Idiots Write About Sports

While we are busy pointing and laughing derisively at Around the Horn panelists, we would be remiss if we did not highlight this delightful chortle at Jay Mariotti’s expense. (We were alerted to this by an item from Scott Long in The Juice Blog over at Ye Olde Baseball Toaster.

Eric Zorn, a metro columnist over at the Chicago Tribune went and paintakingly chronicled every pronouncement and subsequent reversal made by Sun-Times windbag Jay Mariotti in re: the Chicago White Sox during the past 12 months. While columnists should certainly be willing to adjust their analysis to reflect new information and changing circumstances, it seems that Mariotti has revolutionized a new method of always being able to say “I told you so” — just express every possible opinion, from “The Sox are going to win the Series!” to “The Sox are doomed, I tells ya!” and everything in between, at some point during the course of the season.

Some of my favorites:

December 19 —If the Sox had given (former Cub Matt) Clement an extra $5 million and (pitcher Omar) Vizquel an extra year and $3 million, they would have a quality No. 3 starter behind Freddy Garcia and Mark Buehrle and a fielding wizard to anchor the infield. But because they bid low in both cases, they’ll be a .500 team next year. Or worse.

April 23 —If someone in charge doesn’t muzzle Ozzie Guillen with duct tape, inject him with a horse tranquilizer or simply order him to shut the [bleep] up — his favorite expression, not mine — the man is going to talk himself out of a job and shame the city and ballclub he represents.

May 15 —(The Sox) have the sweetest rotation in the sport ….And while I’m not about to predict they’ll be the first local team in 187 collective seasons to win a World Series, they are built to last deep into September.

May 19— I’ve always asked the Sox to place their media-bashing energies into assembling a pennant contender. Now … Ken Williams seems to have done that.

June 7 — I can safely say the Sox won’t win a World Series as long as (Jerry Reinsdorf) owns them.

June 21 — I will state for the record today, on the bosom of Hawk Harrelson, that the Sox are crash-proof in this regular season. You may as well sit back and enjoy the next 31/2 months. They are not going to miss the playoffs. Hear me? The aren’t choking. Got that?

June 24 — Guillen’s feistiness has a magical effect on the Sox.

September 22 —The Wheeze Sox….(are) pressing and gagging, contrary to the protests of Ozzie Guillen and the pig-like wails of Hawk Harrelson, who should be put out of his misery…..Oh ye of too much faith. The Sox aren’t good enough to think beyond the next game….So, this dark, doomsday drama inevitably careens toward a final three-game series in Cleveland … Williams failed to make the club better at midseason and left the Sox vulnerable…. Yes, it was difficult to make deals this year. But the best organizations always get their man … and the Sox only got Geoff Blum.

I could go on like this all day, really. Just read the column.

One the commentors in Zorn’s blog clues us Non-Chicagoans into Mariotti’s nickname around town — Windsock. I can think of no more appropriate sobriquet, except for possibly Gasbag or maybe Talky Talkerson.

Nothing involving the White Sox beats good old Hawk and Wimpy.

You can put it on the board.....YESSSS!

One of these days, I shall complete my comprehensive look at assorted major league broadcast teams thanks to two years of subscribing to MLB Extra Innings. And I go back and forth on which duo I find more intolerable -- Physioc and Hudler on the Angeles telecasts or Hawk and Darin Jackson on the Sox games. (Tom Paciorek, it seems, has been banished to the cornfield.)

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