Time was, Marty York was cock of the walk when it came to CFL columnists. And you know what? We miss those days.

Sure, he was the king of the unsubstantiated rumour. And he antagonized players, coaches and entire teams just to make a name for himself. And he used to appear on late-night sports radio shows as the self-proclaimed "Doctor of Dirt," which was just embarrassing. But at least he was colourful. And he did, on one of his forays into baseball, uncover the Kelly Gruber water-skiing while "injured" scandal, which was gold. And he used to sport a very proud mustache, which - as already established - goes a long way in our book. Oh, and he was also the 2004 Rookie of the Year in the B'Nai Brith Executive Fast Pitch League, which has to count for something.

So we don't really know what to make of Marty's latest gig, as a columnist for the website of those free newspapers that you thumb through and then leave lying around the subway. On one hand, we have no idea who's actually going to read this thing, and it's a little sad to see Marty reduced to explaining how "excited" he is about "the opportunity to report on the league in a new and efficient way." On the other hand, the column currently available on the Metro website is such vintage York that we''re positively giddy about it.

For starters, of course, there's the long overdue return of Marty's impeccable "sources," whose inside scoops range from the painfully obvious (Danny Maciocia's in trouble) to the highly implausible (Greg Marshall will replace him). Unfortunately, he also tells us that Glen Suitor is among the possible successors for Tom Wright, which as far as we can tell is based on a joke Suitor made in his Ron Burgundy interview with the Calgary Sun.

But any such follies can be forgiven, if only because Marty somehow produced a genuinely spectacular interview in which Terry Vaughn implies that the Ticats were destined to suck from day one, dismisses all but three or four of his teammates ("Are you going to tell me Brock Ralph and Kamau Peterson have proven themselves in this league?") and announces that he couldn't care less about "all the crap I do during the week, in practice and meetings and all that." Oh, and he's tired of having smoke blown up his ass, which is why he wants to be a GM.

Somewhere, Craig Yeast is wondering what Terry Vaughn has to do to get cut. But us, we're just wondering how every major paper has managed to take a pass on Marty York. Anyone who can get all this out of a guy who was busy sobbing on the field as his team honoured him before the last game really deserves a better gig.