Rose may be more impressive as a person
Jay Mariotti: A healthy, long-stemmed rose was placed on every seat. None, from what we could tell, had a thorn. Other than the girls who hound him incessantly -- news that prompted new boss John Paxson to crack Monday, "And that's not gonna change. We'll be keeping an eye on that," -- Derrick Rose has managed a nice, smooth, pleasant entry into a situation so pressurized, I think even the Jordan statue is perspiring.
Jay Mariotti: A healthy, long-stemmed rose was placed on every seat. None, from what we could tell, had a thorn. Other than the girls who hound him incessantly -- news that prompted new boss John Paxson to crack Monday, "And that's not gonna change. We'll be keeping an eye on that," -- Derrick Rose has managed a nice, smooth, pleasant entry into a situation so pressurized, I think even the Jordan statue is perspiring.
A Cubs-Sox October? Way too early to call
Jay Mariotti: Nope, can't go there. Too much can happen, too much has happened and, I assume, too much WILL happen in the coming months to declare unequivocally that the Cubs and White Sox both will reach October. Call me names and flood our in-box, but if the last Chicago postseason perfecta had taken place more recently than 102 years ago, I might be more daring.
Jay Mariotti: Nope, can't go there. Too much can happen, too much has happened and, I assume, too much WILL happen in the coming months to declare unequivocally that the Cubs and White Sox both will reach October. Call me names and flood our in-box, but if the last Chicago postseason perfecta had taken place more recently than 102 years ago, I might be more daring.
Welcome to Chi-ball: Center of baseball's universe
Jay Mariotti: Congratulations, peeps. You are it. You are the new epicenter of baseball, the hotbed of horsehide. No? Then why is ESPN, perceived around here as the Eastern Standard Programming Network, summoning its monster trucks and Joe Morgan for successive Sunday nights of Cubs-White Sox fare?
Jay Mariotti: Congratulations, peeps. You are it. You are the new epicenter of baseball, the hotbed of horsehide. No? Then why is ESPN, perceived around here as the Eastern Standard Programming Network, summoning its monster trucks and Joe Morgan for successive Sunday nights of Cubs-White Sox fare?
Rose to Paxson: I'm ready to start now, boss
Jay Mariotti: Time? Derrick Rose doesn't have time. Somewhere in the back corridors of Madison Square Garden, on a night in his life as sparkling as the diamond earring on his lobe, he'd just heard John Paxson say over the TV speakers that Rose would be a project of patience with the Bulls.
Jay Mariotti: Time? Derrick Rose doesn't have time. Somewhere in the back corridors of Madison Square Garden, on a night in his life as sparkling as the diamond earring on his lobe, he'd just heard John Paxson say over the TV speakers that Rose would be a project of patience with the Bulls.
Cubs: Spell-bound no longer
Jay Mariotti: And someone actually had the gall to ask: Should a Chicagoan start rooting for both teams? Sure, and the Republicans will perform a group hug with Obama in September. After so many generations of waiting, so much perpetual agony and torture, you don't call for a civic truce now. The White Sox won three years ago. The Cubs have baseball's best record and could win this year.
Jay Mariotti: And someone actually had the gall to ask: Should a Chicagoan start rooting for both teams? Sure, and the Republicans will perform a group hug with Obama in September. After so many generations of waiting, so much perpetual agony and torture, you don't call for a civic truce now. The White Sox won three years ago. The Cubs have baseball's best record and could win this year.
Rose wants to be league MVP -- as rookie
Jay Mariotti: Welcome to the first day of the rest of a city’s sporting life. I feel that fuzzy about Derrick Rose, Chicago’s own, the point guard of an expectant basketball town’s fantasies. Rose shares our giddiness, apparently, declaring on NBA draft eve that his goal next season is to be the league’s Most Valuable Player.
Jay Mariotti: Welcome to the first day of the rest of a city’s sporting life. I feel that fuzzy about Derrick Rose, Chicago’s own, the point guard of an expectant basketball town’s fantasies. Rose shares our giddiness, apparently, declaring on NBA draft eve that his goal next season is to be the league’s Most Valuable Player.
Chicago a better place without North
Jay Mariotti: We only can hope that the end of Mike North is the beginning of decency, professionalism and couth in Chicago sports radio. Oh, some desperate shop might hire him, hoping to capitalize on name recognition at the expense of dignity and wobbling ratings, but so what.
