Trade for Kobe. Trade for Kobe. Trade for Kobe. Paxon’s an idiot. Paxon’s an idiot. Paxon’s an idiot. Hey, look! It’s Oprah!

Instead of endlessly quoting today’s drivel, I thought I would sum it up for you to save you the trauma. I did this because I like and respect you. Yes, even you over there in the corner.

As Mariotti’s fixation with Kobe nears levels that usually result in a restraining order, I am left to wonder what 3rd grade teacher passed him at arithmetic and why he/she was not immediately removed from their position.

For those of you playing along at home, Kobe earns 15 million dollars a year. Since the NBA has a pretty hard cap, that means the Bulls would have to shed an equal amount in salary to bring Kobe aboard. Now, I will grant that they have some room under the cap since their team is so young. But not 15 million dollars’ worth. So, unless Coach Skiles can figure out how to win a championship playing 3 on 5 for the rest of the season, the Kobe trade isn’t really that good of an idea.

See? This isn’t so hard to figure out once you try. No math needed. Just good old arithmetic. Heck, I bet the guy sleeping on the bar last night could get this right first try. So, we must assume that an educated man such as John Paxon has a pretty good grasp of this concept as well. Nevertheless, Paxon did try. But, at the end of the day, he couldn’t shed enough salary, move enough players or get enough in return to make this work in the real world. Darn that pesky real world! Always spoiling our fun.

However, Mariotti’s continuing disconnect from the real world is troubling. He, who has proclaimed himself “Chicago’s greatest journalist” and to be the man with “his finger on the pulse of the fans” is clearly deluded. You need not rely on my testimony, just for fun, I have brought documentation.

Recently, Mariotti spoke at Syracuse (NY) University. In his blog, which isn’t really a blog but a post since it does not allow interaction, he gushed how the students that attended his speech day “got it”. He went on and on in his post, which stole its name from Zay Smith’s actual column in the same paper (is there no originality left over there?), about how the future of sports’ media is in good hands. I will make two notes here; (1) since he does not speak at Chicago institutions, I agree that developing Midwestern minds are secure, and (2) he was right. The students did get it. I leave you with this quote from the Syracuse student paper, written by Andrew Allegretta.

He was willing to stay and take those last one or two questions, even when the rest of the room was dying to leave.

Big Bad Bill

I spent too many sad days and nights watching him in cathedrals like Wrigley Field and the waterfront park in San Francisco, loathing his every swing, hating what he was doing to my boyhood memories, knowing he was living a chemical lie. - Jay Mariotti

One word - Bullsh*t.

It was not that long ago at all when the biggest sympathizer for Barry Bonds was indeed the Jay Mariotti. Infatuated with Bonds’ suddenly enlarged body frame, along with an abnormal cranial diameter increase, Mariotti gushed in his now defunct column* in The Sporting News:

His critics are missing the motives behind his recent power surge. Contrary to popular psychology, Bonds does not hit home runs merely to satisfy a monster ego. No, dingers are fun for him only when they have meaning. At 37, he wakes every morning with a hole in his heart, wondering if he’ll ever play in the World Series.

That was written back on August 27, 2001. One might mistakenly excuse Jay for being a little naive. After all, steroid abuse allegations were simply whispers and admittedly seemingly unsubstantiated innuendo at that time. However, anyone familiar with the back page pundit’s column* in recent years, knowingly understands that Mariotti has bashed all alleged parties to be involved in major league baseball’s steroid scandal, including ridiculing the tainted slugger’s die hard fans. It is one matter to roast the elements within the game that turned a blind eye towards illicit performance enhancement drug abuse in baseball. Fair enough and that it was exactly why there was a Congressional hearing on the matter, along with the very ballyhooed George Mitchell investigation.  Criticizing the fans is another matter completely. Especially, when Mariotti himself was a self-confessed Bonds defender:

I still like home runs, knowing they energize a sport that too often slips into comas. Better still, I like sluggers who don’t use steroids and supplements to bulk up like chemically bloated space aliens. Any innuendo about Bonds should stop. One of the most outspoken anti-steroids critics in the game is Kevin Towers, general manager of the San Diego Padres. He has a good idea of who is using and who isn’t.

