Anyone who listens to Mike North on The Score heard Jay call into the show yesterday and share some information about his recent disappearance. He claims that he chose one of the busiest times in Chicago sports to take a voluntary 8 week vacation. I'll let you decide if you believe it. Our personal highlight comes about four minutes in. We now have confirmation that he knows this site exists. An egomaniac like Jay couldn't resist coming to check it out, right? What's up, Jay?! Be sure to browse the archives! But the main issue here is that Jay is going to be absent until the middle of August! This summer is getting better every day. ** EDITOR'S NOTE (Yeah, I'm calling myself an editor. Why not?): This interview has been heavily edited. **

Well, today is the three week anniversary of Jay's disappearance from the Sun-Times. One can only hope that he is making the best of this extended vacation and doing some real soul searching. This is a perfect opportunity for Jay to evaluate his career choices and hopefully come back with a new attitude. Maybe he'll start visiting the various clubhouses in Chicago to get firsthand information. Maybe he'll ponder what it is that makes him so disliked in this city and work to change it. Maybe he'll decide that a pompadour and slickly styled eyebrows are not, in fact, the best look for a sports journalist. In order to help him change his life, I've dug up this quote from the first article Jay ever wrote for the Sun-Times, way back in 1991:

I am not here to play dirty, to be the resident thug/bully/Hanson brother/Detroit Piston, to slam down sports figures the way Dennis Rodman mugged Scottie Pippen or whine and mope like Baby Huey Laimbeer. I am simply here to write sports the way they should be written in this town - tough, fair, lively, sentimental, with respect for tradition and a serious emphasis on fun.

Have you forgotten your original intentions? Stop whining. Stop moping. Stop "slamming down sports figures." Don't forget where you came from, Jay. Stop playing dirty. Write tough and be fair. Fair doesn't mean that you blindly criticize. Fair doesn't mean that you write lackluster columns, changing your mind as a team succeeds or fails. Fair doesn't mean that you hold personal grudges, criticizing players, managers or owners as part of some petty fight. Jay, I challenge you to reread your "mission statement". If you honestly feel you have fulfilled it, then I suggest you retire. But if, like I hope, it helps you see the error of your ways, then I am interested to see your first column back.

The Sun-Times has got to be hurting. Jay has been missing for three weeks! You've probably noticed that the paper has shriveled to fraction of its former self. Hunger strikes in support of Mariotti have been started all over Chicagoland, forcing the paper's hand. Major sports figures, Mayor Daley and Ronnie Woo have all written pleading letters, begging the Sun-Times to give Jay a promotion or whatever it takes to get him back (possibly that pair of platform boots Jay has been eyeing for some time). Well, I'm here with some advice for some possible guest columnists to get the paper through these tough times. 1. Benny the Bull - Benny the Bull was busted for riding his bike around The Taste last week. He got angry and punched a cop. People might look down on him, but in his column he could defend his honor as a mascot. Did you know that Puckhead lit himself on fire this year? Did you know that Tommy Lasorda once punched Phillie Phanatic? Did you know that a certain Big Ten mascot is famous for simulating sex acts (Ozzie Guillen style) at an annual mascot camp? Mascots are the new punk rock. 2. Tyna Robertson - Brian Urlacher's baby mama. You have to wonder, who is the bigger fool: Urlacher for impregnating a woman who once claimed that the "Lord of the Dance" raped her, or Robertson for getting within five feet of a sexual organ that had supposedly made actual contact with Paris Hilton. 3. The Sun-Times Sports Editor - Let us know what is going on with Chicago's favorite sports columnist: Jay Mariotti. As he has assured us, he is supposedly the only one willing to "tell it like it is" in this town of "homer" sports journalists. Without him, nobody in Chicago has had any insight into their teams. And now he is missing! Explain yourself! The point is, any of these three guest columnists could provide a column infinitely more interesting than one of Jay's attention-grabbing pieces.

As Jay's "vacation" drags on, I must admit finding new material has proved a challenge. Sadly I have no TiVo with which to view the masterpiece that is "Around the Horn." Then it dawned on me. We've only been writing a couple of months. Jay has years of experience. There are truckloads of material from the olden days to peruse. While combing through the archives I came across Oct. 14, 2003...otherwise known as the day of the Bartman Game. In the interest of brevity, I'll just give you the first and final paragraphs. "He is the anti-Cub, immune from curses and billy goats, the perfect muzzle for this 1984 silliness and the pitcher I want starting at Wrigley Field tonight with champagne on ice and racing heartbeats in the stands. Do not tell Mark Prior about Rick Sutcliffe, Leon Durham's fielding blunder and the three-game collapse against the Padres." Yikes. And finally. "Anybody who is panicking with a 3-2 lead in the NLCS needs a shrink and a life." Ironically, following game six I did call a shrink, who then told me I had no life. I'm not blaming Jay for his confidence before that fateful night. I was confident. Everyone was. But Jay's bravado in touting Prior's invincibility combined with the fact that Prior and the Cubs have never been the same since leads me to a startling conclusion. Curse of the Goat? Forget it. Bring on the Curse of Mariotti. I never much cared for the Curse of the Billy Goat anyway. I'm not much for curses in general, but for Jay I will gladly make an exception. This little theory is only in its infancy. It will take hours of research by the team of interns Jerry Reinsdorf is providing to develop a unified theory, but here is my initial hunch: Much like the SI Jinx, the Mariotti curse is not perfect. Obviously the Bulls and Sox have both won rings during his tenure in Chicago. But I have a feeling that, generally speaking, the more good things Mariotti has to say about you, the bigger the trouble. Naturally exceptions exist. Michael Jordan was immune from the SI Jinx, just like he was from Mariotti. I think the converse may also hold true. Could Mariotti's negativity yield good results? Is it possible the White Sox owe a piece of their title to Mariotti hating on them for so long and the positive karma it created? Chilling thought, isn't it? Maybe all of this is just coincidence, but reading Mariotti's words in light of yet another Prior injury makes me think larger forces are at play. Get me Mulder, Scully, Columbo and Scooby Doo. No, seriously. Those are the nicknames I've given the interns. We're getting to the bottom of this.

I was once going to dedicate a few weeks of my life enlightening Americans to the wonders of the World Cup. I know Americans don’t like soccer, but I was different. I held myself among the elite sporting fans that understand the greatest sport in the world. Turns out I was wrong. It was getting really old watching players being knocked over with feathers and writhing in pain. Also, it turns out that soccer is a sport where the biggest game in the world that only happens every four years can be decided by the best “Yo Mamma” joke. So soccer is out which brings us back to baseball. I was ready to post a ten page single spaced report on Fungo-gate today, but apparently it did not amount to anything. I remember hearing about it, and thinking "oh my god, what next?" Then to hear that it was Joey Cora, I was in disbelief. As it turns out, the story didn’t amount to anything, possibly because our Jay Mariotti was not around to spew some absurd conspiracy theory. It's a shame, it could have been a big story for him. It would have shot him to the center of attention once again. The fact that it was a non-story does not matter. Jay could have returned from "vacation" on a high note. One thing I did notice about baseball recently is the very different way they talk about injured players on respective sides of town. It seems like if you are on the DL on the north side, there will be speculation and up to the minute updates about simulated games and the amount of towels thrown and all that. Injured players on the south side have a different fate lately. Whenever people ask about Dustin Hermanson, Ozzie or Coop say they only care about the players on the roster and will comment on that player when he is healthy. Maybe that gives us a little insight to the philosophies of each coaching staff and why one has success and one does not.