Jay Mariotti: We only can hope that the end of Mike North is the beginning of decency, professionalism and couth in Chicago sports radio. Oh, some desperate shop might hire him, hoping to capitalize on name recognition at the expense of dignity and wobbling ratings, but so what.
If Bulls pass on Rose, thorns await them
Jay Mariotti: As the media crowds were shooed from the locker room, Derrick Rose didn’t move from his chair. He still had something important to say to the columnist from Chicago. Did it involve crushing UCLA? Being the best player on the court in the most significant game of his young life? Something to do with money, ego, glory, fame, wine, women?
Jay Mariotti: As the media crowds were shooed from the locker room, Derrick Rose didn’t move from his chair. He still had something important to say to the columnist from Chicago. Did it involve crushing UCLA? Being the best player on the court in the most significant game of his young life? Something to do with money, ego, glory, fame, wine, women?
Class sweeps crass: Piniella ignores Sox insults
Jay Mariotti: Only at Wrigley Field can the sun shine during a downpour, leaving a massive rainbow cascading over right field Sunday evening. Obviously, the pretty backdrop wasn't conducive to a rumble.
Jay Mariotti: Only at Wrigley Field can the sun shine during a downpour, leaving a massive rainbow cascading over right field Sunday evening. Obviously, the pretty backdrop wasn't conducive to a rumble.
Cubs’ arrow pointing north, Sox’ pointing south
Jay Mariotti: The assumption? This is a World Series preview, the year when billy goats fly and Shoeless Joe Jackson re-emerges from the cornfield, the season when two Chicago baseball franchises play for a championship amid a combined 1-for-191 slump in a surreal sign of — what else? — ApoCubsSox Now. But have you also pondered another possibility, friends? That these back-to-back Crosstown Showdowns also could be a dual tipping point, a confirmation of one team’s October worthiness and the other’s fraudulence?
Jay Mariotti: The assumption? This is a World Series preview, the year when billy goats fly and Shoeless Joe Jackson re-emerges from the cornfield, the season when two Chicago baseball franchises play for a championship amid a combined 1-for-191 slump in a surreal sign of — what else? — ApoCubsSox Now. But have you also pondered another possibility, friends? That these back-to-back Crosstown Showdowns also could be a dual tipping point, a confirmation of one team’s October worthiness and the other’s fraudulence?
Ozzie's blunder ignites classic Cubs rally
Jay Mariotti: None of these games possibly could match the hype, right? I mean, this newspaper ran a cover photo of the World Series trophy and didn't start the day's hard news until Page 9. USA Today carried a ginormously long piece about Chi-ball. ESPN, often derided in the heartland as the Eastern Standard Parochial Network, turned up its coverage on TV and the Web.
Jay Mariotti: None of these games possibly could match the hype, right? I mean, this newspaper ran a cover photo of the World Series trophy and didn't start the day's hard news until Page 9. USA Today carried a ginormously long piece about Chi-ball. ESPN, often derided in the heartland as the Eastern Standard Parochial Network, turned up its coverage on TV and the Web.
On special weekend, Williams shows no class
Jay Mariotti: I'd like to think he's just a pro wrestler at heart, a carnival barker having some fun, a prankster with no malice intended. But when the subject is the Cubs, Ken Williams never has been a good-times guy. He is genuinely bitter about the realities of Chicago baseball classism -- Cubs as the blueblooded phenomenon with the national identity and charming shrine, White Sox as the other team that no hotel concierge ever recommends.
Jay Mariotti: I'd like to think he's just a pro wrestler at heart, a carnival barker having some fun, a prankster with no malice intended. But when the subject is the Cubs, Ken Williams never has been a good-times guy. He is genuinely bitter about the realities of Chicago baseball classism -- Cubs as the blueblooded phenomenon with the national identity and charming shrine, White Sox as the other team that no hotel concierge ever recommends.
Tiger's self-sacrifice: Gain justifies the pain
Jay Mariotti: Being there, watching him hobble and grimace on a cliff above the ocean, I knew something was extraordinary about the experience. But now we're told that Tiger Woods literally played 38,676 yards of golf on one leg, with a torn left anterior cruciate ligament and a double stress fracture of the left tibia.
Jay Mariotti: Being there, watching him hobble and grimace on a cliff above the ocean, I knew something was extraordinary about the experience. But now we're told that Tiger Woods literally played 38,676 yards of golf on one leg, with a torn left anterior cruciate ligament and a double stress fracture of the left tibia.