“Believe me, Barry is au naturel,” Towers said. “He is a wonderful athlete blessed with God-given ability. He’s hitting more home runs than he did five and six years ago because the pitching isn’t as good and parks are smaller. What he’s doing is very real and very special.”

Following the 2001 baseball season, Jay was still enraptured by the home run totals of Bonds and apparently extremely comfortable in the role of unofficial publicist for the slugger. Despite growing whispers of steroid abuse swirling around Bonds, Mariotti remained adamant:

With all the unsubstantiated whispers about steroids--he insists he never has used them and offered to take a test, unlike Sammy Sosa- -the public has missed the point on Bonds. At 38, he never has been a better or more patient hitter, nor has baseball seen a hitter so productive at such an advanced age.

So what flip flopped Mariotti’s opinion concerning Barry Bonds? The George Mitchell Investigation? Congressional hearings over steroid use in professional sports? Greg Anderson’s imprisonment? Game of Shadows?

No, nope, nah and nyet.

Barry Bonds called out Jay as a “hater” during a press conference at the 2003 All-Star Game. Whatever blood flowed in the dwarf’s atherosclerosis challenged heart dwindled just a tad after the exchange. And apparently, the divorce was very dramatic for Mariotti:

As I was about to write before Barry Bonds so rudely interrupted me--You’re a Barry Bonds hater,” he said at the All-Star Game, breaking my train of thought--he has pulled off a modern social miracle. Somehow, he has overwhelmed his abundant arrogance with his magnificent performances. Much as you want to boo him, much as you want to shake him every time he has verbal diarrhea, you can’t.

From that point on, Mariotti hated Barry Bonds. No longer just another misunderstood athlete, Bonds according to Jay, was “a despicable human being”.

And no different than Jay’s failure to let go of his resentment towards Ozzie Guillen concerning “Fag Gate” or the current feuding with Brian Urlacher, Mariotti is only overcome with joy on yesterday’s federal indictment charges against Bonds for personal reasons. As always, Jay’s column* is all about himself at the expense of the illusion of providing an objective critique on the current topics of interests in the world of sports. Mariotti could care a less about the integrity of baseball. Today’s column* about Bonds, as all the others published after July 30, 2003, are about settling personal vendettas.

That illusion perpetrated on the back page of the Sun-Times is as damning and hackneyed as Bonds’ career home run record*.  And it is indeed unfortunate that Congress never called for Jay’s testimony on his “expert” opinions and knowledge of Barry Bonds.

Otherwise, there may very well have been another person indicted for charges of perjury yesterday.

Fire the F*cktard.

In any other year, you punt. But in a year that has defied tradition, logic and imperial order in college football, why the hell not listen to Juice Williams when he’s pleading to attempt the unfathomable? - Jay Mariotti

So now Ron Zook can coach, eh Jay?

For those familiar with the back page pundit’s disdain for sporting events, it is somewhat dubious that Mariotti even watched last night’s ballyhooed college football game in which the Illini upset number one ranked Ohio State University. After all, Jay had a very big day flying out to Oakland in hopes of witnessing the demise of the Bears at the hands of the Oakland Raiders on Sunday. However, let’s grant the benefit of the doubt and take note that the alleged columnist has now flip flopped once again. Immediately following the disappointing loss to Iowa, the dwarf bemoaned:

Before they can become an elite team in a diluted, up-for-grabs league, The Zooker will have to prove he can coach up his players in a big game or two. The fans like his Red Bull enthusiasm, but this could be a short honeymoon if his high-profile talent underachieves every year.

Despite taking over a program that was previously left dead and buried on the Champaign campus, credit has been all but non-existent for Ron Zook on the back page of the Chicago Sun-Times. Mariotti had all but written off Zook’s coaching career with the Illini with innuendo of suspicious recruiting practices compounded by a supposed inability to effectively guide his team successfully through important games.

