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“Everybody else” may be a majority of two — Tribune Company COO Randy Michaels and innovation chief Lee Abrams. From what I hear, no mere editors are involved in the project to lure Mariotti into the Tower. Michaels and Abrams, with no prior newspaper experience between them, are Sam Zell’s guys, and I’m sure these two men of the world will have no trouble shrugging off Mariotti’s history of surly Zell-bashing back when Mariotti did his writing for the Sun-Times. “Can you believe the Cubs are stuck with this loon?” wrote Mariotti of Zell last February, when Zell was talking about selling naming rights to Wrigley Field. “Maybe a front can be mounted against The Evil Zell if enough fans raise hell.”
Reports of mass resignations in the sports department are overblown, according to Downey, because people need their jobs too much to give them up on principle. “But a couple of people probably would leave” — Downey wouldn’t name them — “and several more would begin looking for something new.”
“I’ve been alerted that the announcement could happen any day now,” says Downey. “I have colleagues who are appalled by this and would like to protest in some way if it happened” How? “A petition to the editor, or a formal letter of protest.”
“The two Ricks — Telander and Morrissey — hate Jay Mariotti more than anyone I know,” says Downey. “Telander describes himself as reborn since Jay left. He’s almost giddy. And my friend [and colleague] Rick Morrissey is livid about this, if it turns out to be true. He can’t imagine a worse case scenario.”
