This is not to be confused with the last time sportswriters parachuted into Detroit and found a hard-luck city whose spirits nonetheless brightened because its baseball players were running out grounders to short. Nor should it be confused with the time sportswriters parachuted into Detroit and found a hard-luck city whose spirits nonetheless brightened because some local college boys were playing well in a basketball tournament. Or because the city's hockey team was close to winning a shiny trophy. Or because a professional basketball team that plays a half-hour away in the suburbs signed a couple free agents in the offseason.

No, this one is about the 2009 Tigers, "a collection of hitters who really do run out ground balls," reports Sports Illustrated's Lee Jenkins in this week's cover story. Why do they run out ground balls? Because they look up in the stands and see, as Inge puts it, "families ... who are fighting to keep their houses and feed their kids."

Jenkins writes:

The sweetest image of this baseball season is the sight of Comerica Park, filled from the box seats to the bleachers. At the end of spring training, the unemployment rate in metro Detroit had climbed to 23%, the average home price fell below $12,000, and the Tigers calculated that season-ticket sales were down 13,000. Corporate sponsorships and luxury-suite sales were also taking a hit.

[...]

The financial forecast in Detroit has not necessarily brightened, but in a development as unexpected as Chevy's unveiling of the Volt, the Tigers have provided a jolt — electrifying for much of the summer, slightly terrifying recently — for the city. They rank fourth in the American League in attendance, at 31,360 per game; are fifth in the majors in payroll, at more than $115 million; and, through Sunday, were still in first, albeit tenuously, thanks to a September skein of nine losses in 12 games. They were also 48-26 at Comerica Park, a record they attribute to the overwhelming responsibility they feel playing in front of their home fans, many of whom are presumably using what little discretionary income they have to watch the team play. In his first spring training meeting manager Jim Leyland told his players, "People are going to be spending some of their last dollars to come to these games, and we need to give them our best effort. This is not the year not to run out a ground ball."

It's a fairy tale, of course. The Tigers are winning because of Miguel Cabrera's bat and Edwin Jackson's arm, not because the latest round of unemployment data really fires up the clubhouse. Besides, attendance at Comerica Park is actually way down this year, from 98 percent capacity last season to 78 percent — "the biggest free fall" in baseball, according to Forbes — and it should further be noted that a fan blowing "what little discretionary income" he has on a baseball game would be better off dropping it at the Greektown Casino instead. This a silly story. That should go without saying. But there's something particularly obtuse in the suggestion that a pennant race — or a basketball game or a shiny hockey trophy — might actually help Detroiters feel better about themselves. It trivializes real suffering. It's like saying a terminal-ward patient might feel better about himself if someone bought him a big red balloon.

Tigertown [Sports Illustrated]

•A Stanford booster built coach Jim Harbaugh a private bathroom that cost between $50,000 and $70,000. Despite the university being in the midst of budget cuts, it's a wise investment: it'll keep Harbaugh from shitting the bed, like he did so many times in his playing career.

•This week's Sports Illustrated promises fans it will be "100% Favre-Free." Translation: he signed with the Vikes right before deadline, and we didn't feel like rewriting our NFL previews.

•Your toothless lede: "Animal rights groups and the Philadelphia Eagles are looking at ways they can join forces to combat dogfighting." A humble suggestion: don't pay convicted ringleaders of dogfighting rings millions of dollars.

•The Dodgers came to Colorado, and got beaten by the best team in the NL West. Two-game deficit be damned, the rolling Rockies have two-straight walk-off wins, all the momentum, and for some reason, Jason Giambi.

•What we've all been waiting for: the WWE is planning to launch their own TV network. Now the long-past-their-prime wrestlers like Shawn Michaels, the Undertaker and Tommy Dreamer will live on forever in classic matches, instead of dragging on forever on the damn PPVs.

•Seahawks sign old and crappy Edgerrin James. This will not remove the stink of past running back options young and crappy Maurice Morris, or old and crappy Shaun Alexander.

•And let's all laugh at Serena Williams as she tries and fails to win the carnival "hammer game:"

Start with the cover, a portrait of the so-called Melting-Pot Mets, commandeered by Omar Teodoro Antonio Minaya y Sanchez. Or, O. Joining him on newsstands everywhere were Orlando Hernandez, Endy Chavez, John Maine, Oliver Perez and Willie Randolph. Three have since left the Mets, and the besuited gentleman in the middle may be next on the outbound train. "He's this close to being out of baseball," Jeff Wilpon told Newsday's Wallace Mathews today today.

After all, Tony Bernazard — the yin to Minaya's yang — was recently the instigator in a Binghamton brawl, but with his reaction, Minaya managed to make himself the villain. ("Too wide-eyed, too trusting?" Gary Smith wrote of Minaya. "Well, here's his narrow eyes, Tony Bernazard, the vice president of player development from Puerto Rico who squinted down O two years ago when he wanted to bring Sosa to the Mets.")