Ironically, it was the very same coaching by gut instinct mentality demonstrated by Zook in that loss to Iowa that was later applauded in the victory over OSU. As always, Jay likes to have his cake and eat it too. Ron Zook can seemingly only be credited for allowing his quarterback the opportunity to make a critical play on fourth down, as long as it succeeds. If not, Zook would have been burned at the stake, as he was for rolling the dice by playing a two quarterback system against the Hawkeyes.

In a season of a seemingly uninterrupted pattern of weekend upsets of the top ranked colleges at the expense of severely underestimated programs, it is rather bemusing that the growing parity within NCAA football has not been recognized by windbags such as Mariotti. Never before has the catch phrase, “Any given Sunday”, been more applicable than this year. And rather then bury so-called elite programs that have unexpectedly fallen prey this autumn, perhaps a more intelligent analysis should be conducted in the BCS polling methods that shows the futility of early season rankings. It should now be clear that the past reputation of a school program has no real bearing on what transpires on the football field.

As for Ron Zook, enjoy this hard earned victory with your players. And take comfort in the knowledge that yesterday’s win over OSU represents a pinnacle in career achievement that will never be eclipsed, let alone paralleled by armchair Sunday morning gutless after the fact windbags such as Mariotti.

I really don’t care that Noah was speaking after his NBA regular-season debut. The truth is the truth, even from the mouth of a babe, and Skiles should have embraced it instead of reacting like an offended dictator. Seems a tough-minded coach is starting to chafe from Bulls-related rip jobs coming in every direction, including his own locker room. - Jay Mariotti

It seems that Scott Skiles has finally landed on Jay Mariotti’s list of “Chicago Head Coaches that Must be Fired at all Cost”.  Lovie Smith and Ozzie Guillen undoubtedly will each send a bottle of booze along with a congratulatory note to Skiles for joining their exclusive club.

Only Mariotti would be idiotic enough to actually defend a raw rookie’s comments about the play of his professional basketball team. And mind you, Noah was not speaking during the half way point of the season or the playoffs but rather after his first game in the NBA. Apparently, one game in the bigs is adequate enough for this mouth of the south to opine and whine:

I think everybody, like, especially on defense, has to be in unison. We have to be tougher. We didn’t do that ... You’re gonna have bad shooting nights. You have to find a way to still win ballgames. That’s what championship teams do—they find a way to grind things out. Teams are getting anything they want on us.

Undoubtedly mesmerized by the rookie’s sheer brilliance of sounding more like a stoned surfer and less a college graduate with a snazzy attire, Jay obviously feels compelled to align with Noah by contributing an obligatory dig at Skiles:

Last I looked, Noah has celebrated more championships lately than the other Bulls. He won two at Florida, bypassing the 2006 draft and immediate riches to win back-to-back NCAA titles.

Yes you read that correctly.  Mariotti is directly comparing college basketball to the NBA. Memo to the back page pundit, despite your assumptions, even Major League Soccer is played at a more competitive higher caliber than your childhood indoor soccer house league. For a so-called sports journalist to inherently lack the ability to discern between professional and collegiate basketball is pathetic. But then again, the dwarf is a self-professed expert on basketball according to his infamous tirade on Around the Horn. After all, he did watch Michael Jordan play. Who are we to argue such logic?

The truth of the matter is that nobody wants to hear from the new guy on the job, let alone on his first day showing up with a shiny new lunch box and pristine overalls. Indeed, there is pecking order in all workplaces from the guys mopping chicken guts off the slaughter house floor to the Bulls locker room . And yes Jay, it does indeed exist as well at the Sun-Times.  This is a universal principle pretty much accepted across the globe throughout the history of mankind’s misery of working a 9 to 5 shift, Monday through Friday to put food on the family table.

Skiles of course took exception of Noah’s ill-timed comments to the press about the play of his teammates.  And why shouldn’t Skiles be upset? Heady words indeed, especially from a rookie that missed the first three games due to an injury to his ankle. Considering that this is his first year with the Bulls compounded by missing three quarters of this early season, even most veteran players would have kept their mouths shut under such circumstances.

That locker room might get awfully lonely for #13.

