It's been a big year for former Kansas City Star sports columnist Jason Whitlock. And now he could cap 2010 with a meaningless award from Deadspin.
The sports blog -- which delights in ridiculing Whitlock -- announced last week that the scribe is one of eight notable sports personalities in a tournament for its tongue-in-cheek Sports Human of the Year honor, voted on by the site's readers. Winning won't be easy though. Whitlock finds himself in a cast of morons, sleazebags and weirdos who have made themselves notorious for a stupefying range of actions.
There's the Australian rugby player photographed receiving oral
sex from a dog, the former college student who allegedly wrote the
now- infamous "Duke
Fuck List," San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson's
S&M-themed alter ego "The
Machine," LeBron James, Brett Favre, fellow sports
writer Jay Mariotti and football reporter turned alleged target of New York Jets harassment Ines Sainz.
Compared to some of these shudder-inducing characters, Whitlock's credentials are pretty tame. He vanished
from the Star for a
while, he ripped apart his former co-workers in an epic, self-serving
interview on the radio, and he signed a ridiculously
fat contract with FOX.
Whitlock's first opponent in head-to-head voting is Mariotti, an L.A.-based
writer and ESPN shouting head who had a decidedly rough year. Most
notably, he pleaded
no contest to a charge of domestic violence. So, it's the icky choice of a girlfriend batterer or Whitlock, who attempted
to defend
Mariotti in a column.
Voting is open until Wednesday morning, so get clicking.
And just for giggles, here's a picture of 2008's SHOTY winner, Baby Mangino.
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