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Mariotti, I hear, originally wanted to do his Obama column for the Tuesday paper, but then he decided to put it off a day and wrote about the Bears instead. One problem: there’s an understanding in Sun-Times sports that Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are Telander’s days. Mariotti can write on those days if he wants to, but Telander gets first choice of subject. Telander says he called sports editor Stu Courtney Tuesday morning to let him know he’d be writing about Obama. Courtney sounded uncomfortable, suggested another topic, and Telander figured it out. Mariotti wants to do it, doesn’t he? Telander asked. Well, said Courtney, he will if you won’t.
But Telander would and did, so Mariotti didn’t. Instead, I hear, he stormed and raved at Courtney, then e-mailed editor in chief Michael Cooke a two-word message, “I quit.”
Telander wondered, “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.” He said, “Even on a sinking ship, if we’re going down let’s go down standing up and not on our knees.”
