Follow the bouncing ball: In his column today, Rick Telander defends wee Chicago Cub Ryan Theriot against totally nonexistent suspicions of 'roiding, just so he can mewl inanely about a culture ("this is what baseball has wrought") in which even wee Ryan Theriot is a suspect, even though wee Ryan Theriot wasn't a suspect until Rick Telander said he was. And then the bloodhounds in the Chicago sporting press have to go and ask Theriot about being a suspect, which he wasn't until Rick Telander said he was. And then Theriot has to deny everything and pronounce himself "disappointed" with the column, which of course just makes him look all the more suspicious, something he wasn't until Rick Telander said he was.

What has Rick Telander wrought?

(And, yes, yes, there's this, which is headslappingly stupid and which any professional sportswriter worth his collection of Polo shirts would treat as the equivalent of a YouTube comment. Right, Rick? Right??)

Small hitter, big problem [Chicago Sun-Times]
Theriot ‘disappointed' with Telander's steroid column [Chicago Sun-Times]
Theriot responds to being named steroids 'suspect' [Chicago Tribune]

''It's like if every political writer in the country was working for just the Obama campaign,'' former ESPN writer and commentator Jason Whitlock, now with Foxsports.com and the Kansas City Star, said when I asked him about the conundrum. Whitlock was basically fired from ESPN awhile back for being too critical of certain company aspects and individuals. ''I think ESPN is now more of an organization that needs to be covered, rather than one that covers organizations,'' Whitlock said.

Whether this little essay will have any long-term impact on Telander's ability to work for ESPN in the future has yet to be seen. ESPN is "looking into the essay" to see for sure, but I'd say for now that he will be allowed to sit on Jim Rome's couch in the near future. I will update when they make their final decision...

UPDATE: ESPN says "no issues". Telander is still allowed on Jim Rome's couch.

The ESPN Empire is Always Right [Chicago Sun-Times]
Interview with Rick Telander [The Heckler]

PHOTO: The Heckler

But what would transpire between these two bitter rivals in the aftermath should they run into each other somewhere in a non-work environment? You know, like, in a sauna.

This is not slash fiction:

“I was taking a sauna, which I do like once every ten years, and who walks in but Jay Mariotti. I swear to God. If God is my savior, if he is (he probably doesn’t want to save me, but) there he was. He almost freaked out. There were other people in the sauna. I probably shouldn’t even go on about this, but it was an hour ago. It was one hour ago, and he just started babbling.

I don’t think it’s fair for me...I’m telling you so much...it’s just surreal. I think if my eyes don’t deceive me, if he’d seen the Yeti or...Michael Myers sitting there, I don’t know, it would have been about the same. But you’d have to ask him that.

The first thing out of his mouth, ‘well, let’s just bury the hatchet.’ I had not said a word. Hatchets or anything – I didn’t have a hatchet in hand. Nothing.”

Telander didn't go on to say if this chance encounter resulted in an "Eastern Promises"-style throw-down or if the metaphorical hatchet was buried, but the surreality of this scenario even taking place trumps all possible outcomes. Well, maybe not the nude knife-fight one but still...

Rick Telander [On The DL]

No, it's Jay Mariotti — "fucktard," if you're a crude sort — who has everyone all hand-wringing. First it was real man Chicago Tribune columnist Rick Morrissey, who framed the debate by saying that if you criticize a player, you should be able to face him/her in the locker room. Today, Mariotti's fellow Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander nails it, asking, in all seriousness, "should we just stay away and pontificate? All the quotes are there, some taken down by court stenographers. Is our presence required? This is news that Mariotti has become." (It should go without saying that the preceding quote took four paragraphs for Telander to write.)

In other words, this has become a soul-searcher for media members on their place in the world today. The fan has access to live video of almost every game, the ability to read transcripts of press conferences and all the same statistical materials everyone in the press box is handed when they walk in. Telander, because he sees what's going on here, has no choice but to put it bluntly: "Is our presence required?" In an age where athletes say nothing interesting and reporters have to write it down as if they care, what is the point, anyway?

We don't think Jay Mariotti sitting at home, watching White Sox games while applying makeup and waiting for the cue from Tony Reali, can be classified as a reporter. But can someone with a press pass and locker room access, but with no more information or insight than anyone sitting at home, be called one either? Does it even matter anymore?

Which is really just a long way of saying: Mariotti's a fucktard.

In Big Picture, Mariotti's Huge Part Of Story [Chicago Sun-Times]
You Write It, You Show Up [Chicago Tribune]
A Helpful Tip For Ozzie Guillen, And It's Free [Deadspin]

(UPDATE: The only thing we've read about this all week that didn't sound helplessly stupid was this Bob Klapisch piece, a writer smart enough to write about it without really writing about it at all. Aside from this piece, though, it never fails to amuse us how sports reporters are acting as if it's some sort of manly thing to enter the locker room and face people they criticize. Listen: We are writers, and we are all dorks. No matter how much you talk yourself into thinking you have a high level of testosterone because you stand behind your words, you're still a dude who types for a living and every single person you write about could kick your ass, without thinking or caring much about it. You're fooling yourself if you even pretend otherwise.)