline is particularly seductive (yes, I think that is an entirely appropriate adjective) because huge trades do happen from time to time. And in no sport can one player change the entire complexion of a team more easily than basketball.

Rasheed Wallace in 2004 is the classic example. The Pistons took him off of the Blazers hands (they had enough problems) sensing they were one player away from being something special.  They were right. Watching them trounce Kobe and Shaq in the finals that year was the only time I have found myself rooting for the Pistons.  Never again.

But more often than not it’s all talk and no action. From now on I should just start recklessly circulating trade rumors in this space during every deadline that comes along. It wouldn’t have any less truth to it than most of what we see in mainstream media. Then I could take Sam Smith’s job at the Tribune.

(Actually, in Sam’s defense, he makes it clear when he’s just playing fantasy general manager and when he has actual information. Still, he’s gotten my hopes up for quite a few transactions that never took place over the years.)

Why are we so easily sucked in by trade rumors? Even though I know full well most of them should be taken about as seriously as a Britney Spears rehab stint (yes I was channeling Jay there ... someone needs to bring you your US Weekly jokes) I still find myself taking the bait every time.

The thing about trade speculation is its incredibly easy, pretty much anyone can do it, and it can yield an endless amount of discussion. Talk radio and Web sites thrive on the rampant speculation. And there I am, every year, fueling the fire until the deadline passes and throws a cold bucket of water on the whole mess.

I guess we have to get on with the actual season now.

Speaking of which, did you see the Bulls game tonight?  I did not, because in my current living situation I share a TV with six people and the OC Series finale got the trump card. However, I was following it online, and even through the flashing numbers on Sportline I could tell Ben Wallace finally gave us a monster game.

14 points, 19 rebounds, 5 assists, 7 blocks, 2 steals and a pair of clutch free throws. A few more games like that and he might earn half of that $16 million he’s making this year.

Hopefully Ben is just trying to get himself into gear for his homecoming to Detroit on Sunday. That game, in addition to home games Friday against the Wizards and Monday against the Magic, should be a good indication as to whether the Bulls are going on their now-patented second half tear.

Basically, if you’ve been sleeping on the Bulls all year, now is a good time to start paying attention. They’re better off without that tall goofy Spaniard anyway.