Most of Smith's flattering profile of Minaya analyzes his childhood and inability to snag a G.M. job. There are times, however, when Smith delves into Minaya's psyche through the lens of miniscule anecdotes. Back in 2007, when Minaya walked around with a hat that simply read RELAX, it seemed quaint and adorable and, hey, look, the oh-so-metropolitan Mets are winning and it's all because O is as inclusive as a circle, round and smooth, like a ring of trust. In hindsight, those same details seem strange. After Monday, they're eerily foreboding.

The tide had shifted. Teams were hiring Ivy League grads to be their G.M.'s, lawyers and businessmen and statmongers who'd never hit fungoes to a flock of skinny 16-year-olds and picked out the weed that would bloom five years later. O's frustration grew. "Look, if you want paperwork, I'm not your guy," he'd tell his inquisitors. "I see the job in bigger terms. Paperwork, that's false hustle. It takes away creativity. People who are into paperwork are into covering their asses, so if things go wrong they can point to all the work they did. They're thinking more about failure than success. The more paperwork the opposition does, the better my chances are. Know what I'm sayin'?"

O awoke at four each morning, arrived at five, worked till 10 at night. Lunch? Wolf down a salad from the players' spread. Dinner? Order in sandwiches. The phones sizzled, O looking for help, help looking for O. The office buzzed like mayflies with 24 hours to live. But O trusted tomorrow. The trust spread. "He energized everyone," says his farm director, Adam Wogan. "You wanted to do it for Omar. You'd run through a wall for him."

O twitched and turned down the job. It took one more year of misery for Mets owner Fred Wilpon—his team's clubhouse divided, its credibility with fans and free agents shredded—to call back. "We've become irrelevant in New York City," Wilpon told O in September 2004. "You've got to come home."

"What's the job?" asked O, wary.

"Everything," said Wilpon. "I just want Omar to be Omar."

O's heart raced. "Let's talk as soon as the season's over," he said.

Of course, this is all just another example of that pesky SI cover jinx. No one ever said it's effective immediately.

The Story Of O [Sports Illustrated]
Mets haven't fired Minaya? [Newsday]
EARLIER: Minaya Sort Of Apologizes
EARLIER: Mets Season Descends Further Into Farce

Back in the 1960s, there were already rumblings about how steroids could fundamentally impact sports. Horse racing banned doping, but other major sports ignored the growing epidemic; steroids were the least of anyone's drug concerns. The sporting folks of 1969 pretended "the most stimulating thing you got at a drugstore was a soda," but the truth was that athletes were "popping pills for more purposes than are dreamt in almost anybody's philosophy — or pharmacy." Remember: 1969, not 1998.

The sports magazine of record, therefore, refused to let sporting organizations spew their peace and love and happiness drivel. What followed was Bil Gilbert's 4,500-word lesson in persuasion. He didn't have to depict the league owners in tie-dye. They did that without any artificial help.

• Warren Giles, president of the National Baseball League, says that there is nothing in the rules about prohibition of drug use. "Nothing has ever come to my attention that would require a special ruling. It never has come up, and I don't think it ever will." (He would do well to check the locker rooms of a few of his teams before a game and watch who swallows what.)

• "The American League has no rules regarding pep pills, painkillers, etc. Baseball players don't use those types of things," says the league's executive assistant, Bob Holbrook.

• Professional football: "We have rules on gambling, etc., but none on medical matters," says NFL-AFL Publicity Director Don Weiss. "These are left to the club physicians and the club trainers in both leagues."

• Says the American Basketball Association: "A player should not do anything which is detrimental to the best interests of the club, of the ABA or of pro sports. He must always remain in good condition."

• "We have no written rules on the subject of drugs," says Haskell Cohen, for 17 years the National Basketball Association publicity director. "The league does not interfere with individual club trainers."

• National Hockey League officials say they do not recall ever issuing any statement or laying down rules about the use of drugs. Ken McKenzie-now publisher of The Hockey News and longtime NHL publicity director-says, "I can honestly say that in my 17 years with the NHL, I never heard any talk about drugs."

• "Responding to your request for verbatim rules and policies of the NCAA and NAIA on the use of pep pills, weight builders, painkillers, etc., neither organization has any formal rules or stated policy on this matter. The NCAA says it relies on trainers and team physicians to protect the welfare of its athletes. The NAIA says no need has arisen for formal rules or policy statements," reports a Kansas City correspondent.

• Howard Grubbs, executive secretary of the Southwest Conference: "We don't have any regulations on drugs, alcoholic beverages or anything. That's up to the individual schools."

• William E. (Pinky) Newell, trainer at Purdue University and for 16 years the executive secretary of the National Athletic Trainers Association: "All trainers are very much opposed to the use of drugs, but as an association no policies have been made or initiated or directed to anyone at all because this is a medical problem."

• From the minutes of the May 20, 1967 meeting of the team physicians of the Pacific Eight Conference: "We recommend that the conference adopt a policy endorsing the American Medical Association Committee on the Medical Aspects of Sports" suggestions on drug usage in athletics, particularly with reference to banning the use of pep pills, anabolic steroids and any other artificial aids which hopefully and supposedly improve performance." The resolution was not acted upon.

