More fun in Chicago

Some people don't like it when columnists and rival papers -- or, God forbid, columnists at the same paper -- take shots at each other.

Me, I love it.

Latest out of Chicago, where the Sun-Times' Jay Mariotti and Rick Telander have been known to go at it, is a print dustup between the Tribune's Rick Morrissey and Telander.

Morrissey doesn't like the fact that the Sun-Times has replaced the 'o' in Chicago in its nameplate with a Bears helmet and palm tree (the unbeaten Bears are trying to get to Miami for the Super Bowl, get it?)

Telander doesn't like the fact that Morrissey doesn't like the fact.

Some pretty good sniping. Of course, Tribune Co.'s ownership of the Cubs doesn't come up at all.

Oregonian hires somebody to investigate -- itself

The Oregonian has hired former Mercury News sports editor Craig Lancaster to investigate its relationship with the Trail Blazers. He's going to report it independently, and it will be edited by somebody outside of sports (maybe the paper), and they'll print it and let the chips fall where they may. Read all about it here at truehoop.com.

Paper protests UT ban of reporter

The Dave Hooker saga continues. Tennessee banned the Knoxville News-Sentinel reporter until Oct. 23 for doing an unauthorized interview with a player. Today, the paper formally protested. As you might expect, there's quite a lively thread about this on SJ.com.

Baseball and steroids, again

And now the self-flagellation has begun. In this piece by Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher, a number of baseball writers and sports editors said they should have explored and presumably uncovered the use of steroids in baseball much sooner.

OK. But I'm going to continue to be of the opinion that unless they physically saw steroids being used or, as in the BALCO/Bonds case, got ahold of some kind of legal document (like grand jury testimony) or got people on the record saying that they knew of steroid use (or had used themselves) or ran the risk (ethical and otherwise) of using unnamed sources, that it wasn't going to be that easy of a story to write.

Yeah, they could have tried harder, I suppose. But I think it's possible all it would have meant is that they'd feel better about the effort in hindsight, not that things would have come to light sooner.