Every week, literally EVERY week for the past eight or ten years, I've read and enjoyed everything in Sports Illustrated that isn't about car racing or fantasy football, and then turned to Rick Reilly's column thinking "I hope this will be good so that I have one more enjoyable page of Sports Illustrated to read". But I can't get through even one paragraph. He combines the worst attributes of Norman Chad and Mitch Albom. Every single sentence has been either an easy cliché or an insincere piece of sentimental nonsense, with absolutely no exceptions, for maybe 500 straight columns.

Sports Illustrated is still around?

Reilly is a hack. The sky is blue, the grass is green.

“Reilly’s revenge” has been his main obstacle in achieving true journalistic greatness. Contrary to the supposed flaw of Barry Bonds, Rick Reilly likes to be liked. Lack of writing skills is not his problem, lack of guts is. He simply is not that guy who could have taken the heat for standing up for the constitutional rights of the unpopular Ali in the 1960’s. No, we would have gotten some smart-alecky column on the Army test that Ali initially failed. Reilly’s social conscience has personal limits. With few exceptions, even his greatest stances and inspirational stories are grounded in a common thread: the protection of popularity.

Ted Leitner, my local announcer, has the same problem, for the same reasons, and being a spineless, abrasive jackass like Reilly, it manifests the same way. In 1985, on the air, Leitner called Pete Rose a "national treasure" and never questioned Rose as manager taking playing time from better players to break the hits record. Today, I was in the car with the game on the car radio, and with the Padres in Cincinnati, Leitner was waxing rhapsodic about the Big Red Machine: "Johnny Bench. Joe Morgan. Davey Concepcion. Tony Perez. Ken Griffey Sr."

Then silence.

He could've said "And Pete Rose, while we acknowledge his disgraceful behavior as manager of the Reds, was of course a great player as well" just like he could've said, "And we should acknoweldge here that Padres pitcher Clay Hensley has a positive steroids test while Barry Bonds does not" and on one of his many tirades about Bonds' 80-some career HRs against the Padres being "tainted" he could've said, "And we should acknowledge that Ken Caminiti's 1996 MVP and the Padres division title of that year are tainted as well."

But he didn't, because he needs to be liked, and of course, a lot of people don't like him anyway.

What's Sports Illustrated?

What's Sports Illustrated?

Its between Woman's Day, and Popular Mechanics at your doctor's office. Probably from 8 weeks ago.

Reilly is a piece of work, but the next time somebody says that we're obsessed with Barry Bonds, I think I'll send him this "Cosellout" link. Shades of Rabbi Korff and Richard M. Nixon, with a touch of Gambling Rent thrown in.

Rabbi Korff and Richard M. Nixon,

Bet that is the first time that Rabbi Korff has made it on to BTF. Does that make Anderson a combination of G. Gordon Liddy and Bebe Rebozo?

Reilly has a good gig. It amazes me that SI pays his weekly cheek, given his mediocrity, as I've always found him less than funny and lacking insight.

Even if I liked him, his hacky, dorky, bland, flyover-country-safe promotional pics and book covers would make me hate him. Every pic has him in some situation where he's out of his league and he's giving that same shruggy, hang doggy "Whoops!" look. They're like parodies of bad stills from some inoffensive Fox Family Channel sitcom with Reilly as the dopey dad.

You are correct, Row-Off-Supp. I should say he combines the worst attributes of Norman Chad, Mitch Albom, and Dave Barry.

Larry King USA Today owns the crown of the genre