• A letter dated Dec. 1, 1967 from Edwin J. Holman, director of the AMA's Department of Medical Ethics to a San Francisco physician: "I have your letter of November 29 asking if it is legal and ethical for you 'to prescribe moderate doses of anabolic agents to weight lifters for two or three weeks prior to competition, followed by intervals of three months or more without these agents.' No categorical answer can be made to your inquiry inasmuch as this is basically a medical question. The physician must exercise sound medical judgment in prescribing any drug. Sound medical judgment is not determined by the courts, but rather by fellow physicians...."

Or, if punchy prose is more of your thing:

Such remarks made about almost any sport are at the very least nonsense, and at worst deliberate lies.

Far out, dude.

High Time To Make Some Rules [SI Vault (Special H/T to Reader Michael)]

In 1984, when Alexis Arguello was 32, he sat on his boat in the ocean one morning and stared down the black shaft of a loaded automatic pistol. It was as good a place as any to die.

A.J. sat across from him, crying, begging him not to do it. Arguello cried too, saying that he must. There was no other sound except the ocean lapping at the boat, on which was painted THE CHAMP.

Arguello ached from the contradiction of his life, the way it lurched between opposites. Could it be that the distance between opposites was-nothing? So much seemed incomprehensible. No cause was pure, no motive clean, no external thing could be trusted. Everything a man needed to believe in in order to feel secure, life could rub his face again and again until he understood its opposite might also be true.

No resolution is possible in this life, a voice suggested. No, he cried-as long as he held this gun to his head, one resolution was possible.

"Don't do it, Dad!" pleaded A.J.

He looked at the boy for a long time. Twelve years before, on a humid night when A.J. was an infant, Arguello had felt a sudden urge to sleep next to his firstborn. A few hours later an earthquake ravaged Managua. The roof and walls in the room where Arguello normally slept collapsed upon the empty bed. Arguello laid down the gun.

The whole story is worth a read. The man lived a weird, Zelig-ian life. For a time, Arguello, one of boxing's great lightweights, moonlighted as a freedom fighter, a Contra, hunting members of the Sandinista National Liberation Front, on whose ticket he'd later run for public office. He was elected mayor of Managua last year. An autopsy is pending, but Nicaraguan media are calling his death a suicide.

Boxing great Arguello commits suicide [AFP]
Adrift In A Sea Of Choices [SI Vault, via USA Today]

The latest conscript is Joe Mauer, and here is what Verducci has to say:

Since baseball instituted steroid testing with penalties in 2004, the sport has largely lacked a major national narrative to pull the game forward the way that the consecutive-games record of Cal Ripken and the (since devalued) 1998 home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa did in the wake of the '94 strike. ...

Here is where Mauer comes in. With home runs having gone the way of junk bonds, derivatives and no-document mortgages, the most iconic, captivating pursuits are of hitting streaks and a .400 batting average, in part because of their daily drama and the stirring of the ghosts that come with them.

This is now almost a tic with Verducci, who seems to watch baseball these days and see nothing but a dancing procession of sandwich men for his cause. Players like:

Troy Tulowitzki and most of the 2005 draft class (March 25, 2008):

Listen up, people. What's next for baseball, which is still trying to distance itself from the Steroid Era, was articulated last Oct. 11 in the middle of the diamond of Chase Field in Phoenix. There was Colorado Rockies rookie shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, a day after turning 23, giving an earful to Arizona Diamondbacks rookie rightfielder Justin Upton, two months removed from his 20th birthday. ... Game on. Era on.

Albert Pujols and Miguel Cabrera (Aug. 22, 2005):

The seismic shift is obvious now as baseball moves into a new era and distances itself, however awkwardly, from a period that literally defies belief. ... The game belongs to a new generation. Above all, it belongs to Cabrera and Pujols, two righthanded batters who hit for power and high average. They are the most dominant among SI's picks for the best 25-and-under player at each position, the players who will define the new era.

Hank Aaron (July 17, 2007):

Even when Barry Bonds holds the record, Hank Aaron can still be the people's home run king—and 755 can still be the number in which we believe.

Small ballers (May 30, 2005):

If power helped dumb down the game—think how little baserunning and defense matter in slo-pitch softball—then a decline in power means small ballers such as Craig Counsell of the Arizona Diamondbacks, David Eckstein of the Cardinals, Juan Pierre of the Marlins, Scott Podsednik of the White Sox and Ichiro Suzuki of the Seattle Mariners are more valuable.

The Japanese national baseball team (April 03, 2006):

The product on the field, fueled by the expanding pool of international players and the drifting away from the dumbed-down powerball of the Steroid Era, has never been better. The wildly successful World Baseball Classic celebrated both trends, what with the champion team from Japan, populated with bodies more likely found in a library than in a bodybuilding gym, transforming pitching, defense and bat control into artistry.

Alex Rodriguez (Nov. 26, 2007):

Let the anticipation (and the home run countdown) officially begin. As The United States of America v. Barry Lamar Bonds became a reality, so too did baseball officials' hopes for a new face of the game. In A-Rod they trust.

