The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. And like that, poof. He’s gone. - Verbal Kint

Or as Hawk would exclaim, “He gone!”

The Heiny bird has been vanquished. Disappearing forever up its own arse. In other words, the next time a certain hometown broadcaster makes another prediction, bet the farm on it.

And make no mistake about yesterday being a great, great day for the City of Broad Shoulders.

Chicago is now living in the A.J. era of sports journalism.

After Jay.

And how wonderful it truly is.

The fallout from Jay Mariotti’s abrupt resignation has been staggering. The Sun-Times gleefully ran a survey inquiring about the former back page pundit’s popularity with its readership. Even our nation’s President would wince at the polling results.

One by one, Mariotti’s “soft” colleagues have been emerging out of the woodwork to call out the hateful dwarf on his ridiculous “I quit” ultimatum over a squabble on covering a Barack Obama bit about allegiance to the southsiders.  It is hard to fault them for celebrating. Seventeen years of insufferable purgatory understandably builds up overwhelming frustration.

Normally, the “get my way or else” shtick garners Mariotti a few extra bucks and muscle power within the Sun-Times. However, with the newspaper facing a financial crisis, those that write the checks didn’t blink an eye.

Sayonara Jay.  Resignation accepted.

Undoubtedly jobs were spared for those who truly give a damn about the newspaper business. Packing his bags and boarding the starship departing for Planet Internet Creatures represents Mariotti’s most decent act of humanity since his arrival to Chicago.

Rick Telander is ecstatic. After being ridiculed by Mariotti and the also recently departed Mike North on a local television program, his battle against lazy journalism within his own newspaper appears to have been won. Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader quotes the victor:

“Why, if you have somebody like this, do you wait for him to quit? Why don’t you just cut him? I will never know. The good thing is that this is a chance for rebirth. This is joy. A whole shitload of guys called me last night joyous! Ding dong, the witch is dead! I want to get everybody together. I want to have a team meeting. I want to give a fiery pregame prep talk and I want us to come charging out of the locker room with our guns blazing, not slinking out like a bunch of dirty little rodents. Even on a sinking ship, if we’re going down let’s go down standing up and not on our knees. I don’t even know to feel. I just don’t know. But if he’s gone forever, praise the lord.”

Wow.

Hopefully, Telander’s enthusiasm is infectious. For far too long, the Chicago sports media has played hostage to the antics of Jay Mariotti. And undoubtedly, the presence of the vindicative troll has made the role of the everyday sports journalist that much more difficult to obtain daily sound bytes from the local teams always knowingly weary that the Mariotti twist will be applied later. And no example is more damning than the infamous Rex Grossman misquote a few seasons ago, concerning the Seattle Seahawks. But alas, such evil days are over.

Chris De Luca wasted no time to ask Ozzie Guillen on his thoughts of Mariotti’s sudden demise. After all, of the countless individuals personally attacked, belittled and bullied on the back page over the past seventeen years, Guillen wins hands down for being Mariotti’s ultimate villain.  “The Blizzard” (God, how nobody in this town will ever miss that stupid moniker) stated:

Am I enjoying this? Yes, because he tried to make my life miserable. He did everything in his power to make my life go the wrong way, but he didn’t make me miserable because I don’t believe him. Maybe if somebody else wrote that stuff about me, then I would put attention on it. And that’s what he wanted. He wanted attention. He has to thank me because I gave him a lot of [stuff] to work with. I know I helped him the last four years to make his money, and, obviously, he did not help me at all to make my money.

No Ozzie, he didn’t. In fact Mariotti campaigned vigorously to have you fired and banished from the city riding a donkey backwards with a bucket over your head.

And now that Chicago has been liberated at long last, the responsibility must be equally shared by the local media executives to learn something valuable from this reign of terror. Make no mistake. The irritable persona of “being Jay Mariotti” didn’t develop overnight. Nor was it cultivated purely from the pissant, himself. Time and time again, Mariotti was permitted to run roughshod over others simply because he was.... well, Jay. And for too long, that was accepted as the norm. But no more.

The message?

Don’t replace the pundit with a Jay Mariotti wannabe.

Hopefully, editor Michael Cooke has learned a valuable lesson from this experience. After all, it was Cooke that coddled Mariotti throughout these more recent years and chose to turn a deaf ear upon Telander’s request for sensible and responsible journalism. Ever the sensationalist, Cooke at the time opted for cheap tabloid tactics in vain attempt to sell more newspapers.  Telander fought for legitimacy. Cooke resisted such a concept and furthermore encouraged Mariotti to turn the sports department into the Jerry Springer lookalike circus/studio while upping the tyrant’s salary in the process.

Hey Mike, you reap what you sow.

But alas, even Mariotti’s number one defender had enough.  And the following was released:

The Chicago Sun-Times and suntimes.com will continue to have the scores and the stories before anyone else, anywhere, and the deepest and most comprehensive stats and standings. We wish Jay well and will miss him -- not personally, of course -- but in the sense of noticing he is no longer here, at least for a few days.

A paper, like a sports franchise, is something that moves into the future. Stars come and stars go, but the Sun-Times sports section was, is and will continue to be the best in the city.

Interesting that Michael Cooke references the future. And yes, Chicago rightfully would like to know the future of its sports reporting. Clearly, with three quarters of polling respondents denouncing the antics of Mariotti, change for the better is wanted. The citation of Jay’s resignation due to “newspapers are dying” is bogus. Not that long ago, the pundit bemoaned over the supposed illegitimate blogging ways of those dreaded Internet creatures. And rather than stay on board and fight the good battle alongside Rick Telander to preserve the newspaper business, Mariotti fled. “Courage of conviction”? I think not. His former colleagues were not fooled and neither is the reading public of this city.

Cooke has a golden opportunity to immediately improve the outlook of the Chicago Sun-Times. A choice must be made to continue the old ways of exploitation by profiling a new Mariotti wannabe. Or actually listen to Rick Telander and get back into the business of solid journalism. What a concept. A newspaper dedicated to covering real stories without the headline profiling of a personal vendetta mercenary attack machine. Addition by subtraction has been accomplished by Mariotti’s resignation. Time to capitalize and move forward.

And if Michael Cooke is hellbent on a replacement for Jay Mariotti, he need to look no further than our very own solid contributing member, Rob Nail. Resourceful, intelligent articulation with a biting sense of commentary does indeed have a place on the back page on those days that Telander and the rest of the gang need time away from the workshop. Give Nail a call. You won’t be disappointed.