this following has been reprinted without permission.
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Harrelson-Mariotti name-calling feud heats up
By Teddy Greenstein
Tribune staff reporter
July 2, 2004, 10:57 PM CDT
Jay Mariotti likes to tell his morning radio listeners not to focus so much on him.
"It's not about me," he said earlier this week on WMVP-AM 1000. "It's about the teams."
Maybe, but lately Mariotti has been a story.
The Sun-Times sports columnist and regular on ESPN's "Around the Horn" went nose-to-nose Wednesday with White Sox broadcaster Hawk Harrelson in the the press box at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.
At one point, witnesses say, Mariotti told Harrelson: "I ought to clock you right now."
Harrelson's response: "Go ahead. Do what you've got to do, Jay."
The two have been feuding in print and on air since SoxFest, when Harrelson called Mariotti "the biggest sports fraud" and added: "Mariotti wouldn't know a good or bad team if he saw one … In six or seven years, I've never seen him in the clubhouse."
Days later Mariotti wrote: "Now that official team puppet Hawk Harrelson has targeted me as Osama Sox Laden—the one and only reason why the ballmall is obsolete, the fan base is shrinking and bad drunks rush the field and attack people—allow me to use my almighty powers in a more productive manner."
Since then, Mariotti has written about Harrelson four times, describing him as "[Chairman Jerry] Reinsdorf's shameless mouthpiece," "whiny … bitter" and sounding "like he's constipated."
Harrelson has struck back on his telecasts, most recently after Mariotti likened U.S. Cellular Field to a "state penitentiary" after describing a fight in the stands. But the two men didn't cross paths until about an hour before Wednesday's Sox-Twins game.
Harrelson was walking to the TV booth, taking the required route past the back row of the press box. There's not much room to maneuver, and Mariotti, talking on his cell phone to ESPN program director Len Weiner, was leaning back in his chair.
Harrelson said he "brushed" past the chair, unaware of who was sitting in it.
Mariotti said Harrelson "rammed into him," prompting Mariotti to tell him: "Watch where you're going."
The incident grew heated, with Harrelson and Mariotti yelling insults at each other.
Witnesses say Mariotti, after rising from his chair, came within three to four inches of Harrelson and said: "I ought to clock you right now."
After more name-calling, witnesses say Mariotti told Harrelson: "You want a lawsuit? I can make you a poor man."
Mariotti denied that he threatened to sue Harrelson.
"No," he said. "There was an exchange. He was yelling silly things that are beneath me. He needs to be a professional. Am I going up to his [TV] booth and yelling at him? If I did, would that be a violation? Yes. End of story."
Not quite. After the game, Harrelson said he and analyst Darrin Jackson saw Mariotti working alone in the press box while other writers were in the clubhouses.
Harrelson said he told Mariotti: "'Now, Jay, have a nice evening.' And he muttered something I couldn't make out."
Mariotti said the incident occurred while he and others were on deadline. "You don't come into a press box after a game and start yelling at a guy when writers are on deadline," Mariotti said. "He's thoroughly unprofessional."
But not even that marked the end of the dispute.
A friend of Harrelson's called him Friday morning to report that Mariotti had said on his radio show, "I can pinch his beak off any time I want to," referring to Harrelson.
That prompted Harrelson to call the station and ask producer Shaun Witt to put him on the air. Witt declined, telling Harrelson: "Jay said he'd take a pass."
Harrelson called Mariotti "gutless" and told Witt: "Just tell Jay that next time he comes to U.S. Cellular Field, I'll give him a chance to pinch my beak off."
Mariotti denied having referred to Harrelson on his Friday morning show.
Witt said late Friday morning that he would review a tape of the show. But he never reported its contents and didn't return phone messages left for him.
Mariotti said he declined to put Harrelson on the air because "I have no interest in these silly little things. I am above that. I'm trying to do a radio show. The White Sox just need to play baseball and stop worrying about the media. That goes for him too."
Mariotti attributes his dispute with Harrelson to a "10-year war" between him and the Sox.
"Jerry Reinsdorf," Mariotti said, "is trying to get one of his trusted longtime hands to goad me, whether it's on the air or in the press box, to do something that will perhaps end my radio career on his flagship station. I'll never do anything that stupid. That is what the story is here.
"I am provoked constantly and it's in my best interests to walk away," Mariotti said. "I have been provoked by athletes, owners, their sons, writers and broadcasters a good 15 to 20 times in this city and every time I have walked away. How many other people would?"
Mariotti said he is "appalled" that so many people want to confront him.
"These people need to get me off the brain," he said. "I'm not worth it. I'm just a guy in the media. I'm trying to lay low."
Copyright © 2004, The Chicago Tribune
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I am shocked at how these grown men who make a living by reporting on sports have to bash each other, come on guys get over it. To some trade talk
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Boston Dirt Dogs, and the Sons of Sam Horn are announcing that a deal that would send, Odalis Perez and Carlos Delgado to the Red Sox, the Blue Jays would get Cesar Izturis and a Minor league pitcher, and the Dodgers would get Nomar Garciaparra and BK Kim. There when I last checked a press conference by the Blue Jays tonight.
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Lets hope this trade goes through
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Chags and Zags
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A HUGE CHAG goes to my new favorite athlete, Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon and she jumped into our hearts and became our queen. All I have to say is hey you can be my queen, give me a call.
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Another HUGE CHAG goes to A-Rod, not the yankee but the tennis player, Andy Roddick showed that he was for real but he just came up short, I can see a very bright future for A-Rod
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ZAGS to Theo Epstein, come on Theo we know that you're our GM but you don't have to lie about why you went down to Atlanta, the team was sucking and you went to spark some life in them, as was reported in the Boston Globe when a student is away at college and all of a sudden they start to fail you get over there and that's what he did, don't give us this crap that you were going to be there anyway.
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That's the blog for today.
~Chaggy Sharapova?