That last one didn't work out so well for him, but no matter — there's always another guy out there, another stock character for the neverending morality play in Verducci's head, another ballplayer to submit to this dehumanizing ritual of being wrenched into a symbol of unimpeachable, chemically pure virtue. Today, it's Joe Mauer. This isn't a "major national narrative." This is Tom Verducci collecting Hummel figurines for his mantle.

Joe Mauer Will Serenely, Politely Crush You [Sports Illustrated]

This column is a perennial among NFL writers, and it is perennially wrongheaded. Banks, to his credit, manages not to attribute anything to "hip-hop culture," that battered old scarecrow that usually makes a regrettable appearance whenever a writer asks, as Banks does, "What gives with the guys who play at the NFL's 'diva' position?" His mistake here, and he admits as much, is to tally up wildly variegated anecdotal examples of eccentric wide receiver behavior, lump them all together, and assume that the list is longer than it would be for any other position.

It isn't. In fact, wide receivers aren't at all the outliers we tend to think them to be. I'm plagiarizing myself here, but this bears repeating: Generally speaking, wide receivers may be the most normal people on the field.

In 2006, a couple of researchers with CPP, a company that administers personality tests, looked at the personality profiles of each NFL position:

You'll notice that, in category after category, the wide receiver falls roughly in the middle of his football peers. He is, as the CPP researchers noted, "confident, assertive ... talented ... [has] high self-esteem ... vocal about dislike for change and innovation," and he "may act without regard for criticism." In other words, the wide receiver is, as one CPP rep told me, "remarkably similar to the average person."

Look closely at their research, particularly the category of "law enforcement orientation." We're clearly asking the wrong question. What we should be asking is, Why are quarterbacks such domineering narcs?

Wide-ranging problems: Recent activity furthers diva stereotype [SI.com]
Why Are Wide Receivers Such Flamboyant Egomaniacs? [Play]

Reilly has gone in for a lot of abuse hereabouts, all of it richly deserved. But there was a time, long ago, when he was the sportswriter's sportswriter, a guy who some days was the best thing in the business. And on the days he wasn't the best, he was, to crib a line, at least in the photo.

A brief story: In 1998, SI handed over its back page to Reilly, and thus was born the now-trademarked "Life of Reilly." I was in college at the time. Every few weeks, my friend would tear out a good Reilly column and tape it up in a bathroom stall in his dormitory — the door, the walls, wherever he could find free space. The stall filled up in no time. To a college student, this was the highest of compliments. Of course, today, the whole project seems appropriate in an altogether different way. (His latest offering, for instance, is a rather sizable piece of shit.)

Anyway, here are five features — all from his Sports Illustrated days, tellingly — in which Reilly was at the top of his game.

"When Your Dream Dies" (Dec. 26, 1994)

On a refrigerated, colorless Saturday morning in the no-McDonald's town of Walnut, Ill., Kenny Wilcoxen walked along the street carrying the letter he had waited for his whole life, the one that meant that after 20 years he was finally going to ref the state high school football finals. On the other side of the letter, written neatly in blue ink, was his suicide note.

"Heaven Help Marge Schott" (May 20, 1996)

Alone in her bedroom, alone in a 40-room mansion, alone on a 70-acre estate, Marge Schott finishes off a vodka-and-water (no lime, no lemon), stubs out another Carlton 120, takes to her two aching knees and prays to the Men. To Charlie, the husband who made her life and then ruined it. He taught her never to trust. To Daddy, the unsmiling father who turned her into his only son. He taught her never to be soft. To Dad Schott, the calculating father-in-law, whom she may have loved most of all. He taught her never to let herself be cheated.

"I pray to them every night, honey," she says. "How many owners do that, huh? Hit their knees every night?"

Night after night she sits alone in her vast luxury box with just her telephone and Schottzie, not paying much attention to the game, waiting for some high-ranking employee to show up at the door and take Schottzie for a walk. Afterward there's always a report.

"Tinkle or poo?" she will ask.

"Just tinkle," the director of marketing or some other front-office-type will answer sheepishly.

"The Mourning Anchor" (Sept. 26, 1988)

What is it the poet said? Like muffled drums, our hearts beat a funeral march to the grave. And so it is that Bryant Gumbel, a man who is nothing if not prepared, keeps a list of his pallbearers.

Gumbel has a spare dark suit and tie hanging in his office in case the news is tragic and the suit he's wearing is too light for the occasion. He brings six golf shirts on a three-day golf trip just to make sure he looks perfect. Gumbel never loosens his tie or takes off his jacket, even in summer.

March to the grave. High above a checkerboard landscape, Gumbel reaches into the pocket of his first-class seat, pulls out his Filofax and draws out a yellowed piece of paper. The creases are so deep that the paper threatens to rip at the touch.

It is the eulogy from his father's funeral, the one Gumbel wrote and delivered that spring day in 1972. He keeps it with him always. It ends: I say goodbye for those who knew him as "Your Honor." ...I say goodbye for those who knew him as Dick or Richard and thereby shared in the joys which come of fine and rare friendship. I say goodbye for those who knew him as family.... I say goodbye for my dear mother who knew him as husband.... I say goodbye for Gregory, Rhonda, Renée and myself, who were lucky enough to call him father.... Goodbye, Daddy. We love you so very much. God has taken from us and unto himself, the finest man we'll ever know.

