Borscht Belt "Comedy" From SI

Now, we're not gonna make a habit out of this or anything, and honestly, we really don't want any trouble, but we can't let the day end without commenting on the newest column from Sports Illustrated. Now, we don't know Steve personally, and we're sure he has his virtues. He seems like a nice enough fellow, his book Road Swing features an anecdote about vomiting on Larry Bird's front yard and his marriage to Rebecca Lobo is proof of heterosexuality in the WNBA. (Probably.)

But we imagine, if Ernest Hemingway were alive today, he would be pretty surprised to open up SI and learn that they've given the opening column to Henny Youngman. Rushin's column is usually pretty skimpy, but this week's appears to be an homage to Jay Leno. We have jokes about Viagra (apparently Rafael Palmeiro used to do ads for them), the Utah Jazz's nickname (you see, they don't have much jazz in Salt Lake City) and one joke so torturously constructed that he actually has to explain it in the next sentence. Again, we're sure Rushin is a nice guy, and we're sure it's stressful to have to file a weekly 800-word column, but right now, Andy Rooney is reading SI and thinking this kid needs to update his material.

Steve Rushin Inside Game Archive [SI.com] (not updated since 2003, of course)