Gonzo: Sports Illustrated short-shrifts Amaro

S.I. had all the momentum; they were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave. . .and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the pre-Marchman mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

There was a time when I was really into Sports Illustrated. Kathy Ireland had a lot to do with that, but I dug the stories, too - so much so that I kept every issue of SI from when I was 8 years old until I turned 18. (As you might imagine, I was a huge hit with the ladies back then.)

At some point, for reasons I can’t fully remember, I stopped archiving the magazine. Then I gave up reading it all together. I was thinking about renewing my subscription until I recently stumbled upon SI’s rankings of baseball’s general managers. I doubt Time Warner will be getting a check from me anytime soon.

...If you expected Phils shot-caller Ruben Amaro Jr. - a guy who made some of the biggest trades in baseball over the last year and also helped build a team that reached two straight World Series - to be in the top 10, you guessed too high. If you thought the Fightin’s’ 93 wins last season were enough to move Amaro into the top half of MLB’s 30 GMs, you thought wrong. And if you believe he’s done better work than Chicago Cubs GM Jim Hendry - who came in at No. 16 on SI’s list, despite the fact that his club cratered last season and he threw lots of money at walking tantrum Milton Bradley - then you obviously fail to follow SI’s peculiar logic.

Amaro was rated 19th, just four spots in front of Mike Rizzo from the Nationals and seven ahead of Omar Minaya of the Mets. Combined, the Nats and Mets won only 36 more games than the Phils last season. Even stranger: Amaro barely beat out Pirates GM Neal Huntington, who filled the No. 20 slot. Did you know they still played baseball in Pittsburgh? Me, either.