"What Is The Citadel?" (Sept. 14, 1992)

Freshman Chadd Smith knows why he's hanging from his closet shelf by his fingers at three in the morning, with his legs bent and spread. It has to do with football. The Citadel hadn't lost the Wofford game since 1958. In fact, it had never lost the Wofford game at home. But tonight it did. As usual, somebody has to pay. As usual, it's the freshmen. That part he understands. What Smith wants to know is, What is it? What is that coldness I feel now and again down between my thighs?

Smith is hanging because of football and duty. At The Citadel it is the sophomores' duty to run out any freshman who does not measure up to the Citadel man-to break him down, humiliate him, run him until he cannot feel his toes, drill him until the arm with which he holds his rifle is numb, yell at him until his cerebellum turns to Jell-O, rack him until he either does things the Citadel way or goes home blubbering to his mommy. It's a point of pride among the 17 companies at The Citadel to see who can chase out the most knobs, as freshmen are called; a usual figure is 15% of the class. This tradition is called the Fourth Class System, and if you survive it you are, say Citadel men, "nine feet tall and bulletproof."

Smith knew knob year would suck, but he knew what to do. You talk to no one and salute everyone. You run when you are inside the barracks. You ask permission to eat, leave, pass, cough, sneeze and scratch your nose. You serve everybody at mess and hope you can stuff in a forkful before mealtime has elapsed. You polish your shoes and your brass until midnight and then your French and chemistry until two, and you hope the guy who blows reveille dies in his sleep.

You do not put a picture of your girlfriend on your desktop. You do not watch TV, because you are not allowed a TV. You do not get Cokes out of the barracks Coke machine. You do not walk on any grass, which means you must walk around the football-field-wide quadrangle in the middle of campus. You do not have any answers besides Sir, yes, sir! and Sir, no, sir! and Sir, no excuse, sir! And you do not complain unless you want 13 weekends of being stuck in your room.

[...]

Then came the Wofford loss, and that's how Smith ended up hanging from his closet shelf, his legs burning, his arms trembling, his fingers slipping and his ears absorbing the insults and the spit and the constant warning: "Don't drop, Smith! Whatever you do, don't drop!"

What was it down there?

"O.K., Smith," a voice finally whispered in his ear. "We're getting ready to leave. But before we go, I want you to look down."

There, gleaming in the reflected moonlight, two inches below his testicles, was an officer's saber.

"King Of The Sports Page" (April 21, 1986)

The thing about Jim Murray is that he lived "happily," but somebody ran off with his "ever after." It's like the guy who's ahead all night at poker and then ends up bumming cab money home. Or the champ who's untouched for 14 rounds and then gets KO'd by a pool-hall left you could see coming from Toledo.

Murray is a 750-word column, and 600 of those are laughs and toasts. How many sportswriters do you know who once tossed them back with Bogie? Wined and dined Marilyn Monroe? Got mail from Brando? How many ever got mentioned in a governor's state of the state address? Flew in Air Force One?

How big is Murray? One time he couldn't make an awards dinner so he had a sub-Bob Hope.

Murray may be the most famous sportswriter in history. If not, he's at least in the photo. What's your favorite Murray line? At the Indy 500: "Gentlemen, start your coffins"? Or "[ Rickey Henderson] has a strike zone the size of Hitler's heart"? Or that UCLA coach John Wooden was "so square, he was divisible by four"? How many lines can you remember by any other sportswriter?

His life was all brass rails and roses-until this last bit, that is. The end is all wrong. The scripts got switched. They killed the laugh track, fired the gag writers and spliced in one of those teary endings you see at Cannes. In this one, the guy ends up with his old typewriter and some Kodaks and not much else except a job being funny four times a week.

They say that tragedy is easy and comedy is hard.

Know what's harder?

Both at once.

The greatest sports staff ever assembled, argues Kevin Armstrong of Sports Illustrated — despite the many objections from others — consisted of future Hall of Famers and Pulitzer Prize winners: Ray Fitzgerald, Will McDonough, Peter Gammons, Bob Ryan, Dan Shaughnessy, Mike Lupica, Lesley Visser, Bud Collins, Leigh Montville — hell, even John Updike hacked out gamers on deadline. Armstrong's long, lauding tribute to The Globe's erstwhile years is chock full of the type of anecdotes any journalism junkie would devour:

• Visser stealing a piece of discarded paper from Fitzgerald's typewriter.
• Bill Parcells saddling up next to McDonough, who juggled regular calls from Al Davis and Pete Rozelle.
• Lupica talking about himself as a "student manager," not even "junior varsity."
• A nocturnal Updike sipping tea and munching on toast after his Opening Day gamer went to press.
• Gammons and Ryan as college-aged interns, sifting through the phonebook, bitching about whose name would be first on co-bylines, musing about everything but the athletes. "Ryan would write about umpires," said Clif Keane. "Gammons would write about wars and symphonies, and you'd need a third f—-— guy for game talk."

