Rick Reilly Is A Forgiving Man.

A few days ago, the SI back-page scribe gave an interview to Gelf Magazine to partially pimp his new book (actually, a collection of columns called Hate Mail From Cheerleaders), and kind of accused ESPN of jacking a lot of his stories and making Emmy-winning pieces out of them (hat tip goes to The Big Lead):

GM: You mention in the book that ESPN has ripped off some of your column ideas. Have you ever complained about it? Why do you think that’s such a regular practice in Bristol?

RR: I feel like I’ve flat-out handed them five or six Emmys. They take columns I’ve discovered and written—about people nobody’s heard of—and do them as though they found the guy, and then they win Emmys for them. The Jake Porter column. The “picking up Butch” column. The Katrina-survivor basketball column. It’s endless. And what bothers me, I guess, is that they give no credit, such as, “as first reported in Sports Illustrated.” Or at least do one of their treacly, misty shots of the column. But what can you do? Sue? [Editor's Note: In response, an ESPN spokesman tells Gelf, "We learn of story concepts from a wide range of sources and outlets."]

Clearly, he’s not that pissed about being jacked, because who should be on my TV right now, in an Oregon Duck-level fugly yellow plaid shirt but Mr. Reilly himself, sharing the NFL Live stage with Trey Wingo and Domer Dunce Mike Golic and riffing on Daunte Culpepper and the NBA Finals (another example of the show’s continually misguided attempts to touch on other sports because there isn’t enough going on in the NFL right now to merit a half hour of coverage.)

Needless to say, I call shenanigans. You can’t be pissed that a network is ripping you off and then appear on one of their shows without taking some heat somewhere for it. Wait, I forgot — he’s shilling a book. All rules of propriety and ego go out the window where there are units to be moved.