I believe most of you will recall that yesterday Jay was frantically calling for the Cubs to hire Joe Girardi already.  He was pointing a finger at them, accusing them of waiting too long to make what he claimed was the obvious choice.  You remember this wacky little “closer” by Jay:

Get it done, Jim Hendry. In any poker game, you don’t want to be the joker.

Well, the Cubs managed to make it through the day without reacting to Mariotti’s demands, and as usual, he was wrong.  By the end of the day the Yankees had decided to keep Joe Torre around for another year.  So what do we get less than twenty four hours later? 

A column demanding they hire Lou Piniella. 

Turns out the Cubs were right to wait, weren’t they, Jay?  We’ve all seen Mariotti write columns that were proven wrong months or even weeks later.  It’s getting to the point now where he is exposed as a fool in less than a day.

The Quote Thief

As many of our commenters have pointed out, Jay actually gives credit for one of his stolen quotes today.  He writes:

Read these Piniella quotes, courtesy of USA Today last winter:

One could argue that Jay’s hand was forced by the fact that these quotes are a year old, but I think we all know that Jay can’t stop reading this blog and has seen the posts and comments about his theft of work done by actual reporters.  We’re doing it, people.  We’re getting in his head!

Here is a brief timeline in the recent history of Jay:

Thursday, October 5th: Jay writes an article lambasting Rex Grossman for being too cocky, using this quote: “‘Thirty-seven [to] six just shows what we’re capable of, but we’re a lot better than that.’’

Friday, October 6th: Jay is proven to have grossly misquoted Rex. (First off, that’s almost a pun.  Secondly, if you haven’t seen the video yet, you simply must check it out.  It’s a tour de force.)

Sunday, October 8th: Jay writes another one of his “I hate this athlete!” columns.  No mention of the fact that he based an article, not to mention one that unfairly ripped a player, off of a quote he obviously didn’t hear in person.

Monday, October 9th: In the decidedly less popular Monday edition, Jay buries the following apology statement: “I made a mistake the other day, thinking Grossman had said after the 37-6 rout of Seattle that the Bears are better than that. He actually meant the Seahawks are better than that, but I think we got it right the first time.”

For those of you keeping score at home, this doesn’t qualify as an admission of fault.  Jay spins this sentence to make it seem as if he wrote a column about how great the Bears were last week, when really it was about how cocky they were.  He actually thinks this city is stupid enough to forget that he was criticizing the team, not praising it.

That’s pretty much Mariotti in a nutshell.  He makes a huge mistake, basing criticism of somebody off of misinformation, and never really apologizes or admits he was wrong.  He just makes a pathetic attempt at being “wacky” by spinning it into a future column. 

With Jim Hendry as the last remnant of the Cubs managerial team going forward (other than the Trib of course) it’s no surprise Mariotti is already adopting him as his new favorite punching bag.

This pattern hardly shocks anyone who has been following the Cubs and Jay’s stance on them for the last decade.  He loves to hail people as saviors and then bury them if they don’t deliver.  He once called Hendry “the most important figure in Chicago sports.” Actually, he said that more than once.

Now?  Hendry is “the general manager who somehow still has a job.” I just don’t see how everything that has gone wrong since 2003 is Hendry’s fault.  Some of it certainly is, but few GM’s in history have had to deal with a debacle on the level of prior and wood basically holding them hostage for two full seasons.  Just remember, Jay was once clamoring for Ken Williams’ head too.  And he’ll probably start doing it again if the Sox don’t win next year.

The main point of his article is to complain that Girardi hasn’t been hired yet.  I agree with Jay that he is beyond the obvious choice for the job, but didn’t they just interview him?  This is classic Jay trying to turn a non-story into something just to create a little controversey.

I’d be willing to bet Girardi winds up being the Cubs manager.  But even if he doesn’t, remember the last time the a Chicago team didn’t hire the guy Jay said they “had to have?”

His name was Nick Saban, coach of your hapless Miami Dolphins.

The Bears got stuck with Lovie Smith.  So even if the Cubs don’t get Girardi, don’t be to quick to press that panic button.

As we all know, Ricky Manning likes to enjoy an occassional late night snack at Denny’s.  Sometimes that “snack” includes a little bit of face pushing.  Now, I’m not saying that his actions should be encouraged, but let’s remember that the only thing one can positively call him guilty of is pushing Soroush Sabzi’s face.  Last week Manning plead guilty to avoid jail time.

So what does Jay do?  He sits on the information for a week, then writes a big Sunday piece about how Ricky Manning Jr. should be suspended.

Let’s review the two sides:

Team A: Ricky Manning, Maurice Drew and some other large dudes.

Team B: A little guy, working on a computer at a Denny’s, who for some reason decides to engage/taunt/argue with professional athletes.

Needless to say, Jay sided with his doppelgänger.  My guess as to why Jay is writing a column on this more than a week after Manning Jr. was sentenced to probation?  This quote from a spokesman for the LAPD:

The group “began by making comments that the victim looked like a geek or a nerd.”

That’s the type of thing that pulls right at Jay’s heart strings.  Hey, Jay.  We get it.  You’re little.  You’re dorky.  You resent athletes.  Are we going to be subjected to one of these melodramatic columns every time a nerdy guy gets pushed around?

Again, I don’t think that Manning is a good guy.  I don’t even really care if he is suspended.  I just wanted to point out that if there is one man who can no doubt relate to this guy, it is Jay Mariotti.

To recap this busy week at Jaythejoke.com:

- Brian Urlacher becomes Jay’s newest enemy.
- The effects of Roger Ebert being away from the paper are felt.  No word on the effects from when Jay was “on vacation.”
- Possibly most important from this week:  Jay misquotes Rex Grossman and bases an entire column on it.  I celebrate by making a little movie illustrating this point.

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