But the profile is disheartening, not because it's nostalgic or because it reads like a eulogy for a long-dismantled staff. This, rather, is a postmortem to high-end, influential newspaper journalism, to the idea that guided The Globe's staff: "Get us space, money and get out of the way." As Armstrong writes, The Globe's staff "is sure never to be duplicated in an industry that today is bleeding talent." It was told to re-invent form, to take risks, to cover games as theater writers review Broadway. The missives now are different: Blog, shoot video, tweet, repeat. And don't forget your furlough.

The irony here is that this story, which depicts the profound effect a newspaper can have on a city and all of its parts, will forever live in cyberspace, never in the form of a printed clip. Instead of running in the magazine, the 4,000 words were this week's installment of The Bonus, SI.com's weekly long-form feature. (Also on SI.com this week: The Twitter Craze!)

In fact, the sports magazine of record still has not sufficiently addressed the changing nature of sports journalism — a topic which could, realistically, fill an entire issue. In a week, baseball will be the only major sport in season, and it might be time for SI to turn inward, free up a stable of the magazine's best writers and let them inform their readers why the magazine they're reading might not be around in 10 years and how it's changed in the last five. SI has shown, on occasion, that it can be a paragon for sports media evaluation — think about the way Steve Rushin, in 1994, explained how sports had gotten where they were, all in 22,000 words. That type of journalism — enterprise, explanatory, investigative, finding and pursuing the subtle stories and knocking the obvious ones over the Monster — is really the best way to honor the glory days of any respectable sports staff.

Glory days of The Boston Globe [SI.com]
The Best Ever? [Bronx Banter Blog]
What's wrong with Sports Illustrated? [Slate]

Tom Verducci writes:

One rainy February day in Las Vegas, home to a fake pyramid, a phony volcano, a faux Eiffel Tower, an ersatz New York skyline, a pirated copy of a pirate ship and the clever sleights-of-hand of magicians and plastic surgeons, Sam Thomas watched two men stretching a tape measure across South Hollywood Boulevard, reaffirming that there was at least one real deal in town. Thomas is the baseball coach at Las Vegas High, and the two men were his assistant coaches. The pair had come out in the rain to revisit the spot where, in a game the previous spring, a baseball had made landfall, a dimple in the desert, a tiny crater left in the sand by a home run off the bat of Las Vegas High catcher Bryce Harper, then a 15-year-old freshman.

The lefthanded Harper had hit the ball over the rightfield fence, two trees, another fence, a sidewalk, five lanes of traffic on elevated South Hollywood Boulevard and yet another sidewalk, until it finally landed in the brown, undeveloped desert. It might as well have been a flying saucer, judging by the grin on Thomas's face as he recalls the distance the ball traveled.

"Five-seventeen," it sounds as if Thomas is saying.

Five hundred seventeen feet?!

"No," Thomas says. Of course not. That would be preposterous. No 15-year-old kid could hit a baseball 517 feet.

"Five-seventy," Thomas clarifies.

Here, via Google Maps, is the baseball diamond at Las Vegas High School. The red pin is roughly 570 feet from home plate, and a ball traveling that approximate path would've indeed cleared, as Verducci writes, "two trees, another fence, a sidewalk, five lanes of traffic," etc.

The ball would've landed in this patch of Vegas moonscape:

And now turn around and look back at the ballpark:

Verducci's description is spot-on. Of course, it's another matter entirely whether anyone could actually find a year-old dimple in the Vegas dirt. But if the kid is at all like the rest of the story suggests, I'm willing to believe anything.

Baseball's Lebron [Sports Illustrated]
EARLIER: Sports Illustrated's Many, Many Chosen Ones

And by "world" I mean "local news," and by "sexual habits" I mean "proud virginity."

The video is helpfully and wincingly annotated by Pearlman his ownself. (Pearlman, in addition to writing the profile that briefly turned John Rocker into America's most famous bigot, is the author of The Rocket That Fell To Earth, which we excerpted here and which he'll be discussing tonight here.) For those of you at work and sadly unable to watch ancient teevee trend stories about the sexual predilections of American youth, here is Pearlman's money quote:

I see, maybe, being editor of a college newspaper, or being really good at something, or being a good citizen, or something like that, as a real sign of manhood. I don't see being able to whip out your penis, heh heh, and do the nasty thing or whatever you wanna call it as a sign of manhood. That's not what I see it as. I consider myself a man just as much as anybody.

It's an irony of history that this abstemious young lad went on to write the definitive account of football's greatest collection of hedonists and not, say, a biography of A.C. Green.

