"Let's look at what's happened: The Cubs choked, the Bears [stink], the Bulls go in the tank ... it becomes monotonous," he said. "You can't keep spanking [Bulls general manager] John Paxson every week. You can't get on [Bears coach] Lovie Smith every day. [Bears GM] Jerry Angelo still doesn't have a quarterback. I'm going to keep writing that from now to kingdom come?"

"Because I'm going to be covering all these major events that involve championships, I'm probably writing more positive, upbeat, triumphant stories," Mariotti said. "You're not sitting back and analyzing, scrutinizing the same five teams over and over and over again.

There will still be shots at, say, Charles Barkley for his recent arrest, but the columnist expects to benefit from more variety.

A long-standing critic of local sports franchises, owners, management, athletes and anyone who accommodated them, Mariotti, 49, said by phone Sunday that "the overall tone of the column probably changes" as a national columnist compared to when his focus was primarily on Chicago.

Jay Mariotti, who declared the future of sports writing "sadly is not in newspapers" when he resigned from the Chicago Sun-Times after 17 years in August, is joining AOL Sports as a full-time national columnist and commentator on a variety of its platforms.

Scott Ridge, director of AOL Sports, said Mariotti’s hire is part of an initiative to ramp up its original content in advance of a redesign and official re-launch this month.



Other recent additions include the hiring of former New York Daily columnist Lisa Olson and Chicago-based blogger Michael David Smith, as well as an increased role for former Dallas Morning News columnist Kevin Blackistone.



“We're thrilled to bring a powerful voice such as Jay's to the site,” Ridge said by e-mail. “He's an independent thinker with strong opinions and immense writing talent.”

Mariotti abruptly left the Sun-Times this summer shortly after returning from the Beijing Olympics, just weeks after it was announced he had agreed to a three-year contract extension.

Just as stunning as the timing of his exit was how it was celebrated by his former Sun-Times colleagues in print in the days that followed with the sort of invectives usually reserved for prison-bound politicians and last-place ballclubs, not someone whose work the paper had showcased for years.

"What the hell kind of serious newspaper does that? The National Enquirer?" Mariotti said, noting his first column would address his Sun-Times departure. "It was almost a backhanded compliment that they would sink to such levels.

"One of the reasons I wrote this column tomorrow for AOL is I felt a need to connect the dots," he said. "There was such a disconnect. I needed to clarify what happened. It doesn't slam the Sun-Times. It explains why I left and why I'm thrilled to join this organization."

If nothing else, Mariotti won't have to concern himself with when presses need to start rolling Thursday when he's in Miami covering the Bowl Championship Series title game between Oklahoma and Florida.

"For the first time I won't have to worry about a third-quarter plugger column or something as inane," Mariotti said. "I can watch the whole game, a four-hour game, go downstairs [from the press box] and come back up, spend two hours writing and have it appear on a post at 3 in the morning, which is four hours before the newspaper comes. It's the future."

Of his time at the Sun-Times, Mariotti said he "had one of the best jobs in the country until about three years ago when it became obvious the paper was going to die."

The Sun-Times, of course, is still kicking, although it eliminated Mariotti's position with his departure as part of its ongoing efforts to cut costs. It is, however, dealing with a fight for control of its board as part of a larger debate over the best strategy for survival at a time when all traditional media companies are struggling economically.

Mariotti wouldn't rule out perhaps writing a Chicago column again, at least on an occasional basis and online, but he said "at this stage in my career" the opportunity to expand his purview was welcome.

"If I there was one wish I had about Chicago sports fans, it would be to be more open-minded," he said. "It's a great sports world out there with all kinds of amazing stories every day. ... I was working in a city with a bubble around it. Yeah, sometimes they care about Tiger Woods or Michael Phelps. But I would be hard-pressed to find any metropolitan area that's more consumed with its own stuff, including sports, than Chicago.

"So therefore, if you're a Chicago columnist and you're deciding on a certain topic one day, [golfer] John Daly might be a great topic, but the sports fan in this city doesn't care about John Daly as much as [Bears quarterback] Kyle Orton. And after a while, even I lose interest in the topics."

Asked if it was really Chicago fans who demanded the local focus or Chicago editors, Mariotti said, "I never thought about the editors as much as the fans. I know how the fans are. ... It's a parochial city, very provincial. When in doubt, write Chicago, write Chicago, write Chicago."