Celtics provide lesson for all of sports
Jay Mariotti: One by one, they were removed from this bonkers blowout, this emasculation of Kobe Bryant and shredding of the Phil Jackson mystique. One by one, the Big Three gravitated toward each other and locked arms on the bench, hugging and taking in the roars of title-drunk New England.
Jay Mariotti: One by one, they were removed from this bonkers blowout, this emasculation of Kobe Bryant and shredding of the Phil Jackson mystique. One by one, the Big Three gravitated toward each other and locked arms on the bench, hugging and taking in the roars of title-drunk New England.
Tiger's grittiest moment
Jay Mariotti: You rooted for him. I rooted for him. And all anybody needs to know about Rocco Mediate is that he showed up on the first tee, for the defining day of his golfing life, slurping down a grande iced latte from the local Starbucks through a large green straw.
Jay Mariotti: You rooted for him. I rooted for him. And all anybody needs to know about Rocco Mediate is that he showed up on the first tee, for the defining day of his golfing life, slurping down a grande iced latte from the local Starbucks through a large green straw.
Mariotti signs Sun-Times contract extension
Jay Mariotti has agreed to a contract extension that will keep the award-winning sports columnist at the Sun-Times through May, 2011, Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke said today. "The Sun-Times sports franchise is a robust, influential brand locally and nationally. It's the one place for independent, politically unimpeded sports commentary in Chicago," Mariotti said.
Jay Mariotti has agreed to a contract extension that will keep the award-winning sports columnist at the Sun-Times through May, 2011, Editor-in-Chief Michael Cooke said today. "The Sun-Times sports franchise is a robust, influential brand locally and nationally. It's the one place for independent, politically unimpeded sports commentary in Chicago," Mariotti said.
Poor Rocco: Woods can't lose now
Jay Mariotti: Did you really think the putt wouldn't fall, that the ball wouldn't grab the side of the cup and slip in by some collective force of vacuum, nature, Father's Day and Tiger Woods' sheer enormity? Much as a 45-year-old journeyman had endeared America with his living-the-dream attitude and cool peace sign on his belt buckle, Rocco Mediate was simply a supporting actor in this playhouse.
Jay Mariotti: Did you really think the putt wouldn't fall, that the ball wouldn't grab the side of the cup and slip in by some collective force of vacuum, nature, Father's Day and Tiger Woods' sheer enormity? Much as a 45-year-old journeyman had endeared America with his living-the-dream attitude and cool peace sign on his belt buckle, Rocco Mediate was simply a supporting actor in this playhouse.
Tiger battles the pain, creates golfing miracles
Jay Mariotti: The knee buckled, as we knew it would, forcing Tiger Woods to double-over in pain and America to recoil and gasp. Then, on the next hole, it happened again Saturday, only reinforcing the magnitude of what he would do next and the pulsating theater of what we're witnessing here.
Jay Mariotti: The knee buckled, as we knew it would, forcing Tiger Woods to double-over in pain and America to recoil and gasp. Then, on the next hole, it happened again Saturday, only reinforcing the magnitude of what he would do next and the pulsating theater of what we're witnessing here.
Prime Time: Tiger writing another amazing tale
Jay Mariotti: This was the night when golf discovered its inner dude, the night it turned way-cool, the night it went prime time and steel cage on us. And in the epicenter of the MMA-meets-USGA vibe was, of course, the Tiger of Woods, whose surgically repaired left knee suddenly didn't ache as badly, not as he drilled home putts like darts hitting bull's-eye cork.
Jay Mariotti: This was the night when golf discovered its inner dude, the night it turned way-cool, the night it went prime time and steel cage on us. And in the epicenter of the MMA-meets-USGA vibe was, of course, the Tiger of Woods, whose surgically repaired left knee suddenly didn't ache as badly, not as he drilled home putts like darts hitting bull's-eye cork.
Gimp and limp: Woods will have to win through pain
Jay Mariotti: When he clenched his teeth in full grimace on the 18th tee, this after crushing a drive lovelier than the blue ocean below, I was struck by a shivering thought: Is Tiger Woods actually getting old like the rest of us? I don't doubt he'll win more majors, complete the Jack Nicklaus mission and carry on as the pre-eminent athlete of the early 21st century, but a day atop the cliffs at Torrey Pines brought real-life reminders. He has had three surgeries on his left knee before his 33rd birthday.