The most embarrassing segment of my life … [JeffPearlman.com]

What follows is a lengthy, but far from exhaustive, look at Chosen Ones from the past quarter-century or so of Sports Illustrated. The list isn't restricted to covers or headlines; it includes athletes who've been declared Chosen Ones and athletes who've declared themselves Chosen Ones and athletes who've tattooed themselves Chosen Ones and athletes who've had the crappy luck to appear beneath a punning "Chosen One" headline (often fantasy- or draft-related). I didn't discriminate. Ladies and gentlemen, here, courtesy of Lexis-Nexis, is your sporting elect:

Bryce Harper (2009)
Tim Tebow (2009)
Paul Pierce (2008)
Chad Johnson (2008)
Russell Westbrook (2008)
O.J. Mayo (2008)
Jerryd Bayless (2008)
Eric Gordon (2008)
Brett Favre (2007)
LeBron James (2007, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002)
Tiger Woods (2007, 2006, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1998, 1997, 1996)
Daisuke Matsuzaka (2007)
Kellen Winslow Jr. (2007, 2004)
Mike Bell (2006)
Manu Ginobili (2005)
Johnny Damon (2004)
The Providence basketball team (2004)
Michelle Wie (2004)
Carmelo Anthony (2004)
Five guys who played the 2004 FBR Open on a sponsor's exemption (2004)
Bruce Jenner (2004)
Carl Lewis (2004)
Matt Biondi (2004)
Marion Jones (2004)
Michael Phelps (2004)
Vitali Klitschko (2003)
Ichiro Suzuki (2002)
Tara Dakides (2002)
Zab Judah (2001)
Santino Quaranta (2001)
Bobby Convey (2001)
Shaun King (1999)
Andre Wadsworth (1998)
Magic Johnson (1996)
Michael Jordan (1995)
Lew Alcindor (1995)
Danny Manning (1995)
Kyle Macy (1995)
Bobby Hurley (1995)
Patrick Ewing (1995)
Cazzie Russell (1995)
Steve Alford (1995)
Darrell Griffith (1995)
Sidney Moncrief (1995)
Larry Johnson (1995)
Anthony Epps (1994)
Dave Henderson (1991)
Jack Keefe (1987)
Isiah Thomas (1987)
Livingstone Bramble (1985)
Andrew Toney (1982)
Terry Cummings (1982)

That's 52 in all, to which one can only respond: Oh, Jesus Christ.

Baseball's LeBron [Sports Illustrated]

Craig Ross, group publisher of SI South Africa, sent us this statement:

Several months ago, Saatchi and Saatchi SA presented this campaign concept to our staff and it was immediately dismissed for its for its lack of proper judgment and insensitivity. Without our knowledge or consent, these storyboards were entered into an industry contest and published on that contest's website.

Well, that makes sense. This is the Sports Illustrated brand we're talking about, and as you know, Sports Illustrated covers never, ever lack for sensitivity or proper judgment.

EARLIER: Sports Illustrated South Africa's Quirky New Ad Campaign: Black Panthers, Hitler

Here (via Copyranter) are three fake covers by Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town for what I'm fairly certain is Sports Illustrated South Africa, an SI partner that by all evidence shares little more than a title, a logo and a taste for discreetly exposed nipples. (I called Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town, but no one was in the office. Still awaiting response from Sports Illustrated and Saatchi & Saatchi's New York office.)

According to Best Ads on TV: "The brief for Saatchi & Saatchi Cape Town was to reposition Sports Illustrated Magazine as more than a place to get scores, results and trivia." Mission ... accomplished?

The fake Hitler cover is certainly tacky, and it's bad history besides. Sports Illustrated, as Copyranter notes, didn't start publishing until 1954. Far, far worse, however, is the Black Panther cover, for the obvious reason that neither Tommie Smith nor John Carlos were actual Black Panthers. Geez, guys. Maybe you should try giving away Sneaker Phones instead?

SI uses faux covers to posit they ain't just scores and swimsuits [Copyranter]

So dominant was Johnson that before a game in 1993, the home plate umpire told Mariners catcher Dave Valle, "They don't even need you with Randy pitching."

"What are you talking about?" replied Valle, who would not name the ump.

"He's so good they don't need you. Let me call the pitches tonight."

"I let him call every pitch." recalls Valle, to whom the umpire whispered pitches under his breath.

An overpowering Johnson went the distance in a Mariners victory.

This is of course wildly implausible, and very likely in the same vein of charming but plainly obvious bullshit as the famous tale about catching Greg Maddux with your eyes closed. But let's assume for a moment that it's entirely true. Who was the ump? Verducci gives us enough clues — a complete-game victory in 1993, with Dave Valle catching — to whittle the list down to these seven guys:

Jim McKean, vs. Boston, April 21 (Johnson's line: 4 hits, 0 ER, 8 strikeouts)
Tim Welke, vs. Cleveland, April 26 (7 hits, 3 ER, 7 strikeouts)
Dale Scott, at Oakland, May 16 (1 hit, 0 ER, 14 strikeouts)
Ken Kaiser, at Toronto, Aug. 20 (3 hits, 1 ER, 11 strikeouts)
Joe Brinkman, vs. Milwaukee, Sept. 5 (5 hits, 2 ER, 13 strikeouts)
Ed Hickox, vs. Texas, Sept. 21 (3 hits, 0 ER, 11 strikeouts)
Drew Coble, at Minnesota, Oct. 1 (9 hits, 2 ER, 7 strikeouts)

Let's toss Coble and Welke, Johnson being a notch below dominant in those starts. It's doubtful that an ump would want to dick around with either a pennant race (which eliminates Hickox; the Rangers were four-and-a-half out at the end of the day) or a no-hit bid (which absolves Dale Scott; the A's didn't get a hit until the ninth). Two of the remaining three presided over fairly tight games.