Mariotti elects to side with Noah on this absurd stance, simply to take full advantage of the opportunity to label Skiles a dictator. Blah, blah, blah, we read this accusation of tyranny last season over the minor flap of Ben Wallace’s club rule breaking headband. Mariotti vented, fumed and bemoaned that it would destroy the Bulls season. Of course, history indicates otherwise, just as this issue with Noah will soon pass over as well.

Practice time with Coach Skiles might not be so fun for young Joakim during these next few weeks. Perhaps a few more suicide drills on the court will exhaust the rookie’s mouth. Too bad calisthenics are not also mandated over at the Sun-Times.

And to think there are fans out there who are happy the Bryant talks stalled. Excuse me, but are you crazy? High? Or just gullible about the overhype that the Bulls can win the East without a low-post scorer or a clutch finisher? Be happy that Lakers coach Phil Jackson, upon hearing Paxson’s so-called trade pullout, quickly reminded everyone that Bryant still could be traded to Chicago or elsewhere. - Jay Mariotti

Blah, blah, blah.

Let’s check out Jay’s filibustering for OMG Kobe Bryant! this past week:

Saturday, November 3 - Kobe hangover staggers Bulls

Friday, November 2 - Memo to Mad Pax: Keep pursuing Kobe

Thursday, November 1 - Kobe would have made the shot

Wednesday, October 31 - A-Rod and Kobe? Dream on

Imagine poor Sun-Times subscribers having to re-read the same nightmare of a column every morning, over and over again. This somewhat is reminiscent of Bill Murray arising to Sonny and Cher’s I Got You Babe while covering Punxsutawney Phil’s weather prognosticating abilities in Ground Hog Day.

This hyperventilating shtick is not a new act for Mariotti, who covets expensive free agents and primadonna wannabes kicking and screaming to leave their current teams at all costs. Jay identifies to this type of behavior. After all, the back page pundit did indeed sit out an entire summer during the aftermath of Fag Gate while leveraging the Sun-Times into a new contract deal that cruelly permits the reign of terror to continue another three years.

In short, Kobe Bryant has been stomping and pouting in public for quite awhile now to leave Los Angeles. Jay really likes that mentality. A lot. One wonders how many shopping mall Santas received kicks to the groin by a young Jay pouting and screaming over his Christmas demand lists.  Has Hawthorn Mall yet banned the Mariottis from shopping during this holiday season?

For those new to the Mariotti rant game, it is quite simple. No current Chicago athlete is ever worthy to play professional sports, if one were inclined to actually take Jay’s opinions seriously.  And whenever a big ticket name in sports is mentioned in a potential transaction deal, he jumps into the fray with hook, line and sinker already baited to needlessly rattle a Chicago general manger to bring home an Alex Rodriguez or Kobe Bryant all gift wrapped up with a pretty bow to temper tantrum, stomping Jay.

Yes, it is indeed quite that pathetic.

A year ago, it was all about Ben Wallace for Jay. The fetish for the big guy’s afro and headband along with a disturbing attraction for a certain blow up doll, was greatly frightening to Chicago. With the delight of a child receiving a new pricey toy, Mariotti was enthralled:

In a league filled with showoffs, egomaniacs and problem children, Wallace is a refreshing symbol of work ethic who won’t spill one less sweatbead because he hit the free-agent jackpot. For John Paxson and Skiles to throw $60 million at a player, the object would have to be someone in their image. Ben is all that, old- school and the best defensive player in the world, an intimidator who could melt the Michael Jordan statue—though not Jordan, I don’t think—simply by glaring at it.

And how quickly did Jay grow bored with Wallace? Try less than a season. Flip and flop indeed:

For $60 million, Wallace hasn’t made enough of a difference. In fact, seeing how the Bulls could use some expensive offseason reinforcements, his signing may be remembered as a huge mistake. They couldn’t dump the remaining years and money if they tried, meaning John Paxson will have to work around the contract if the Bulls want to make a blockbuster deal for Kevin Garnett or Pau Gasol.

For this Christmas, Jay is huffing and puffing for a brand new Kobe. Considering that Phil Jackson has been able to successfully coach all walks of life, including Dennis Rodman, is extremely telling that he once considered Bryant, “uncoachable”. What has changed in Bryant’s character since that assessment?

Here is hoping that Santa finally gets his revenge.