With so much going on with the Sox playing the Tigers and the Cubs/Dusty situation, I had to shake my head about Telander's column today. How horse racing is really abuse of horses. What kind of editor would okay this subject for a column at this time of year???? It's not the first time Telander has chosen an inappropriate subject for a column either. The guy just doesn't hack it as a columnist for a big city newspaper.

He's the Bob Green of the sports world. The guy has been a 70 years old for 30 years.

Part of the deal with columnists is that most have contracts that give them the freedom to write what they want, when they want. Columnists don't have assignment editors. As a result, you occasionally get a Marriotti regurgitating entire sections of previous columns when he's suffering writer's block or just wants to take a FU day. And it's why you get a Telander going off on tangents like this.

The horse is out of the barn on this one. It will be hard for any editor of any major paper to successfully negotiate that kind of control over any veteran columnist worth having in the first place.

I think he is showing that he isn't worth it as a columnist.

I use to like Telander's work as a writer, and I usually don't let one failure in someone's life effect my judgement of their other work. But Gordon Lightpants' abysmal stint with 'SCR has clouded my judgement so much that whenever I see anything written by Gordon, any show involving Gordon or whatever else I have to abandon it quickly.

columnists are really unnecessary in today's world anyway

I don't know, you'll have to ask my dad.