And the other one? Well, first of all, it should be said that the moral of the story here is that Dave Valle is very probably full of beans. But if I had to name a suspect, I'd go with Jim McKean, who umped Johnson's 5-0 shutout in April and who in 1993 tied a record by calling the 10th no-hitter of his career (he is now retired). According to his Wikipedia page, McKean claims to have played in something called the Canadian Football League, which is highly suspicious because everyone knows that no such league exists.

Randy Johnson Will Grind Your Bones To Make His Bread [Sports Illustrated]

This is a cruel fate for anyone, not least for a communicator on the order of Dr. Z (né Paul Zimmerman), who cracked the game wide open for his readers in much the same way that John Madden did for his viewers. Even in King's sunny telling, the benefit, which raised more than $150,000 to help offset the considerable costs of Dr. Z's treatment, nevertheless begins to sound a great deal more like a wake:

Where to begin?

How about when Coughlin approached Paul Zimmerman — who looked fantastic, resplendent in a dark suit, goateed, trimmer than I'd seen him in years — at the start of the night and said, "Missed you at the league meetings this year. You didn't chew me out about anything.''

Yogi Berra and Dick Ebersol sat next to each other at the NBC table. When I introduced Yogi as the greatest living baseball player in the United States, everyone began clapping, and Ebersol stood, and then everyone stood. Standing O for Yogi at the Zim function. Only in America.

Rex Ryan, who is going to be good at the story-telling part of the job, believe me, spun a good yarn about Zim — the New York Jets' beat man for the Post when Rex was a kid and his dad, Buddy, an assistant to Weeb Ewbank — telling the ball boys in camp how to cheat on the pinball machine without making it tilt. "Now those are the important things!'' Ryan said.

SI group editor Terry McDonell and SI.com senior producer Dom Bonvissuto eloquently feted Zim, Terry intro-ing a Brooklyn Decker welcome from afar on DVD (Brooklyn and Dr. Z had that Z Said, She Said online game-picking thing going a couple of years ago) and Dom reading some get-well-soon-you-old-curmudgeon e-mails from all of you out there.

Coughlin: "Oh, I've had my ass ripped by Dr. Z, and I'm in good company.''

It's nice to see all corners of the sports world emerge to pay tribute to Dr. Z, especially his bosses at Sports Illustrated, who, last we checked, were all but pushing Zimmerman's stretcher out the door. At the very least, it's a reminder of the vastness of his influence, which reached across eras and genres and the whole sports landscape. Steve Sabol attended the benefit on Monday, and so did Football Outsiders' Aaron Schatz. The distance between the two men is precisely the distance the culture of football has traveled in the past half-century, and Dr. Z was around for the whole ride.

Most of you probably think of him now as the cranky, self-styled eccentric who timed national anthems, littered his columns with doggerel and offered atrocious football betting advice, all of which he did, in spades. But he was also very much a product of the sport's age of enlightenment (or maybe it's the other way around), which changed football in the 1970s just as surely as Bill James and sabermetrics changed baseball, many years later. As he wrote in 1970 in his indispensable Thinking Man's Guide to Pro Football:

The fan is being lifted to new levels of awareness. He can see it surrealistically, in the art galleries, or artistically in the beautifully packaged Sabol Productions' "NFL Football" TV shows every week. Television, with its instant replay and stop action, has tried to unlock some of football's inner mysteries. And the fan who once played the game is astute enough to realize that the precise, destructive operation he now watches bears little resemblance to the sport he knew back at Old Nassau.

Reading the book now, you're amazed not just at how well it holds up, but at how progressive it would seem if it came out today. He wasn't much of a stylist, but Zimmerman had an offensive lineman's instinctive empathy for the overlooked and underapperciated (he played on the o-line in semi-pro ball in New Jersey), and as much as anything the book is an exercise in elevating the anonymous, the thoughtful eccentrics, the violent technicians who gave their best years and a knee or two to football.

The final chapter, "Strictly Personal: The Greatest Player," about Marion Motley, should be required reading in this current culture of disposability (to crib a phrase from Stefan Fatsis), one in which Bill Belichick is regarded as a cum laude genius for treating his players like so many replaceable cogs and sprockets. I read the chapter again last night, and this paragraph, which conveys so much of the fragility of the game, seems almost unbearably sad now:

I watched Motley right up until his last, hopeless days when he tried a comeback with the Pittsburgh Steelers in 1955, and if there is a better football player who ever snapped on a helmet, I would like to know his name. There's a statistical table at the end of this chapter, detailing the numbers that made up Motley's professional chapter, but it's a kind of meaningless way of evaluating this remarkable player. It would be like trying to describe a waterfall in terms of gallons per second, or a sunset in terms of light units.

Monday Morning Quarterback — Tuesday [SI.com]