SI "Out Of Touch" For Mocking Around The Horn, Says Newspaper Columnist Who Fears Computers

You know that swell new show everyone's watching? The one where sportswriters pretend to feel strongly about things on television? No, not The Sports Reporters. Not PTI. The other one. Around the Horn. Well, Bill Plaschke thinks it's totally fresh!

Plaschke, of course, is a Los Angeles Times columnist and maestro of the one-sentence paragraph who regularly pretends to feel strongly about things on Around the Horn. He is very proud of ATH and apparently does not find it to be the hellspawn of The View and Pee-wee's Playhouse.

Good for him.

In fact, Plaschke is such a fierce defender of ATH that if you make even a harmless sidelong crack about the show — as Sports Illustrated did in this week's issue — you can expect to hear from Bill Plaschke's Twitter feed. Here's what SI wrote, apropos The Onion's sports talking-head parody:

The topics are patently absurd (one involved Evander Holyfield boxing a horse for the WBA heavyweight belt), but on the whole it's no more bizarre-and a lot funnier-than, say, Around the Horn.

To which Plaschke took grievous offense. He responded with a volley of Tweets:

I saw where, in its annual media issue, a certain publication took another shot at Around the Horn. We love it. Just spell our names right.

One of these days, your grandfather's media is going to realize that, when it comes to ATH, they are out of touch with today's consumers

ATH thrives because the grass-roots sports fan — which is most of us — thinks sports should be fun, and what's wrong with that?

While our critics have dwindled to a few, we embrace those who still think seven years of hundreds of thousands of daily viewers are wrong

Our show wouldn't connect with today's sports fan if yesterday's sports media didn't still rip it. The rips remind us the show still works

I'll end this by once again thanking our show's patron saint, a notable broadcaster who called us, ''Gasbags on parade.''

I'm honored to be one of those gasbags, and thankful that so many people allow us to parade into their lives...

(and if those last few tweets don't get me into the showdown Thursday, nothing will!!)

That's right: Your father's media is cold bustin' on your grandfather's media. Bill Plaschke — the guy who ran poor Paul DePodesta out of town for the crime of using a computer — is calling someone out of touch! I hope this does get him on the Showdown, and I hope Sports Illustrated responds, because I like nothing more than watching the sports-media equivalent of two old men running their Rascals into each other.

@BillPlaschke [Twitter] The Most ... [Sports Illustrated]