Jay Mariotti Is Transparent

So the general consensus in Chicago about the White Sox hiring Steve Stone to join their radio booth is that it's a good move. I've already made clear my approval and everybody I've talked to about it thinks it's similiarly great.

Sox fans would have been thrilled to hear the news they were finally free of Chris Singleton, and the fact that Stoney is replacing him is just icing on the cake.

Cubs fans have even told me that they're going to have to start listening to Sox games.

Everybody's happy! Even our old friend Jay Mariotti, though Mariotti is a fan of the move for completely different reasons.

In his column today, Jay writes about how he hopes Stoney will tear the entire White Sox franchise down.

So what happens when a fearless, incisive radio analyst is hired by a franchise with a crybaby owner, a volcanic manager, a brooding general manager, a long- winded radio partner, a hillbilly homer in the TV booth, a media-obsessed catcher and a hypersensitive fan base always searching for an enemy?

Seems all hell will break loose, as it often does in Steve Stone's world of truth, justice and calling out wretched baseball as wretched baseball.

Mariotti is right about one thing, Stone isn't afraid to speak his mind on what he thinks he's watching. After all, that is why he's no longer calling Cubs games after he ripped on the team a few years ago.

Unfortunately, Jay is off in his assumption that the team is going to revolt against Stone like the Cubs did.

Why would Ozzie Guillen care what Stone says? When the Sox suck, Ozzie is telling anybody who will listen about how bad the team is. Are we really supposed to believe he'll give a shit what anybody in the booth is saying?

Then there are those "hypersensitive fans always searching for an enemy." Um, Jay? While we'll ignore the "hypersensitive" comments, I feel the need to tell you we're not searching for an enemy. We have one, and we've had him for a while.

It's you, jackass.

Let's be honest here, Jay. The only reason you wrote about Steve Stone was as cover for what you really wanted the column to be about:

It will happen because Stone is unblushingly honest in his daily appraisals, contrary to Reinsdorf's other broadcasters, who are so fearful of the chairman's wrath -- or so far up his hind-end -- that they become pathetic weasels who somehow tip-toed over a 72-90 stinker last season. Harrelson, in particular, has become the biggest embarrassment in the industry, a shameless shill who keeps his job only because he gushes over Reinsdorf at every opportunity and does the chairman's dirty work by hurling pebbles at real and perceived enemies of Soxdom, which only paints the organization as amateurish and low-brow.

We get it. You don't like them.

Next time you're itching to use your column to take a few digs at Ozzie, Hawk Harrelson, and Jerry Reinsdorf, just write about how much you hate them. Forget the bullshit angles.