Ladies and Gentlemen, our long municipal nightmare is over: Mike North will no longer be over-nasally polluting our airwaves. In a statement on his own website, North briefly explained the situation:

I am now done at the Score. I met with management this past Friday and since I wouldn't accept the deal they offered; they told me I wasn't allowed to be on the air anymore. I didn't get a chance to say goodbye so here goes...

This morning, Mike Mulligan and Brian Handley were in North's time slot and basically said they would not be taking over North's time slot. Teddy Greenstein has a column about the situation in this morning's Trib, noting this interesting bit:

This was not a flimsy negotiating ploy by management. This was the equivalent of CBS Radio officials tearing up their final offer—the one that hadn't changed since April—into little pieces.

Which seems to contradict what most of the Score personnel seem to be saying. The Sun Times commented on the situation in their usual uninformative fashion. And, in the ultimate act of hypocrisy, Jay the Joke lauds North's exit:

We only can hope that the end of Mike North is the beginning of decency, professionalism and couth in Chicago sports radio. Oh, some desperate shop might hire him, hoping to capitalize on name recognition at the expense of dignity and wobbling ratings, but so what.

Sure, Jay, because you're the guy we all look to as a paragon of "decency, professionalism, and couth." We can only hope your tired, spiteful, blatantly dispassionate and wholly uninformed brand of sports journalism follows North's xenophobia right out the door.