Blame me. I’m the one who urged a sportswriter, Mike Mulligan, to join us on our radio show. He arrived on Sept. 11, 2001. The topic was slated to be Michael Jordan, who told me and our other partner — Jim Litke of the Associated Press — that he was returning to the NBA the night before. Television stations sent reporters to interview us between 7 and 9 a.m. in Northbrook, Ill, where the national facilities were based.
What a cool program for Mulligan, who covered Jordan and the Bulls in the early 1990s at the Chicago Sun-Times.
But just before 9, the reporters fled the studio. Who cared about Jordan? One of the biggest and most horrific scenes of our lives was happening at the World Trade Center in New York, where American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower. We only had minutes to determine if we’d start our usual journey. Some advertising idiot wanted to run network news segments. Our program director, Mark Gentzkow, argued with him in the hallway and ordered us to continue.
From there, watching the sequences on TV, the three of us narrated the sickness. Three sports reporters were describing hell to our listeners. We finished our shift. The next day, we were mentioned in newspapers among those who successfully crossed into reality. I’m not sure if the day was a turning point for Mulligan, who was an NFL writer and columnist after he mysteriously was replaced on the Bulls beat. But the people who ran The Score — Chicago-centric, to the point their lead guy smothered racial and ethnic groups as if slurs were normal — knew Mulligan grew up in Beverly on the South Side and went to Loyola University.
He was an anchor. They put him on morning drive in 2008.
Through the years, as his ratings beat the competition at WMVP, Mulligan should have told management that he would decide when he’s retiring or leaving. Never allow a career call to be made by veteran program director Mitch Rosen, a creep who is fiercely loyal to local franchise owners and will crumble a staffer in a minute. He continues to employ baseball reporter Bruce Levine, who has embarrassed himself this year and should have been fired. When I worked in Chicago, The Score maintained a spirited competition with WMVP, where I worked and gloriously won my ratings race. But I had a bad boss who asked me to sign documents, promising I wouldn’t criticize the White Sox and Bulls. I refused and was fired at 8 a.m. the day after Christmas.
Mulligan carried on for years, through a Cubs championship and three titles by the Blackhawks. Of late, he allowed partner David Haugh to do much of the talking when I noticed the show on social media. If Rosen had a problem, he should have spoken to Mulligan and asked him to perk up and dominate. He worked early for 18 years, getting up at 4 a.m. and taking a drive from the North Shore to Two Prudential Plaza. People burn out. Rosen should have scheduled a meeting. He owed him a sitdown.
He didn’t give it to him. He fired him.
Fired?
Any number of people should be fired in Chicago sports media. Haugh is boring and turns a city’s fire into a chill, with help from Jerry Reinsdorf’s Chicago Sports Network. Columnists no longer exist. The Sun-Times and Tribune sports editors have no plan. Who is on TV after Mark Giangreco was fired? Mulligan goes way back in time and owns career rights, as I once used upon quitting the Sun-Times in China because the digital operation sucked — and it still does. He cannot be fired by The Score.
The place should implode and never return. Days ago, Greg Papa was fired by KNBR, a San Francisco radio station, after he almost died in June. He spent 78 days in the hospital while continuing to battle leukemia. That was the most evil sacking in a godawful profession. Know what I wrote then about radio people I’ve worked with?
“Mike Mulligan, Chicago. Dan Bickley, Phoenix. Anthony Gargano, Philadelphia. Marc Silverman, Chicago. Will they survive?”
One is gone, for no good reason. Who’s next?
How about Mitch Rosen?
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host.