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]

Bill Plaschke is like the nerd who can't understand why the head cheerleader prefers to date the quarterback and not him. He's no good for you! He's just a musclehead! I'm the one who really cares about you! Grandpa Grumpypants seems constantly on the verge of a nervous breakdown and his lament to Dodger fans today is that you shouldn't love someone who doesn't love you back.

After blowing off honesty, accountability and one-third of the season, Manny Ramirez did something more egregious in his return to Dodger Stadium on Thursday.

He blew off Mannywood.

In the first inning of his first appearance in a left-field corner adorned with the "Mannywood 99" banner and filled with hundreds of loving fans who paid a premium for their proximity, Ramirez acted as if none of it existed.

Interesting. Or ...

Maybe I'm crazy, but doesn't it kind of look like he's acknowledging them there? Plaschke complains that Manny didn't throw the Mannywood fans—who pay extra to sit in that section—a warmup ball, but that he "threw it in the left-field stands instead." Again, I'm not a expert, but isn't Mannywood in the left-field stands? Isn't the gesture the same no what which set of seats the ball happens to land in?

Plaschke again goes into the crowd, desperate to find someone (anyone!) who will boo Manny. He owes you! Why can't you people see that? Only one lone soul half-heartedly yells "cheater" and then gives up, because he's a Manny fan too. Even worse, Manny interrupted a Joe Torre press conference, something Bill Plaschke has NEVER SEEN IN ALL HIS YEARS. The disrespect to Torre is mind-boggling!

"Nobody says its OK to violate rules, but he took his punishment and fans came here to be entertained," Torre said.

Entertained? That's just silly.

(Oh, and he also thinks Dodger Stadium should be razed but that's another column.)

Manny Ramirez shows little gratitude to his fans [LA Times]
Boo-birds extinct in Mannywood [Yahoo]

This whole situation is putting such a strain on Bill that there's concern he may be starting to crack. Four of his last five columns in the L.A. Times have been Manny-centric—the fifth was his predictable harrumphing about the Ron Artest signing—with the overarching theme being that Manny has not been punished enough for his crimes against baseball's humanity. Of course, all of these missives came after his brave Twitter stance that he was not going to be a party to this comeback charade.

I didn't go to albuquerque, and I won't go anywhere else he "rehabs.". He shouldn't be allowed to touch a bat for 50 games period

His very next Tweet?

Just got to lake elsinore for second stop in manny rehab tour. Its about 200 degrees. Poor manny. A teammate probably assigned to fan him

So I guess by "won't go" he really meant to say "will definitely be at." An honest mistake. His column from Lake Elsinore was about an epic quest to find even one Dodger fan who would buy ticket to a Class A game in 100+ degree heat simply to boo a dreadlocked cheater. To his eternal frustration, Plaschke's roll came up snake eyes.

Surely, somebody will hold him accountable for a 50-game suspension for violating baseball's drug policy?

Surely somebody would let him know that, because he has yet to offer any true remorse or explanation since his May 7 suspension, somebody was going to publicly wonder why?

He had appeared in two games at triple-A Albuquerque, where he was showered with love, but folks down there rarely see a celebrity that didn't come out of a UFO, so they can be excused.

Dodgers fans are tougher, right?

Ramirez was going to be, um, needled, right?

This was my hope as I walked over to a dozen blue-jersey-wearing fans lining a white fence that led from the parking lot to the visitors' clubhouse....

OK, fine, I gave the people a pass because they had waited in subhuman heat to see their hero, maybe their heads were as mottled as Ramirez's testosterone levels ....

The mistake here is all mine, thinking that one of these thousands of Dodgers fans among the crowd of 8,099 would act a little, I don't know, angry?

No such luck for Plaschke, however. Manny's fans still like him. He signed autographs. He hit a home run! Yet, they refuse to boo. Manny cheated Bill Plaschke out of ... something. Why won't they make him pay for it? At least, Manny's next stop (an actual MLB game in San Diego) did provide Bill with a small moment of solace:

David eckstein, toiling in obscurity in sd, is my favorite world series mvp ever

Of course.

SoCal really lets Manny have it . . . with love [LA Times]
Bill Plaschke @ LAT (BillPlaschke) [Twitter]

Plaschke called into SportsCenter this morning to give his epic take on the Dodgers big "knucklehead" in this interview with Robert Flores. He knew all along that Manny was a no-good troublemaker and even though Bill could not have predicted how Manny would let his city down, today's events still make him dead right. He's also not buying any more of Manny's lies about "medicine." Fool him once ... ha! You can't fool this guy at all!

Once again, the storied Dodgers franchise has been completely destroyed because nobody would listen to Bill Plaschke. Those damn fools, they blew it all up.

Plaschke is the master of the five-word, one-sentence paragraph that so many newspaper columnists employ to make their columns run longer with less work. He's also one of the more egregious flat-earthers out there, as gleefully documented by Fire Joe Morgan.

When we lived in Los Angeles, back in 1997, we thought Plaschke was a compelling read. Then we discovered Rob Neyer and intelligent thought and the notion that sometimes people win because they're lucky and lose because they just weren't as talented, not because they were "chokers," or "champions." This revelation destroyed Plaschke's schtick pretty quick. Of course, it's possible we didn't change, and Plaschke did; television has done worse to stronger folk. And at Jim Murray's paper, of all places.

Anyway: Do you like the Bill Plaschke? Do you not like the Bill Plaschke? Yip.

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What do we learn about the Hogan-esque Kaman, courtesy Mr. Plaschke?

• His posse consists of three guys from Grand Rapids, Mich., who don't drink and, mostly, just cook.
• He hasn't cut his hair in two years, which we suppose we all knew already.
• His favorite television show is ESPN2's "Get Wild with Cindy Garrison." (Not to be confused with "Get Wild With Mario Lopez.")
• He recently stopped taking his medication for attention deficit disorder.
• His home has a piano in it that no one knows how to play, but no one ever bothered to move.
• Sam Cassell says Kaman is "like a far-away island, farther than Hawaii, way, way out there." Sam Cassell!

Honestly, we think Plaschke deserves a Pulitzer, right now. And you know Kaman's even stranger than that, deep down. It wouldn't be a surprise to hear he's, like, a armpit fetishist or something.

As Strange As It Seems, Kaman's The Real Deal [LA Times]

"An office that was once as forbidding as Dorrell's perfectly pressed sweat pants — how does he do that? — is now one big living room.

His daughter's drawings are on the door, snacks are on the counter, and a neatly folded blanket and pillow are on a leather couch in the corner.

Where kids used to sit on the edge of their seats, they now feel comfortable enough to sprawl on their backs.

While Dorrell sometimes sleeps here, so do his players."