Is the Chicago Sun-Times protecting one writer from others?

As reported by Teddy Greenstein, here is what Jay Mariotti said about fellow writers, "I am the Blizzard's only critic in the Chicago media, mostly because my soft colleagues either fear Guillen's wrath, enjoy how he rips me, work for one of the Reinsdorf-controlled broadcast outlets or are afraid of getting on the chairman's bad side."

One of the soft writers described by Mariotti was Rick Telander. According to Greenstein "Telander… believed Mariotti had unfairly impugned his reputation and fired back in a Wednesday column that got spiked, according to media insiders."

I find it disappointing that the Telander reply was spiked. Nothing raises interest like a good fight. The city has two teams in contention for the post-season, what else is there to fight about, except the other fans?