Sporting News More Retarded Than SI

Last week I bludgeoned SI for picking the Indians to win the AL Central. This week, I received my Sporting News baseball preview issue, and it makes the SI issue seem like a well-thought out work of research.

Here are some nuggets of disinformation I got from this:

"One of the big four in the AL Central has to falter. Because of potential cracks in the rotation, don't be surprised if _______"

So, if I were to fill in the blank here, my guess would be this sentence is in reference to the Twins, who have Ramon Ortiz (11-16 5.57 ERA), Sidney Ponson (4-5 6.25 ERA), Carlos Silva (11-15 5.94 ERA), penciled into their starting rotation.

Silly me, it's not the Twins though, it's the White Sox, who instead of having 3 guys who had ERAs in 2006 over 5.50 in their rotation have nobody whose ERA was over 5. THEY are the ones with the rotation problems according to the Sporting News, not the team that is fucking relying on Sidney Ponson to pitch 200 innings for them. OK, that makes perfect sense.


Here's another snippet of wisdom:
"The best third-place team in the majors will come up just short in the pitching department and won't be able to overtake the Twins and Tigers."

This is in reference to the Indians, who are SUCH a good third place team that they finished 12 games out of third place last year.

Finally:
"A deep rotation, POWER ARMS in the bullpen, and the addition of Gary Sheffield make Detroit the only team in the majors without a weakness."

YES...no weaknesses!!! Like a machine they are!! (A machine that went under .500 the last 3 months of a year , and coughed up a 10 game lead in its division.) I look at them and it's like looking at Ivan Drago or something. Completely unstoppable (except when they are stoppable, like stoppable by an 83-79 team and probably worst league champion ever). And Gary Sheffield!! Ho, ho, what's not to like about getting (a 39 year old clubhouse cancer who is in the midst of a Sammy Sosa/Mark McGwire-esque late career, my body is quitting on me after all the steroids spiral into the abyss??) him?

Seriously, I'm not really big on the whole "media disrepects us" thing that every single team and their fans feels about themselves, but, I'm going to say, the White Sox are being disrespected to the point that the things people are writing about them and the other teams in their division make completely no sense. It's like people are to the point of just making shit up to justify the boner they have for the Indians, Twins, or Tigers.

Oh, and they also pick the PHILLIES to go to the World Series. That's neither here nor there, but I think that is useful background info as far as considering the source goes.

If the Sox aren't reading this bullshit, they should be, because I don't even play for them and it makes me angry. They need to read it and get angry too.