Most of the blogosphere has been waiting with baited breath as we imagine a world where Jay Mariotti has no place to type or blather for our annoyance. That day has finally come, as Mariotti has been suspended indefinitely by his employers ESPN and AOL Fanhouse after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend Saturday morning near their apartment complex. We can finally bid Jay’s smarmy face adieu from our television screens and make fun of Bill Plaschke’s inability to pronounce simple words in peace like I’ve always dreamed.
Says an AOL Fanhouse representative to SI’s Richard Deitsch, “We are continuing to gather all the facts. In the meantime, we have suspended Jay Mariotti and are not featuring any new work from him.”
From Sports By Brooks comes more news:
Mariotti was arrested and charged with felony domestic assault in L.A. on Saturday morning after an alleged altercation with his girlfriend. The police report from the incident has not yet been made public by the Los Angeles Police Dept. Sources told me today that the Around The Horn panelist appearance schedule is drawn only a week in advance.
That said, I’ve been advised that Mariotti’s legal troubles were indeed relevant to his not being assigned to the show next week. Meanwhile, the move by AOL Fanhouse comes in light of website commenters posting indelicate reactions to Mariotti’s arrest on many of his archived columns on the website.
So there you have it! Jay Mariotti has finally done himself in. And to think I always thought it’d happen because he’d get killed by an unruly bar patron pissed off by how much Mariotti was lurking on people. And hey, who knows; he could still be playing Around the Horn in jail. Unfortunately for him, the rules are going to be quite different, if you know what I mean.