Jay Mariotti: When he clenched his teeth in full grimace on the 18th tee, this after crushing a drive lovelier than the blue ocean below, I was struck by a shivering thought: Is Tiger Woods actually getting old like the rest of us? I don't doubt he'll win more majors, complete the Jack Nicklaus mission and carry on as the pre-eminent athlete of the early 21st century, but a day atop the cliffs at Torrey Pines brought real-life reminders. He has had three surgeries on his left knee before his 33rd birthday.
Was the fix in? Stern can't handle the truth
Jay Mariotti: The easiest event to fix in sports, I dare say, is a pro basketball game. There's too much room for hocus-pocus and interpretation, too much gray area for what is and isn't a foul, too much money on high. This always has led to suspicions, first hinted at in Chicago by a fearless Phil Jackson in the '90s, that the NBA conceivably could be in cahoots with its referees to manipulate and extend a playoff series via officiating.
Jay Mariotti: The easiest event to fix in sports, I dare say, is a pro basketball game. There's too much room for hocus-pocus and interpretation, too much gray area for what is and isn't a foul, too much money on high. This always has led to suspicions, first hinted at in Chicago by a fearless Phil Jackson in the '90s, that the NBA conceivably could be in cahoots with its referees to manipulate and extend a playoff series via officiating.
Hiring a coach who never has coached?
Jay Mariotti: My Cousin Vinny, we'll call him. It doesn't sound remotely as good as coach Mike D'Antoni, coach Doug Collins, coach Avery Johnson, coach Flip Saunders or coach Tom Thibodeau.
Jay Mariotti: My Cousin Vinny, we'll call him. It doesn't sound remotely as good as coach Mike D'Antoni, coach Doug Collins, coach Avery Johnson, coach Flip Saunders or coach Tom Thibodeau.
Sad reality is Ced needs help
Jay Mariotti: He always seemed sad and spaced-out, like he wanted to be anywhere else but this planet, even if his employer was guaranteeing him $17 million to care about playing football.
Jay Mariotti: He always seemed sad and spaced-out, like he wanted to be anywhere else but this planet, even if his employer was guaranteeing him $17 million to care about playing football.
Bulls should wait for Kobe Stopper
Jay Mariotti: So who needs Oral Roberts now, Phil Jackson? Who needs the angels to heal a basketball team that slumbered in a soft, gooey coma for three quarters, only to make a crazy comeback that fell short?
Jay Mariotti: So who needs Oral Roberts now, Phil Jackson? Who needs the angels to heal a basketball team that slumbered in a soft, gooey coma for three quarters, only to make a crazy comeback that fell short?
The joke's on us, Chicago
As police mugshots go, it's not as maniacal as Nick Nolte's or as damning as Rip Torn's. But Cedric Benson definitely was having a good time in the wee hours Saturday, posing for his latest portrait at Texas Slammer Studios. He wore a huge grin, wider than the 3.4 yards he averaged last year. His eyes were narrow, underlined by heavily creased bags. His shirt was open at the neck, his hair sticking up on top.
How low can Benson go? How stupid can he be?
Jay Mariotti: As police mugshots go, it’s not as maniacal as Nick Nolte’s or as damning as Rip Torn’s. But Cedric Benson definitely was having a good time in the wee hours Saturday, posing for his latest portrait at Texas Slammer Studios. He wore a huge grin, wider than the 3.4 yards he averaged last year. His eyes were narrow, underlined by heavily creased bags.
Jay Mariotti: As police mugshots go, it’s not as maniacal as Nick Nolte’s or as damning as Rip Torn’s. But Cedric Benson definitely was having a good time in the wee hours Saturday, posing for his latest portrait at Texas Slammer Studios. He wore a huge grin, wider than the 3.4 yards he averaged last year. His eyes were narrow, underlined by heavily creased bags.
Mariotti: Big Brown doesn't deliver -- is Triple Crown extinct?
ELMONT, N.Y. -- We were supposed to see Hooters Girls in the winner's circle, history at Belmont Park, the coronation of a superhorse and the celebration of an obscure industry's first Triple Crown in 30 years.
Reinsdorf's hapless tune: Oops, I did it again
Jay Mariotti: I'm about out of answers, friends. I've written that Jerry Reinsdorf should sell the Bulls for the sake of Chicagokind. I've written that he was small and vindictive in calling Mike D'Antoni a coward, all because the former Phoenix coach took a better offer in New York.
Jay Mariotti: I'm about out of answers, friends. I've written that Jerry Reinsdorf should sell the Bulls for the sake of Chicagokind. I've written that he was small and vindictive in calling Mike D'Antoni a coward, all because the former Phoenix coach took a better offer in New York.
