The White Sox Aren't Sad to See Mariotti Go

While most of the blogging world has been celebrating the resignation/firing of Jay Mariotti at the Chicago Sun-Times on Wednesday, it's not just those of us who read him that are happy to see him go. The Chicago White Sox have long been one of Jay's favorite targets. Whether he's ripping on team owner Jerry Reinsdorf, manager Ozzie Guillen, or even play-by-play announcer Hawk Harrelson, Jay never had anything nice to say about the organization.

So when the news reached the White Sox in Baltimore on Tuesday night that Jay's reign of terror was coming to an end, the Sox were quite happy to hear the news.

''When people wish the worst on people, you have to be careful because the baseball gods are going to get you,'' [Ozzie] Guillen said. ''He was not asking just for my job, he was asking for thousands and thousands of people's jobs over the years. I'm not going to say I will get the last laugh because I will get fired from this job. But the day I get fired is the day I lose interest in this game.

''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.''

From Hawk Harrelson:

''It's about time,'' said Sox broadcaster Ken ''Hawk'' Harrelson, another favorite target of Mariotti's. ''I know one thing, when he got that [contract] extension three or four months ago, he wouldn't have signed that extension if the things he's saying about the Sun-Times now were true. So he's spinning it again.

''We have some great newspapers in Chicago, and the Sun-Times has some great writers. He tried to give readers the perception that he was in the clubhouse getting all the stuff, that he was in the dugout getting all that stuff, when he was never there.''

Yes, and thankfully, he never will be.