Stephen A. Smith Lost His Column, And We'll All Suffer

The gnarly print-and-ink caterpillar known as Stephen A. Smith has completed his transformation into a beautiful television butterfly, as the Philadelphia Inquirer has taken away his column, says Phawker (via Deadspin, who has the expected hilarious take on this).

Somewhat hilariously for those of us who don't really care for Stephen's full effort -- let alone what a half-assed afterthought his deadwood efforts have become, the Inquirer offered him a position as a general assignment reporter on the sports desk. As in, "Enjoy the World Team Tennis finals." Of course someone as important as Smith would never take the position, given his contract with ESPN to yell at us about a middling Slovenian center appear as an NBA analyst.

So yeah, I think we'll be getting a bigger dose of Stephen A. due to this, if that's even possible. It's easy to ignore a newspaper column -- hell, I'm the Philly 'beat' guy for FanHouse NBA, and I've quoted one Smith column the past seven months (and its central assertion was proven very false). Once Terrell Owens and Allen Iverson left town, Smith's well essentially went dry. But Stephen A.'s gotta bake that bread, which means he'll be in our little picture boxes more than ever. Great.

UPDATE: The Inquirer confirms the report, with editor William K. Marrimow saying "we want him to return to reporting." SAS is on vacation, though. I will be disappointed if there isn't a giant public flameout.