Chicago White Sox and Bulls Owner Jerry Reinsdorf was frequently the target of Jay Mariotti’s hyperbolic columns in the Chicago SUN-TIMES the past 15 years.

(Audio credit: WGN-AM in Chicago)

In the aftermath of Mariotti being charged with felony domestic assault of his girlriend in L.A. on Saturday, Reinsdorf was asked today by WGN radio host Dave Kaplan what he thought of the avalanche of criticism heaped on him by Mariotti over ther years.

“Jay Mariotti was and is a pissant. A lot of the people who were laughing here probably have no idea what that means. You can look it up in the dictionary; it has a very definite meaning.

“I couldn’t be bothered by him. If he weren’t ripping me he was ripping someone else. He was incredibly inconsistent. I remember one year he ripped (ex-Cubs president) Andy MacPhail for acquiring Rondell White. The next day he ripped (ex-White Sox GM) Ron Schueler for not making any deals and referred to the fact that Andy MacPhail had made the heist of the century in getting Rondell White the day before. Nobody ever cared what he said.”

Interesting to note that Reinsdorf also referred to Mariotti as a “pissant” almost exactly two years ago during an interview with Chicago-based MouthpieceSports.com.

Reinsdorf was asked to comment about the columnist at the time because Mariotti had just resigned his longtime position with the CHICAGO SUN TIMES:

I was pleased. Honestly, it was not a big thing in my life. I mean, he’s a pissant. Jay Mariotti, he never really affected me, and he certainly didn’t affect the opinions of our fans. When you take a negative guy like that out of the mix it’s a positive. I don’t mind him writing negative things as long as it’s a legitimate opinion. He had a habit of writing things that just weren’t true. That was the annoying thing about him.

In the waning days of his Chicago shelf-life, Mariotti’s impact on his subjects was mitigated because of the constant hyperbole present in his daily columns. As Mariotti has long-proven, a columnist marginalizes his/her credibility by unleashing constant, cliched personal attacks that question the moral character and job competence of the people he covers.

That approach is also the reason Mariotti has been criticized so harshly since his felony domestic assault arrest and may have led to the suspensions by his employers AOL and ESPN before the facts of his case were made public.