(This really is just a post for the Chicago-area sports fans, and those who know who this guy is. Everyone else? Search the archives or something.)

I've gone back and forth several times about whether or not I was going to address the whole Jay Mariotti controversy going on here in Chicago.

I've had quite a few friends email me and laugh, make mention of his latest tirade and wonder what I thought of it. For those who knew what it was like for me in those initial days of working for the Chicago Sun-Times, the name "Mariotti" was enough to induce vomiting in me. Working as an editor for a major metropolitan daily is not for the weak, and I think we learned it certainly wasn't for me. People like Jay Mariotti are a bit to blame.

They are, to put it nicely, demanding. But personalities are much of why I got into journalism in the first place, aside from all of that truth and justice and voice-of-the-people stuff. I liked people who were curmudgeonly and gruff and weird, and if getting into the door meant being called a "fucking moron," something I was called more than once in my days as an intern in the sports department at the Peoria Journal Star, then so be it.

(A word of advice to all of you who email me asking for career advice: go work in a sports department fetching high school box scores. This will teach you everything you need to know about working at a newspaper.)

So I was ready and willing to deal with Jay Mariotti when it came my time, though I assure you it was not easy. I'm pretty sure I got teary-eyed at home for the late-night haranguing that I was subjected to, for any number of reasons. Deep down, however, I got it. I did. It didn't excuse this behavior, but I got it. He is, after all, a nationally known, for good or for ill, sports columnist. But that's clearly not what motivated this guy, all this recognition. What seemed to drive Jay was that he wanted it right, he wanted it good and he wanted to deliver something of substance to his readers. He cared, more than almost anyone there in any section, except for Roger Ebert. One day I will show my grandchildren the email I got from Roger Ebert himself, because it remains to this days one of the things I cherish, right up there with my picture of me and Barack Obama.

Anyway, it was Mariotti's dogged determination to do a good job that I came to appreciate about him. You have to be deep in the trenches with someone to see this; you couldn't know what happens at 1 a.m. when the story is still being worked on, and you're far away, and at the mercy of someone you've never met in person. In my hands, quite literally, held his reputation, that which it is, and almost everything he holds sacred.

By the time I left, we'd just wrapped up launching a new feature on the site, one that had him filing even more often. We worked together pretty closely to ensure its success, so closely that he had to be reminded to copy the whole Web staff on emails because I did have days off and couldn't be there for every column. We established a rhythm of sorts, and the rants tapered off, and my interactions with him were nothing but wonderful. It was a total 180. When I quit, I was unsure how to tell Jay that I'd resigned, or even if I should. So I didn't.

Several days after I turned in my badge, I got an email from Jay on my personal account, letting me know he was really sorry to see me go, that he'd heard the news, and thanked me for all that I'd done, and that he understood just how hard those late nights are on people. He hoped, he said, that our paths would cross again someday.

My parents raised me to believe that if you see a man getting kicked around, you don't join in. The courageous, right, moral thing to do is to champion if you get the chance. It is not enough to know that you know a different side to a man's character; you have a voice and you use it. I know why people feel the way they do about him; I know why most men I know email me to talk smack about Mariotti. But the thing is?

I really like Jay Mariotti. I am probably the only person in Chicago who will admit to that, but there it is.

There is much being made about what it's like to work with him, especially if you're a guy on the sports desk. I don't envy those bastards one bit, never have. I was not surprised to hear that that situation had gone public, as it was a looooong time coming. Those guys are fantastic and talented and they'd had enough. But I worked with him, too, and ...

... well, you get it.

I don't miss newspapers, and the life that goes with it. Sometimes, though? I miss working with characters like Mariotti. I really do.

Posted by Erin at 12:37 AM | filed under: Supastah