Can YOU handle more Mariotti?

Sorry folks, I see that phrase every day when I check the Sun-Times for more Jayberrish from that guy. (You guys like what I did there? I pretended like I was Jay writing about Lou Piniella, and displaced Mariotti's first name into a place where it doesn't normally belong, but where it creates a nonsense word that is phoenetically similar to the original word I was spoofing! Isn't that clever? I deserve a raise...)

Anyway, just prior to a shameless plug in which Jay bragged about how good Around the Horn is (despite Mariotti and especially Paige's continued stupidity, it actually is pretty entertaining), he wrote this nonsense.

I don't know how to break this to Bears fans who make road trips, but you know what? You're not playing on the team, fellas.

That's kinda harsh. You could have let them down a little easier there.

It's nice that you spend your money, wear your replica jerseys and travel in support of a losing football team, but let's keep this in perspective.

You're fans, ticket-holders, spectators.

Yeah, everyone needs to relax a little. Maybe be a little bit more passionless and robotic about your football team. They're losing. You should act accordingly by supporting them less. That's what good fans do, right?

``We are going 12-4, Jay!'' a guy in orange and blue told me on the flight.

We? And isn't 12-4 now mathematically impossible?

Give me a break. Is this really the first time you've ever heard someone use the word "we" to reference a sports team and its collective community of fans? "We're gonna be good this year" and the like?

Once in Philly, things only got goofier. Outside a Center City hotel, some Bears fans throwing around a football saw a few Eagles fans. Next thing you know, they were challenging the homeboys to a tackle football game -- IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET.

ZOMG! Stop the presses! These fans are ridiculous! Why is this being printed in the online column and not the real thing!

6 months later....

"The traveling Chicago Cubs fans decided to play an intense game of catch outside Miller Park -- IN THE MIDDLE OF A CONGESTED PARKING LOT! Do they have no decency for people's cars or the security officers directing traffic????"

The Eagles' fans passed, showing a little more wisdom even in a town where Vince Papale soared from the South Philly streets to the Eagles and became a Disney movie.

Guy living in a city who rises from the streets and joins a pro football team and inspires the movie Invincible = something that indicates a lack of wisdom in that city.

``Why do you dog us all the time?'' a middle-aged fan in a Butkus jersey asked me. ``We're trying our best.''

No, you're drinking beer

Dumbasses!

tailgating

Insane morons!

and returning to reality Sunday night

Yeah, eat it, you fantasy-dwelling douchebags.

I should mention, of course, that most fans I know keep sports in its right place. I also should mention this identity-tranformation phenomenon isn't endemic only to Chicago. In Cleveland during the baseball playoffs, I was walking through Jacobs Field when an Indians fan stopped me and said, ``We're gonna win tonight. Wait, you hate us.''

This problem is becoming an epidemic! Everyone thinks they play for their favorite sports team!

No, I don't hate you. Nor do I hate the Indians. I picked them, wrongly, to win the American League championship series.

Sportswriters aren't the enemy, folks. We're just sportswriters.

We mean no harm, and we come to spread peace and tranquility.

The column is about how ridiculous and crazy Bears fans are. Here at the end of it, Jay has lapsed into self-defense mode. You can tell he's done his job.